THE STELE OF KUBAN
TRANSLATED BY PHILIPPE VIREY
THIS monument, discovered by Prisse d’Avennes in the Nubian village of Kuban, opposite Dakkeh (the ancient Pseichis), was removed by Count de Saint-Ferriol to the château of Uriage near Grenoble; a cast of it exists in the Museum of the Louvre. It consists of a semicircle in which offerings are represented, below which is a long text of 38 horizontal lines; the first half of the last 15 lines has been destroyed. The text has been published by Prisse d’Avennes (Monuments égyptiens; p1. xxi.), and after him, but only as far as line 25, by Chabas (Les Inscriptions des mines d’or), and by Reinisch (Chrestomathie, p1. x.) It has been translated or studied by Birch (Archæologia, xxxiv., and Records of the Past, 1st series, viii. p. 67); by Chabas (Les Inscriptions des mines d’or); by Brugsch (History of Egypt, Eng. edit., ii. p. 80), Lauth (Sitzungsberichte der k. bayer Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München, 1871, ii. p. 198), Erman (Ægypten, pp. 617-619), Maspero [2] (Lectures historiques, pp.. 47-49), and Schiaparelli (La Catena orientale dell’ Egitto, pp. 8 6-87). The stele of Kuban states that the working of he mines of El-Etbaye having been interrupted by want of water, King Ramses II. remedied the evil by excavating a well. The fact is not very important in itself, and it seems at first as if the glorification of Ramses, which constitutes a principal part of the text, might have been reserved for a more worthy occasion. But we must not forget that the king, as son of the Sun, was the incarnation of divinity in the world of mortals. The action of the deity must be glorified in its humblest as well as in its most exalted manifestations. By introducing water into the desert, the union of which with heat brings about the reproduction of living things, Ramses carried life where it did not previously exist, and thus acted like the Creator. This explanation justifies the pompousness of the language about a matter so trivial, and at the same time enables us to understand the character of the offerings represented in the semi-circular part of the monument.
This part, surmounted by the winged solar disk, “the inhabitant of Hud, the great god who gives life and prosperity,” is divided into a northern and southern side by a vertical line, where the following words are found, starting immediately from the winged disk, in order to communicate its gifts to the reigning king: “Râ-usor-mâ Sotpenra. It is [3] said: I grant thee the gift of all life, continuance and prosperity; of all health; of all strength; of all power, of all power (sic), as the eternal Sun.”
From the two sides of the cartouche of Râ-usor-mâ Sotpenrâ1 rise two serpents crowned with the white and red crowns, and representing the goddesses of the south and north. They hold suspended the symbol of life which they transmit from the disk and royal cartouche to the figures of Ammon the generator and Horus.
On the side of the goddess of the south, Ammon the generator, crowned with the white crown, stands on a support which represents the mâ or symbol of truth, reality, and realisation,2 and is in connection with his neck, transmitting by its influence to him the power of realising or producing. Above him are the words: “Ammon the generator in the bosom of the [arid]3 mountain, beloved of Ammon the generator, renovating [god], master of heaven.” Behind him is an altar in the form of a door out of which grow flourishing persea-trees (?) We are reminded of what happened after the death of the bull in the story of the Two Brothers.4 But here, in place of the two fertilising drops of blood, we have two cups of wine [4]offered by the king, which are to carry life to the desert. “Presentation,” says the text, “of two vases of wine to father Ammon the generator in the bosom of the [arid] mountain.” Ramses II. stands making the offering, crowned with the helmet out of which the uræus issues. Behind his helmet hang two strings by which the winged disk with the end of its wing communicates all life behind him (in his neck) as the eternal Sun.”
Above the king, who holds the two vases of fertilising liquid, are the words: “[The work of] life [is performed] by the beautiful god5 Râ-usor-mâ Sotpenrâ, son of Râ, Ramses beloved of Ammon, giving life (by means of the fertilising liquid).” Thus on the side of the goddess with the white crown we see the principle of humidity brought by precisely that one of the agents of fertilisation which the king is about to create in the desert by means of a well. To continue the work of life heat is now required; this action will be represented to us on the side of Horus and of the goddess with the red crown.
Ramses II. continues to stand, crowned as on the other side. As on the other side also, the winged disk with the end of its other wing “communicates all life behind him as the eternal Sun.” The inscription placed above the king tells us that here we have “the beautiful god, Râ-usor-mâ Sotpenrâ, [5] Ramses beloved of Ammon, who vivifles like the Sun,”6 that is to say, as I have just stated, by the action of heat. Hence it is no longer the generous liquid, the agent of fertilisation, but the flaming incense which the king presents, with the legend: “Burning incense7 to father Horus, lord of Boki,8 he gives life.” The offering is made to Horus, crowned with the pshent, and holding in the right hand the symbol of life which the goddess with the red crown transfers to him, and in the left hand the sceptre of prosperity. It is he, says the legend, “who gives all life and prosperity, all enlargement of heart.” “I grant thee,” he says to Ramses, “length of years as king.” While presenting the incense he “repeats thrice9: Horus, lord of Bok[i]!” And the god answers him: “I give thee all foreign lands beneath thy sandals.” There is here a double meaning. [6] The word set or test, which signifies “foreign countries,” means also “the mountain” or “desert,” in opposition to to-r ter-f “the entire plain” or valley of the Nile, together with the Delta. The desert mountain is the domain of Set, the god of annihilation and sterility. The king representing Horus or the good principle, takes possession of this “foreign land” by introducing into it the water which brings life, and Horus assures to him the conquest of it.
We now reach the text in horizontal lines which contains the historical portion of the inscription.
2Objects became real when touched by the fair visage of the goddess Mâ. See my Tombeau de Rekhmara, p. 149, note 2.
3Perhaps there is here an allusion to the fecundity which the introduction of the water must have brought to the desert.
4Papyrus dOrbiney, p1. xvi. 11. 8-so; p1. xvii. s. He (the bull) let fall two drops of blood . . . the one on one side. of the great gate of Pharaoh, and the other on the other side, and they grew into two great persea-trees.”
5Ankh-nuter-nofer. The sign ânkh, which is not reproduced in all the publications of the text, is very visible on the cast in the Museum of the Louvre. I attribute to it a verbal sense (“performs life”).
6Ti ânkh Râ ma, “giving life like the Sun.”
7“Making incense.” To burn incense after a libation was to prepare for the reproduction of that which has lived. See my Tombeau de Rekhmarca, p. 84, note 4; p. 90, 1. 12; p. 92, note 6, etc.
8Identified by Brugsch with Aboccis, must be placed, according to Chabas, between Primis and the Second Cataract. There is here a sort of play on words, Bok being the name of the hawk, the attribute of Horns.
9The operations of incensing, in order to prepare for a reproduction or a birth, are constantly repeated three times. The flame is made to ascend thrice on the altar, in order to prepare for the resurrection of Rekhmara (Tombeau de Rekhmara, p. 92), just as when Cyrene, desiring to revivify the bees of Aristæus, begins by invoking the humid principle:
“Oceanumque patrem rerum, Nymphasque sorores,”and causes the fragrant flame to mount thrice on the burning altar:
“Ter liquido ardentem perfudit nectare VestamThis flame which rises and falls represents life which unceasingly mounts to heaven and redescends upon the earth. I have studied this question more in detail in Quelques observations sur l’épisode d’Aristée, pp. 21-23.
“Ter flamma ad summum tecti subjecta reluxit.”
Virgil, Georg. iv. 382, 384, 385.