Brugsch, Heinrich: Egypt under the pharaohs: a history derived entirely from the monuments (London, 1891)

132 AMEN-HOTEP I. oh. To.

On several monuments she is represented with a black
skin, and the conclusion has hence been drawn that she
was descended from negro stock. In spite of the in-
genious surmises which have been put forward, on the
part of scholars, to infer high political relations from the
colour of her complexion, namely, that this marriage was
the seal of a treaty concluded by the Pharaoh Aahmes
with the neighbouring negro tribes for a common effort
to drive out the Shepherd Kings, it seems to me that,
in this supposition, two special points have been en-
tirely left out of sight. First, the dark colour was not
seldom employed in the paintings of the kings' tombs.
at Thebes, in order, by the contrast with the usual
brightly coloured pictures of the Pharaohs, to suggest
a clearly visible allusion to their abode in the dark
night of the grave. This intention of the painter would
appear all the more probable in this case as she does
not on every occasion appear black, but sometimes with
a yellow skin, like all native women. In the second
place, the negroes, with an Egyptian queen of their
own race, would have earned a poor return of grati-
tude from the house of Egypt, if Aahmes, after the
victory over his enemies in the North, had immediately
turned his arms against the brethren and the people of
his own wife, by whose help alone he had been able to
obtain the victory over his hereditary enemy.1 Her
son and successor was—

Ser-ka-Ka, Amen-hotep I.

According to all appearances Amen-hotep was a
child at his father's death, so that his mother, Nefert-ari,
assumed the reins of government. When he grew up
the young Pharaoh turned his attention to the south
and led a campaign against the land of Cush, in which

1 See Royal Mummies of Deir-el-Bahaii, p. 362.