of Hades, and
adopted their attributes, even to the black or blue coloured skin of
these funerary divinities.*

* Her statue in the Turin Museum represents her as having
black skin. She is also painted black standing before
Amenothes (who is white) in the Deir el-Medineh tomb, now
preserved in the Berlin Museum, in that of Nibnutiru, and hi
that of Unnofir, at Sheikh Abd el-Qurnah. Her face is
painted blue in the tomb of Kasa. The representations of
this queen with a black skin have caused her to be taken for
a negress, the daughter of an Ethiopian Pharaoh, or at any
rate the daughter of a chief of some Nubian tribe; it was
thought that Ahmosis must have married her to secure the
help of the negro tribes in his wars, and that it was owing
to this alliance that he succeeded in expelling the Hyksos.
Later discoveries have not confirmed these hypotheses.
Nofritari was most probably an Egyptian of unmixed race, as
we have seen, and daughter of Ahhotpu I., and the black or
blue colour of her skin is merely owing to her
identification with the goddesses of the dead.

Considerable endowments were given for maintaining worship at her tomb,
and were administered by a special class of priests. Her mummy reposed
among those of the princes of her family, in the hiding-place at
Deir-el-Bahari: it was enclosed in an enormous wooden sarcophagus
covered with linen and stucco, the lower part being shaped to the body,
while the upper part representing the head and arms could be lifted off
in one piece. The shoulders are covered with a network in relief, the
meshes of which are painted blue on a yellow background. The Queen's
hands are crossed over her breast, and clasp the _crux ansata_, the
symbol of life. The whole mummy-case measures a little over nine feet
from the sole of the feet to the top of the head, which is furthermore
surmounted by a cap, and two long ostrich-feathers. The appearance is
not so much that of a coffin as of one of those enormous caryatides
which we sometimes find adorning the front of a temple.

We may perhaps attribute to the influence of Nofritari the lack of zest
evinced by Amenothes for expeditions into Syria. Even the most energetic
kings had always shrunk from penetrating much beyond the isthmus. Those
who ventured so far as to work the mines of Sinai had nevertheless
felt a secret fear of invading Asia proper--a dread