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Wit see if AN bed: fil ie Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/fromtribetoempirOOmore The History of Civilization. Edited by C. K. OGDEN, M.A. From Iribe to Empire The History of Civilization In the Section of this Series devoted to Pre-History and ANTIQUITY are included the following volumes :— I. Introduction and Pre-Hustory *SOCIAL ORGANIZATION . ; : ' : ; j ¥ W. H. R. Rivers THE EarTH BEFORE HIsToRY . ’ . : : j FE, Perrier PREHISTORIC MAN , 3 : : ; ; , ; . J. de Morgan LANGUAGE: A LiNGuIstic INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY A GEOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY . J. Vendryes ‘ p L. Febvre : 4 ‘ E. Pittard RACE AND HisTorY . FroM TRIBE TO EMPIRE , : 4 ; : ‘ ° ‘ . A. Moret *WoOMAN’S PLACE IN SIMPLE SOCIETIES. : ‘ é st J, ..ciyres *CycLes IN HIsToRY . : : : . . ; : J. L. Myres *THE DIFFUSION OF CULTURE *THE MIGRATION OF SYMBOLS , G. Elliot Smith : : 4 : ; : D. A, Mackenzie *THE DAWN OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION . : : ; V. G. Childe . II, The Early Empires THE NILE AND EGyPpTIAN CIVILIZATION . : ; ' : . A. Moret *CoOLOUR SYMBOLISM OF ANCIENT EGypt ; : ; D. A. Mackenzie MESOPOTAMIA ‘ : ; : ; ; : . L, Delaporte THE AZGEAN CIVILIZATION . ; : : : : ‘ ; . G. Glotz * An asterisk indicates that the volume does not form part of the French collection ‘‘ L’Evolution de l’Humanité” (of which the present work is No. 6 of the First Section), published under the direction of M. Henri Berr, Editor of the ‘‘ Revue de Synthése Historique.” A full list of the SERIES will be found at the end of this volume, From ‘Tribe to Empire Social Organization among Primitives and in the Ancient Fast By A. MORET Professor in the University of Paris, Curator of the Museé Guimet and GeeDANY Dean of the Faculty of Letters in the University of Dijon LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD. NEW YORK: ALFRED A. KNOPF 1926 TRANSLATED BY V. GORDON CHILDE PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN CONTENTS PAGES FOREWORD. BY HENRI BERR - - - - 1x—-xxx PART I: SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND THE PROGRESSIVE CONCENTRATION OF POWER IN PRIMITIVE SOCIETIES CHAPTER I: THE PROBLEM: SOCIOLOGY AND HISTORY - - - : F : i 1—10 CHAPTER II: TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION - - 11—54 1. The clans. 2. The phratries. Totemism and exogamy. 3. The classes and the regulation of marriage. 4. The system of kinship. 5. Explanation of totemic organization; its principle at once social and religious. CHAPTER IIT: TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION IN RELATION TO TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION - - - 55—63 CHAPTER IV: THE FIRST TRACES OF INDIVIDUALIZED POWER WITHIN THE COMMUNISTIC TOTEMICO-TER- RITORIAL ORGANIZATION - - - - 64—74 CHAPTER V: THE PROGRESS OF INDIVIDUALIZED POWER AND THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE COMMUNISTIC TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION. EVOLUTION IN MYTH- OLOGY AND IN POLITICS - - - - 75—84 1. The data of mythology. 2. Determination of the field of observation. CHAPTER VI: THE CONDITIONS OF THE INDIVIDUALIZA- TION OF POWER - - - - - 85—113 1. Masculinization of kinship and authority. 2. The potlatch and transformed totemism. 3. The potlatch and the confra- ternities. 4. Power, potlatch, and provisions. 5. Power, pot- latch, and property. PART II: FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS CHAPTER I: THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS IN EGYPT - - 115—158 1. The Eastern Mediterranean, the cradle of civilization. 2. The first human groups in Egypt. 3. The first historical period. 4. The Thinite monarchy. 5. The theory of an Asiatic invasion of Egypt. Vv v1 CONTENTS CHAPTER II: THE EGYPTIAN KINGDOM AND ITS NEIGH- BOURS UNDER THE OLD EMPIRE - - - 159—186 1. The alleged isolation of Egypt. 2. The Egyptians and their neighbours: races and types. 38. The foreign relations of Thinite Egypt. 4. The plan of defence of Memphite Egypt. CHAPTER IIIT: THE SEMITIC WORLD TO 2000 B.c. - 187—220 1. The Semites and their habitat. 2. The nomadic Semites and their primitive institutions. 38. Elamites, sedentary Semites, and Sumerians in Shinar. 4. From kingdoms to empires of Semites. 5. Oriental politics in the days of Hammurabi. PART III: THE FIRST EMPIRES OF THE ORIENT CHAPTER I: THE IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS AND THE BARBARIAN EMPIRE OF THE HYKSOS - 221—255 1. Egypt at the height of her power. 2. The Kassite and Hittite invasions of Mesopotamia. 3. The Hyksés invasion of Egypt. CHAPTER II: THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE AND THE CONCERT OF NATIONS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY ~- 256—301 1. The Hyksés driven from Egypt. 2. The Egyptians in Syria. 3. The organization of an Egyptian Empire. 4. The inter- nationalist policy of Amenophis IV (Akhenaten). CHAPTER JIT: THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE AND THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH AND OF THE SEA - 302—354 1. The Hittites in Mitanni and Egyptian Syria. 2. Seti I and Rameses II at war with the Hittites. 3. The Egypto-Hittite entente. 4. The Peoples of the North and of the Sea in the East. 5. From the Peoples of the North to the Persians. CONCLUSION” - - - - - - - 3855—860 BIBLIOGRAPHY - - - - - - 3861—364 INDEX - - - - - - - - 3865—371 7 wo es (su) pee aga pF a 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. Ewe LS 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 3l. 32. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . BOAT SURMOUNTED BY AN ENSIGN - = . CLAN ENSIGNS s as - = . THe ENsIGgNS oF THE FALCON AND OF THE EGyYptiaAN CLAN TO THE Hunt - - Eq@yptian REGALIA - « = - KiInG ScorRPION WIELDING THE Hor - SLATE PauertTE oF NARMER (OBVERSE) - SuaTE PauerTE oF NARMER (REVERSE)~— - AHA (MENEs) - - - - THE NAME OF NARMER COME TO LIFE - THe VouLtturE GoppEss (NEKHEB) AND THE ‘‘ SMA TAUI ’ AN EpiIsopE rrom Kina NarMer’s ‘‘ Sep’’ Frstrvan EGYPTIAN OF THE NortH - “ & EGYPTIAN OF THE SouTH x x & EGYPTIANS OF THE NORTH REPELLING A Nava RAID Dynastic Erocn) 2 ~ A Eaeyptian Types (Onp Kinepom) - - SMERKHET IN SINAI - 2 Eayretian Suip (Otp Kinepom)~ - - SUMERIANS (FROM THE STELE OF THE VULTURES) - BAS-RELIEF OF NARAM-SIN - o " GEBEL-EL-ARAK KNIFE-HANDLE = s HittitE SOLDIER WEARING A BEARD IN SEMITIO STYLE ARRIVAL OF CANAANITES AT BENI-HASAN spout 1900 B.c. ASIATIC PRISONERS AT THE ProveH (E1r-K as) PRISONERS OF KUSH = 2 2 EAST LEAD AN Eq@yptiaNn INFANTRY UNDER THE XVIIItTH Dynasty (DEIR-EL- BaHARI) - = “ y 2 EGYPTIAN CHARIOT - s 2 a CANAANITES AND THEIR TRIBUTE - - A CANAANITE KHAZANU = a“ : THE CRETANS’ PRESENTS~ - a x PHGNICIAN SHIPS ON THE NILE at THEBES (XXTH Dynasty) - Wincep Discs ~ - - - AKHENATEN ADORING ATEN - 2 S Vii PAGE 122 123 » 127 131 136 138 139 141 141 146 153 157 157 162 168 175 182 201 208 211 238 244 260 260 265 267 284 285 293 294 296 299 Vill LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 46. Ser1 I, PRECEDED BY AMORITE CAPTIVES, IS WELCOMED AT THE Gate or Eaypr BY HIS SUBJECTS - - a e Tar ‘Princes oF LEBANON’’ FELL PINES FoR SETI I - - Hirrire AND SyRIAN PRISONERS OF SETI ] ‘ e @ THE SHARDANA IN THE SERVICE OF RAMESES II RamMEsEs IJ IN THE BATTLE - “= “= 7 e THe Hirrire RESERVES RESCUING THE FUGITIVES ON THE BANK OF THE ORONTES - i i 4 A ys THe EGYPTIANS STORMING DapPuR - 2 ¢ ‘ A Hittite AND SyRIAN DEITIES ~ - ae . i Tue Hirrire Kina AND HIs DAUGHTER ADORING RameEszs II (ABUSIMBEL) - - - - - - - . Two NEw ADVERSARIES OF Eoyrpr - - ~ = . A PHILISTINE CONVOY ATTACKED BY THE SHARDANA ~ % . Tur Ecyptian FLEET AND ARMY REPULSE THE ATTEMPTS OF THE PEOPLES OF THE SEA TO LAND - “ " = i . PHILISTINE PRISONERS - - . 3 é ‘ ASSYRIAN INFANTRY AND CHARIOTS IN Mountrartnous CouNTRY ON THE COASTS - A ‘ ai = b i . How tHE ASSYRIANS TREATED THE CONQUERED - » a LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS . ARcHAIC Ecyrpt - ps = 2 a " pe . Tue Ferrite CRESCENT OF THE ANCIENT EAST - - . SHINAR OR CHALDZA ai os ye Ee 2 “ . Tue Greatest Eoypr (MippLe AND New Kuinepoms) - - . THe ORIENTAL WORLD AT THE TIME OF THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE . Tue Derinz or ALUNA AND MEGIDDO~ - - - - . THE Batrue or KaDESH - - - - - PAGE 306 308 309 313 319 321 322 330 334 337 342 343 347 348 353 121 189 204 224 263 272 317 FOREWORD THE THREE PHASES OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION I On several occasions in the first volumes dealing with the Evolution of Humanity we have met and touched on the problem of the social factor; here we face this problem deliberately and, as it were, come to grips with it. It is the social as such that this book essentially aims at introducing into historical explanation. That the study of the social element and of the function of this element belongs to history, that sociology 1s a his- torical discipline which, having taken its material from history, brings to history its results—that is our profound conviction. We are not unaware that to a certain type of mind it seems idle to ask whether it is history that embraces sociology or sociology that uses and transcends history; we believe that such are mistaken. The interpretation of the past is different according as sociology be viewed as a science which holds the key to history or as a science which explains it in a measure—even in a large measure—but not in an exclusive manner. Defined rigorously, delimited carefully, sociology in tts essence appears as a study of those ‘‘ institutions’? which correspond in social life to the functions in organic life; as a study of the structure of societies; as a study, finally, of the relations which ewist between functions and structure and also between the several functions. It is abstract and com- parative, since it isolates elements derived from history at different points in space and time in order to compare them. And after elaborating these elements it gains for the use of history a system of necessities or laws. It separates out and studies one important factor in human development—social ix x FOREWORD organization; 1t does not deny the existence of other factors. It furnishes a capital contribution to the historical synthesis ; it is not the historical synthesis. Among the sociologists who have formed a more ambitious conception of their discipline and have revived certain of the errors of the philosophy of history a distinction must be drawn. There are those who have assigned it too vague a character and have amalgamated heterogeneous elements without determining the social with sufficient precision. On the other hand, there are those who, having accurately defined the nature of the element, have only been wrong in exaggerating its importance and wishing to reduce everything to tt. The bases of positive sociology have been laid in the French school of which Emile Durkheim was the founder and for twenty-five years the undisputed leader.1 We have often expressed regret that this mighty spirit, who ewerted an almost dominating effect upon his disciples, did not ewer- cise outside his own group as much influence as he deserved and did not succeed in establishing sociology finally as a science. We believe that what has prevented his complete success is the philosophic tendency, as a result of which— despite his desire for a positive science—he exaggerates, or is inclined to exaggerate, the importance of the social. But perhaps that exaggeration is connected with a too a priori conception of positive science. For Durkheim and his school it 1s anti-scientific to admit action by the individual; the objective explanation by means of social necessity must be pressed as far as possible; and if we reach an individual remainder we should yet preserve the hope and even the desire of a complete explanation through the social. Now, the fanaticism of science, and only science, is dangerous ; * On Durkheim see Foreword to Vendryes’ Language, p. xv, and our own Synthese en Histoire, pp. 124-127. G. Davy has published articles on the man and his work in the Rev. de Mét. et de Morale, March-April, 1919, January-March, 1920, and a volume Durkheim in Les Grands Philosophes Francais et Etrangers. FOREWORD XI science is bound, not to obey concepts, but to adapt itself to the nature of things. We have remarked that in his works Durkheim often made reservations upon his theses, and with a ‘* doubtless ”’ made concessions to reality, concessions which he imme- diately withdrew by a “ but.’’! We recognized that the sociologist has the right, and that it may be in the interests of science, to press as far as possible the explanation through the social; but we demanded that writers should formally confess cases of intractability to such an explanation and resign themselves to the complewity of the real. In his passion for truth, Durkheim, although his inner conviction might not have changed, and though his assertions sometimes continued to overstep the bounds of his evidence, ended what was destined to be his last work with phrases of caution. ** It 1s proper to inquire whether that which in the individual transcends the individual, do not come to him from this supra-individual reality given in experience which is society. In truth none can now say how far these explanations may extend and whether they are of a nature to abolish all problems. But it is equally impossible to lay down in advance any limit which they must not overstep. What is necessary is to test the hypothesis, to submit it as methodically as possible to the control of the facts. That is what we have tried to do.’”? Our collaborator Davy, more than anyone else in the group about Durkheim to which he had the honour of belonging, maintained a wise reserve. He recently presented his remarkable book on Sworn Faith (La Foi jurée) as an experiment instituted to explain the formation of the con- tractual bond;* this experiment (the term, however, here takes on a rather peculiar sense) consisted in illuminating the obscure regions and supplementing the missing links in history by ethnography, in seeking in the study of so-called * See La Synthése en Histoire, pp. 170, 174, 198. * Elementary Forms of Religious Life—last lines in book. ° See pp. 14, 18; cf. p. 3 in this book. xii FOREWORD primitives the possible or probable origins of institutions which history presents in a very advanced stage of evolution. By combining ethnographical data with certain historical survivals, interesting and legitimate hypotheses can, without doubt, be formed. The first part of this volume, conceived on this plan, will show what may be expected from that side. But theories based on the consideration of primitive societies are, in some minds, connected with the theory—if not the conviction—of the pre-eminence of the social factor; and from the point of view of historic synthesis some pre- liminary remarks on primitive man and the question of the origins of society seem requisite. II Davy uses the word *‘ primitive ”’ only with caution. Are the Australians or the Indians with whom he is concerned primitive or decadent? Are they still in their infancy, or have they relapsed into infancy? He raises the question; he does not decide it.! In fact, however the issue ought to be decided, there is no objection to seeking in their institutions the conditions which theoretically prepare and explain such institutions in history. G. Davy at present limits his task to that. But when it is desired to explain human evolution as a whole and in its essential factors, it is no longer a matter of indifference whether the savages be primitive or degenerate. The problem is no longer immaterial. By not facing that issue and making it the starting-point in the study of *‘ primitive man’s’? social organization, there would be a danger of encouraging those who e«alt social constraint, which is so powerful and so striking in such human groups, into something primary and, as it were, immediately given. We suspect, indeed, that Durkheim and his strict disciples, if they have not been induced to devote their attention chiefly to primitive society by their superstitious belief in the social, * La Foi jurée, pp. 16, 30. FOREWORD Xi have at least been confirmed in their superstition by the character of such societies.' ** Primitives’ are not always degenerates; but it must not be forgotten that they carry the burden of an immovable tradition. Various circumstances—above all, geographical— have placed them outside the current of civilization; we shall see them appearing late upon the stage of human history. In the course of the discovery of the Earth when civilized peoples will undertake the conquest of new worlds, they— the heirs of a prolonged effort of social organization and intellectual activity—will here and there come into contact with such ** uncivilized ’’ peoples whom remoteness and isola- tion have, as it were, anchylosed in secular routines. Let us not imagine that, through being off the main routes and strangers to collective effort, they have been kept in the pure state of *‘ primitiveness.’’ The life of Pompei has, so to speak, been preserved from time, thanks to the ashes of Vesuvius. - Time has passed over the savages; and wmmo- bility in time is something quite different from an immobility which 1s, in a sense, timeless. So-called primitive societies resemble the most perfect animal societies in the rigidity of their organization. ‘* The individual from the moment of his birth is the prisoner of the group to which he belongs, which imposes upon him its customs, its beliefs, its manner of life, which obliges him to take a wife from a specific circle. The solidarity of members of this group extends to every domain;’’* it involves the re- sponsibility of all for the faults of one of their number, the responsibility of descendants for the faults of their ancestors. Property has a social character. The rites, in which all col- laborate, aim at ensuring the prosperity of the group. The social bond is indurated, and life, as 1t were, mechanized within the narrow sheath of institutions. Not only the + See p. 111 in this volume. 2 KR. Kreglinger, “ La Mentalité primitive’ in Revue de l’ Université de Bruxelles, March, 1921: See Revue de |’Institut de Sociologie Solvay, July, 1921, pp. 105-106. XIV FOREWORD activity of individuals, but their very thought 1s subject to social constraint—no less than to the burden of heredity. If, despite appearance, savages are not absolutely identical in nature and bearing, originality and initiative among them are reduced to the minimum. The young Australian, for instance, whom the elders initiate, *‘ becomes the living support of principles and techniques, the faithful repetition of which by successive generations guarantees their efficacy.”’ ** No single attempt to alter the eaisting state of things has ever been made within living memory.’’ In this straitened and stagnant life of a small community the individual has not much more initiative than the kangaroo or the bara- munda. ‘* Forethought, regard for the future, those power- ful stumult to man’s inventive activity, are absent from his spirit, and in this respect he stands on the same plane as the other living creatures with whom he struggles for ewistence.’”! Too. much emphasis cannot be laid upon the fact that the term ** primitive ’’ as currently employed is inaccurate and misleading. More and more numerous are the ethnographers who on this point make reservations such as these: ** Are the uncivilized genuinely primitive? Is it not a veritable abuse of language to describe them by this term? For it is indeed vague enough, but it implies the idea of priority, suggests that they are nearer than ourselves to a state through which we must have passed, and consequently encourages us to seek in these barbarous surroundings the starting-point of a development of which our own civilizations are the culmina- tion. They are assuredly less cultivated than we, more simple, nearer to Nature; but it is not proved that they, too, have not evolved; they may be, and in many cases, as with the Pygmies and the Papus, are, degenerates. It is sheer carelessness to assume without strict proof that the develop- 6 * See Nadine Ivanitzky, ‘‘ Les Institutions des primitifs australiens ”’ (a summary of the observations of Spencer and Gillen, Howitt, J. Mathew, R. H. Mathews) in Rev. de I’Inst. de Soc., March, 1922, pp. 178, 188, 192; cf. P. Van Wing, Etudes Ba-Kongo, Histoire et Socio- logie, 1921, p. 292. On primitive societies the Année Sociologique is a mine of information. y~ FOREWORD XV ment of humanity has always and everywhere been identical and in one straight line, the more favoured advancing a little farther on the path of progress, the others lagging behind and stopping in the first stages, but all treading one and the same road, the whole course of which the historian might reconstitute in detail by marking the points occupied by the belated.’”? The reader will note the double problem which is raised in the synthesis in respect of inferior societies if all precon- ceptions implied or suggested by the word “ primitive” be put aside. Do the institutional forms which they present— and by the help of which one might try to outline the scheme of social evolution—always mark a necessary stage? Or are they not, on the contrary, in certain cases anomalies, degeneration phenomena, or at least peculiarities? On the other hand, does a social bond, tightly fastened as it appears among them, offer an accurate picture of an original state? It seems to us that on this point of capital importance the answer may be in the negative. The so-called primitive societies, maintained and prolonged into our own times as a result of special circumstances, represent not the origin, but a secondary phase of the organization of society. And per- haps, in the light of all the data furnished both by the observable societies and psychology, the assumption is justi- fied that society passes through three phases, through three states; of these, that constituted by so-called primitive societies is the intermediate state. The terms we use show clearly enough that we are making no pretence of solving such an obscure question as that of the origins of society. We are on our guard against impairing the experimental character of this work by confident asser- tions. And we have emphasized “ society ”’ in order to draw * R. Kreglinger, ibid., p. 104; cf. Van Wing, op. cit., preface by de Jonghe. Primitive peoples, of course, are not all on the same level of ‘“ primitiveness.’”? The checks to their growth may come about at a certain stage in individual “‘revival.’? That is exactly what allows Davy, with the help of ethnography, to conceive a process of society’s formation. b XV1 FOREWORD a sharp distinction between a theoretical evolution laid bare by abstraction and the complex evolution of historical societies. III Undoubtedly Society—as history shows it to us—is a reality sui generis; it has its own nature and laws. But can it be admitted that this reality has appeared fully formed? It is composed of individuals. What is the réle, the degree of dependence, of individuals in society? What are the degrees of variation in case this dependence has varied? That is the essential problem of sociology. Now, if the first forms of social organization, the initial groupings, elude our ken, and if we must beware of manu- facturing an etiological romance, it 1s scarcely credible that the principle of this organization should be to seek elsewhere than in the individual, in the social instinct of the individual. To understand the genesis of soctety it 1s well to dis- tinguish clearly between the mechanical effects of heredity and of imitation—they produce the similarity, the homo- genity of groups where the social principle is diffuse'—and the positive virtue of the social instinct. From the latter springs the solidarity which will gradually unite ‘* likes” in a close and lasting co-operation.” This potent motive, ‘* the attraction of like for like,”’ as it has been happily described, is more or less active among all animals.* It may be con- sidered a manifestation of the first principle rooted in the depths of the being, of the tendency which moves life—and, doubtless, matter itself. With the individuals a sort of superior individual tends to be formed. But the word individual must not put us on the wrong * See Introduction to Febvre’s A Geographical Introduction to History. * Condensation nuclei are produced in nebulous human beings, to use the ingenious phrase of Vidal de Lablache. * See La Synthése en Histoire, pp. 101, 128, 162. * See ibid., pp. 155-159, and our introductions to earlier volumes of L’ Evolution de |’ Humanité. FOREWORD XV scent. It has been justly observed that it denotes a mode of existence, a variable quality, and not an entity.’ The elements which constitute the social individual are not united in the same way as those ‘* thousands of millions of little beings’ (Cl. Bernard) which make up one of the higher animals. They form an association—not, doubtless, by a “ contract ’’—certainly under the impulsion of the instinct mentioned, but with a consciousness of the advantages of mutual aid and of the enlargement of life which it secures to them. Individualism is not “ congenital in humanity,’’? but society is not temporally prior to individuals; tt is made by them, thanks to appropriate states of consciousness. It is bound up with the progress of the psychism; like the latter, it tends to enlarge life. There is, then, an initial period of social organization when the unit is in course of formation in space and time, and when the development of the human individual con- tributes to its formation. If the hominide are social animals, sprung from species already social, we know how much the hand and language, those strictly human inventions, assist the social character—on the one hand by increasing the means of communication and union, on the other by per- mitting individual specialization and the division of labour,’ consequently by creating a complex solidarity (what Durk- heim calls organic’). The explanation is pressed closer home when one measures the importance of those kinds of crises which exalt the social instinct and at which the “ fusion of souls °” momentarily comes about. Under various circumstances, in the ceaseless struggle against animate and inanimate nature, in forced and voluntary migrations, keen emotions—terrors and joys wherein all share, common desires—create a sort of symbiosis, * Espinas, in that book, always so suggestive, Les Sociétés animales. * See below p. 111. * See the Forewords to de Morgan’s Prehistoric Man, and to Vendryes’ Language. * Division of Social Labour. ° An expression used by Dr. Cureau in Les Sociétés primitives de V Afrique equatoriale, p. 383. XVIll FOREWORD renew those curious mental states which we call the crowd state.! That is a phenomenon of extreme importance which demands study—more study than it has hitherto recevved— in the light of documents for the past, and at present through the observation of the life of groups. It is from the “crowd state’? that social consciousness springs. But that consciousness outlasts the. circumstances which actualized the society. It survives in individuals—in such a way that their activity, even apart from such mental states, can respond to the needs of the new being which they are forming. It must not, however, be forgotten that society becomes corporealized. It becomes corporealized on the soil—where, above all, existence becomes settled—and among a host of material objects. By objectifying itself the sympathetic accord is consolidated and defined. Thus little by little the life of the group will be institu- tionalized; variety of functions will denote in it the needs of the social being taking advantage of differences of kind and also of degree in the “ qualities’”’ of the constituent tndt- viduals. These are, in fact, not all mere elements of society; among them there are social agents through whose conscious- ness the social current flows more forcibly and instantly until at length there are social inventors, too, whose deliberate initiative will tend to modify the social institution.’ 1 See La Synthése en Histoire, pp. 166 ff. 2 Very summary hints. We refer the reader to La Synthese en Histoire, pp. 172 ff. On the ‘‘ chief’? note some interesting reflections in Espinas, op. cit., pp. 520-521, and Cureau, ibid., pp. 325 ff.; even where no word is in use to translate the word ‘‘ chief,’ the crowd submits to the ascendancy of certain individuals. ‘‘ From its first dawn, authority is revealed as the resultant of the consent of those who are destined to submit to it and who certainly have given it to themselves.”’ In the institutional form individualized power emanates from society; but on the contrary in the diffuse form it constitutes society. Before the chief invested with power goes the ‘‘leader’’ just as before the legal family, arising out of society, goes the natural family. On the origins of society sociologists have given voice to most ached theories, often very a priori: an account of them will be found in Cornejo, Sociologie générale, chap. ii. Let us also recall the work of Cosentini, La Sociologie génétique, and note a book on this topic in FOREWORD XIX Too much stress cannot be laid on the point that society is bound up with the psychism. It profits by its progress and contributes thereto. In absorbing the individuals it develops individuality. Now, together with advantages, the development of the individual involves risks for society. It has the double defect of favouring now selfish calculation, now the spirit of innovation which generally awakens unrest in the organized mass. We therefore picture to ourselves the beginning as a moment of movement and progress in which the individual and society were generating one another—to a point when the society in process of organization and the developing individual clash actually or potentially. It is then. that the social being, to realize its nature fully, ewercises the maximum of constraint. Then, too, the enlargement of societies is accomplished by violence. Originally mutual aid must have been the dominant tendency among peers. The same attractions which brought together individuals must also have brought together little groups into homogeneous wholes' and established various relations and fresh unions between them. We would gladly believe ‘‘ war and its cruelties, cannibalism and slavery are relatively late phe- Ruthenian by M. Hrachevsky, known to us only from an analysis in the Rev. de I’Inst. de Soc. (Jan., 1922, p. 166). Let us also note some works which may throw some light on social origins. Varendonck, in his ‘‘ Recherches sur les Sociétés d’enfants”’ (Travaux de l’Inst. de Soc. Solvay, 1914), has remarked the transition from gregarious activity to organized grouping under a head. G. des Marez, in his Memoire to the Royal Academy of Belgium (Class of Letters and Mor. and Pol. Sciences, 1921) on La Premiére étape de la formation corporative, ‘‘entre aide,” allows us to behold the artisans attracted towards one another by the great laws of mutual aid: ““they obey certain essential and profound forces which urge them to the path of organization to some degree unbeknown to themselves.’ He has also shown at work in towns which are coming into existence the sentiment of mutual defence which converts the mass of the citizens into a communitas, a communio, an individual. In all communal forma- tions the internal union is accompanied by exclusiveness and reinforced by conflict. > On this point see La Synthése en Histoire, p. 160, and L. Duchesne, ‘‘ Lutte pour la vie et entr’aide sociale’’ in Rev. de Inst. de Soc., Nov., 1921, p. 355. = | FOREWORD nomena in evolution.’’' To posit itself finally, the group, while it imposes itself on what is within, opposes itself to what is without. ‘* The distinctness with which a social consciousness posits itself, a collective ego, is in direct pro- portion to its hatred for the stranger’? (Espinas). And war demands a strong social armament and tightens the bonds of union which have made it possible. In the evolution of society, then, there is, in our opinion, a phase—the second—of rigorous restraint, of compulsory **conformity.”? Bagehot, in an ancient work which still possesses a vital interest, had made some sage remarks upon those centuries of oppression which had been needed to con- solidate and to stabilize (status, State) human groups.” The weight of society is, then, so crushing that not only do institutions fetter every activity on the part of individuals, but the psychism itself becomes institutionalized. In previous volumes we have encountered this phase, in which technique is shackled, in which reason is paralysed, in which society interposes itself between nature and spirit.* Here, perhaps, the distinction drawn between those so- called primitive societies—taken, as it were, in the void without inquiry into their past—and the truly primitive ones will be found fully justified. The primitive in the strict sense of the word must have been endowed, as has been said, with ** aptitudes for self-elevation’’: it was ‘* young ”’; it did not bear the ‘‘ indelible mark’ which “the long succession of ages has stamped upon savages.’** In societies which it is better to term lower or uncivilized, circumstances have in- definitely prolonged the period of stabilization; and certain characters of this period have been reinforced and ewag ger- ated by its long duration. The creative spontaneity from which the social organization has sprung has at length been stifled by this organization itself, and the initial C. A. Ellwood, Principes de psycho-sociologie (1914), p. 102. * Physics and Politics. ° Forewords to de Morgan’s Prehistoric Man, Vendryes’ Language, und Febvre’s A Geographical Introduction to History. * Fr. Cosentini, La Sociologie génétique, p. 26 FOREWORD XX1 enthusiasm of the spirit has been broken by the socializa- tion of thought. Most people are acquainted with the interesting attempt of Durkheim’s group, of L. Levy-Bruhl, and of others in their train, to define *‘ primitive mentality ”’ in its characteristic feature—that is, as fleeting and almost imperceptible. The primitive thinks, in a sense, emotionally. He lives in a mystic environment, in a world of occult forces immanent in the phenomena which he claims as the province of his activity; for nothing is impossible to desire. The region of mystic forces constitutes, ‘‘as it were, a category of the real,’’? which overshadows those of space and tume—in which phenomena are necessarily presented for us—which eludes the law of identity, and which is opposed to determinism. ' “The linkage between the circumstances which precede and the circumstances which follow after is not the one which interests lower societies; they rely upon pre-formed bonds, which alone offer them any satisfaction.” Facts seldom have ‘*‘ the power of undeceiving them or of teaching them. In an infinity of cases their mentality . . . is impermeable to experience.’”* It does not seem to us that such a mentality is primitive, that it is pre-logical, or that it is purely social in origin. The germ of it undoubtedly lies in a certain disposition in the individual to project into the outside world the life which he feels so deeply within him, and to interpret the real as a function of his own life. This spontaneous, affective, prag- matic logic, which persists to some degree even among civil- ized people, must exist in the primitive mind. But it must co-exist there with the beginnings of experimental and practical logic. Readers of earlier volumes will have learned to see that the normal development of humanity ts achieved * See Levy-Bruhl, Les Fonctions mentales dans les Sociétés in- férieures, and La Mentalité primitive; Durkheim, Elementary Forms of Religious Life; R. Lenoir, ‘‘ La Mentalité primitive’ in Rev. de Mét. et de Mor., April-June, 1922 (especially p. 204); L. Brunschvich, L’ Ex- perience humaine et la causalité physique, pp. 89 ff.; cf. La Synthese en Histoire, pp. 190-195. XX FOREWORD through this contact between the individual and the real, wherein the nisus which moves the individual profits by experience. Apparatus, material and mental, is essentially the product of individual invention. There is therein a logic in action which, like affective logic, is lived, but lived under the guidance of nature. Society encourages the spirit’s development and fetters it; tt fetters it in so far as it comes between nature and spirit in the manner described above. Its power is great enough to exalt to almost exclusive lordship and, under certain circum- stances, to maintain indefinitely so enthroned this sort of logic, which has been so well studied under the questionable title of primitive or prelogical mentality. In those * crowd- states”? it is affective logic that reigns. Now, in lower societies there are organized “ crowd-states’’ which “ with- the aid of movements, dances, rhythms, cries, formule, chants, and dramas,’ perpetuate and fix the mystical feeling of the social symbiosis and even of the universal symbiosis. It is, however, acquired eaperience which allows the individual to live and to provide himself with food and tools. ‘There scarcely exists any society so low but we find there some invention, some procedure in art or industry, some handiwork to excite our admiration—canoes, vases, baskets, fabrics, ornaments, etc.’ But to the savage only the co- operation of invisible powers gives efficacy to the traditional processes. His confidence in formule and rites leads him to misunderstand the value of material means. He would not be incapable of innovation‘ but for the ** tyrannical con- formity’’> which oppresses him and which he accepts. So it is social life lashed into a paroxysm and kept in one that has produced the * impermeability to emperience.’? For * On the individual as agent in logic, see the introductions to Pre- historic Man, Language, and A Geographical Introduction to History. * R. Lenoir, op cit., p. 211; Dr. Cureau, id., p. 169. * La Mentalité primitive, p. 517 (cf. p. 350), and Les Fonctions mentales dans les Sociétés inférieures, p. 79. * La Mentalité primitive, p. 449. * Ibid., pp. 463-4. FOREWORD Xxill progress to continue, for representations and then concepts to be modelled upon things and beings, a plasticity is needed which the pseudo-primitive has lost.’ Durkheim’s school has done good work in devoting them- selves to the study of social states in which the individual is absorbed in the group—till a point is reached at which collective representations dominate his whole activity. As these collective representations involve a mystical interpreta- tion of man’s relations to his. social and natural environment, it must be recognized that in such states the whole ewistence of society and its members is immersed in religion. But when Durkheim makes—or tends to make—religion a funda- mental institution, the matria of all institutions, he 1s going too far;? religion does not answer the primary essential needs of society. It is because the psychism becomes institu- tionalized that at a given moment religion unifies spirits, envelops activities, and binds the social elements closely together, and with the world—visible or invisible. Thereafter all the social life, the whole later psychic development, will arise out of religion—by differentiation or liberation.* 1 In the elements themselves even what seems most individual is strictly subject to society: ‘all kinds of oral expressions of opinion . are social phenomena, marked to the highest possible degree by a non-spontaneous and perfectly obligatory character”? (M. Mauss, “LP Kxepression obligatoire des sentiments’’ in the Journal de Psycho- logie, May 15, 1921, p. 426). It was the same in Ancient China as M. Granet explains so well in his admirable studies on psychology. ‘In the evolution of the sentiments spontaneity appears only at the end of an evolution through a reaction against the first formalism (let us say secondary; at the beginning there are pure reflexes as the Chinese ritualists themselves admit) and the developed ritualism of sentimental language—and only when society is sufficiently unstable to allow the in- dividual to perceive a discord between his ideal and the social organiza- tion. But in a stable society, which clings to its stability, 1f 1s by no means the originality of the individual or even family traditions which governs sentiment and its expression” (‘‘ Le langage de la doulewr @apres le rituel funéraire de la Chine classique’’ in the Journal de Psychologie, Feb. 15, 1922). There are societies which, like China, without being ‘‘ lower,’’ have suffered long periods of ‘‘ arrested develop- ment’? as a result of circumstances: see Levy-Bruhl, Les Fonctions mentales dans les Soc. inf., pp. 448-450. 2 See Davy himself, p. 52 below. 3 We shall have occasion subsequently to distinguish religion from magic. XXIV FOREWORD As a result of various circumstances, the period of stabilization may indeed, in the case of some societies, have been indefinitely prolonged. On the whole its duration is very variable. But in the case of the majority of human societies it has been transitory and, with the most favoured, it has been relatively short. A work, the aim of which is to study the evolution of humanity, 1s necessarily concerned with societies which have not become petrified in the simple and indifferent business of lasting. In the former the move- ment forward has not become exhausted. The need for being, and for the fullest possible being, has produced its effects. It has produced them in two different ways—in the society and in the individual. As we know, human groups are not in close dependence on the natural environment.+ They have launched out into space in the desire to better their conditions.” Some settle in a favourable habitat which they open up. Others, less fortunate or less ingenious or more restless, continue nomadic existence. We have spoken of that vital instinct which, while bringing some societies into a stable position, also sets them in mutual opposition. An eager ambition, a complex appe- tite, which, moreover, fastens now upon the wealth of the territory, now upon the physical and psychical resources which its occupants represent, hurls the nomads on the sedentary peoples, make the latter the prey, causes the one to drive out the other or to subdue and exploit them or to absorb them. Imperialism is inspired by the ‘will to growth **—a brutal will. It may assume modified forms, but in its essence it is the opposite of union for life. In society it is the egotistic, systematically egotistic,* translation of the need for the fullest possible being. So—through conflict as much as, or more than, through agreement—societies grow. They make more or less success- * See Febvre, A Geographical Introduction to History. * Ibid., Introduction ; cf. Pittard, The Races and History. * See Perrier, The Earth before History, General Introduction. “ In that respect it is a human invention rather than a natural law. See La Synthése en Histoire, p. 161. FOREWORD XXV ful experiments in their own organization and in the exploi- tation of the land which is connected therewith. Often success itself is fatal for them, attracting barbarians who— intentionally or not—ruin them. Sometimes it is their un- restrained ambition that is disastrous to them; they, like the monsters of prehistory, overstep the limits within which life is liveable. In whatever manner they dissolve, their elements enter into fresh combinations, which profit to some extent by the earlier attempts. In these struggles and absorptions of human elements, in these interchanges of influences, added to the bracing of races and the effect of diverse surroundings,’ not only does social organization develop and increase in compleaity, but the individual intensifies his psychic activity, enlarges his ea- perience of the real, and his power of logic. The personality of chiefs in whom power is concentrated asserts itself ener- getically. And, before it ultimately culminates in profound transformations of power itself, the increased value of the social units gives fresh momentum and acceleration to the progress of those technical inventions and mental acquisitions which are at the root of society, which society tended tem- porarily to fetter, and which at length will emancipate philosophy, science, and art from religion. It is therefore possible to speak of a third phase of social evolution—no longer one of spontaneity, like the first, but of liberty—in which the réle of the individual goes on steadily growing, and in which, by that very fact, far from its vitality being necessarily impaired, society is rendered more alive and more plastic. Social consciousness, in fact, persists in the elements of society: it 1s aroused at certain times and under the pressure of certain events; it is reflected in those indi- viduals whom we have called social inventors. Of course, it goes without saying that this phase, in which individuality develops and frees itself from society to the advantage of society, does not manifest itself as a continuous 1 See theworks of Febvre and Pittard cited above. XXV1 FOREWORD uniform progression. Through the operation of various causes, there will be periods of social relawation and even of anarchy, to be followed by reactions, inevitable and salutary for the moment, and a return to authority and conformity— at least external—in which the social bonds will be drawn tight once more. The two conflicting principles—compulsory unity or a purposive and deliberate harmony—will be dominant alternately both in the realm of the spirit and in political life.* As far as intersocial relations are concerned, the same principles alternate in like manner. If human progress 1s achieved in various groups through the effort of distinct and often hostile societies, the result of reflection will be to regulate and draw close their relations. Through real solidarity and conscious logic, inclinations towards a stable alliance will more and more take the place of attempts at imperialist unification. And im a sense historic evolution would seem destined to culminate in a society of nations, in the organization of Humanity. We have not shut our eyes to the sketchy character of these considerations and their hunger for proofs, and, let us repeat again, we only advance them in the guise of an hypothesis. But in that sense we think it is possible to lay down a sort of law of the three states governing social evolution. And we point with pleasure to the fact that in this conception the essence of Durkheim’s sociology is preserved and assimilated. The reality of that rigid society which ewerts a sovereign pressure upon the individual, which moulds him wholly, even in the inmost recesses of his being, is admitted by us—but not as the first datum in history; appearing fully formed, it would be inexplicable in itself, and it would be impossible to understand how it should have produced all that is in contra- diction to or even in conflict with its own nature. | As far as the psychism is concerned, we have not only * See L. Weber, Le Rythme du Progrés, and R. Lenoir, op. cit. FOREWORD XXVH recognized the efficacy of social life in its development, but we have pointed out that it became institutionalized, that at a certain stage of evolution it is almost completely socialized. Nevertheless, we maintain the principle that society does not think, that its life is purely effective.’ And in the institu- tional we distinguish what is accidental in formation from what is in essence social. : We regard as primary manifestations of society, as absolute necessities, political, legal, and moral institutions originally undifferentiated, and which are only gradually differentiated, and economic institutions. Whatever be the functions of religion—infused through the whole of social life, socialized to the highest possible degree—we consider that it derives its first substance from the individual; and a fortior1 we profess the same belief with regard to philosophy, science, and art; they answer primarily to human, not social, needs.” The formation of society and the formation of thought, these two connected processes, are of supreme importance for ex- planation; and whilst studying their relations the historic synthesis takes care to distinguish between them. Durkheim confused them in his socio-religious theory. Durkheim’s sociology has made an interesting attempt to establish relations between social necessities and the structure of societies. In proportion as the volume and the density of the latter are modified—that is, according as the number and distribution of social units varies (as urban life, for instance, develops)—so the institutions themselves, too, are trans- formed. That is a principle which we accept—but with the reservation that to explain the modifications of structure themselves it is necessary to introduce first the social logic,° and then all sorts of contingencies (above all, geographical* ones), and that, on the other hand, multiple contingencies * See_on the other side, Durkheim, Elementary Forms of Religious Life, pp. 441 ff. * See La Synthése en Histoire, pp. 208 ff. * For a discussion of Durkheim’s ideas on this point, see La Synthése en Histoire, pp. 139 ff. * See A Geographical Introduction to History. XXVill FOREWORD and mental logic exert a direct influence upon the institutions themselves. Thus only can it be comprehended why, though analogies in social organization do often coincide with analo- gies in structure, differences in organization also often appear, despite morphological analogies or, conversely, analogies of organization despite morphological differences.' Historic causality is complex. It is by studying without theoretical bias the interaction of causes of different nature that the historic synthesis realizes its programme. IV We have not given this volume the sub-title ‘‘A Socio- logical Introduction to History.’ We were afraid of suggest- ing thereby to certain minds the idea of a kind of externality —and perhaps of pre-eminence—of sociology in relation to history, and of advertizing a study of the social element at once more complete and more eaclusive than will be found here. In this work a very delicate problem is involved in the distribution of the themes, with the double end in view that we have to promote the truest possible understanding of human evolution and to reproduce it as much as possible. Our path is beset by the ever-present danger of falling into abstraction through the desire to explain, or into confusion through the desire to fia the concrete. From the point of view of explanation, it is upon the organization of power, on the relation of political institutions to changes in the struc- ture of societies, on the formation of what at a certain point of development is called the State, that attention is here chiefly concentrated. But we know that the various institutions are only gradually differentiated, and also that changes in structure * An interesting discussion at the Institut de Sociologie Solvay pro- voked by a recent work of Dupréel, “ On Demographic Variations and Progress,” brought out the fact that the increase in the volume of societies may be due to different causes and lead to different effects (see Rev. de l’ Inst. de Soc., May, 1922). FOREWORD | XX1X are connected with a multiplicity of causes contingent or logical. On the development of institutions other than political the reader will therefore find some suggestions here ; they will be elaborated and completed in subsequent volumes. And on the other hand it is within the framework of an intro- duction to the study of the civilizations of the Orient that the study of the social factor will be presented in concreto. Of the three phases of social evolution which our hypo- thesis distinguishes, the present volume refers to the inter- mediate phase and the beginning of the third. It is not content with collecting the little that is known about the oldest historical societies; it illumines these meagre data, as we have said, with the knowledge derived from lower socie- ties. In his valuable contribution G. Davy ingeniously utilizes the results of a long collective enterprise of ethno- graphic observation and sociological elaboration. He ea- pounds the naive complications of savages’ social life in action, and by a procedure solid rather than dialectic he follows the stages—not certain nor necessary, but possible— of the foundation of Power. G. Davy and A. Moret, mutually confirming one another, have recreated that mystical atmosphere in which society has developed from its humble origin in the clan. From clans to States, from States to Empires, the reader sees the unity which expands and the power which is individualized pre- serving their original character, even when the bonds of society are relaxed. We do not think that the history of the Orient has ever been treated with an equal keenness to trace in it the progress of social organization, the effect of a sort of internal impulse. That does not prevent A. Moret from showing the fullest appreciation of the multiplicity of factors which within groups contribute to the development of this organization, and of the repercussions upon society of the continual rearrangement of the human groups. Perusing it the reader is struck by the rapidity with which—after thousands of years of obscure and slow toil— XXX FOREWORD vast civilized societies were formed. He finds himself sud- denly in a world of high politics and conscious diplomacy. But such organizations are fragile especially because there exist vast reservoirs of barbarous peoples who overflow periodically upon the more advanced peoples. In such human convulsions the results of social progress frequently suffer hurt. The diverse races, the numerous peoples who have been responsible for the history of the Ancient East, are here presented interrelated. The outlines of this history with its wide ramifications are luminously drawn by a scholar who combines with profundity of erudition the gift of singling out the essential, whose interests embrace life in all its many- sidedness, for whom present and past are each guides to the comprehension of the other. We thus get, as it were, the assembling-board for the volumes to follow, which will be devoted to the civilizations of the Orient, and with which we definitely enter upon history equipped with explicative principles. We believe this book derives an original character and a complex interest from the close collaboration of a sociologist and a historian. The sociologist strives to set aside all prejudices, and admits that sociology turns into the ally of history: the historian is curious about sociological research and knows how to profit by it. By combining their know- ledge and their qualifications, in order to produce a volume which occupies a place of considerable importance in our plan, they will have deserved well of the historic synthesis. HENRI BERR. FROM TRIBE TO EMPIRE PART I SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND THE PROGRESSIVE CONCENTRATION OF POWER IN PRIMITIVE SOCIETIES CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM—SOCIOLOGY AND HISTORY Wuy does this book, which is a history book and takes Egypt and the Ancient East for its subject, open with an introduction which is sociological and the scope of which extends far beyond Egypt and seems to embrace primitive institutions in general ? Is it in the expectation of comprising within a few pre- liminary pages the whole evolution of primitive societies and of beginning by establishing the first rung of that ladder which leads us to the classical civilization of the ancient and the modern world? Is it, therefore, in the expectation of providing History with that absolute beginning which History itself fails to offer us? Such an expectation would be vain; that must not be looked for here. Without meaning to reach such an absolute beginning or to determine the aspect of human society at the dawn of the first day of its history properly so called, it would no doubt be bold but yet not absurd, by collecting the most certain results of ethnography, to try and sketch the principal features of so-called primitive societies—that is, savage societies representing a condition less developed than any of the historic societies at the most remote epoch. A sketch of that sort would not, like a chapter or a volume of history, offer the reader the description of a definite society at a definite moment, but rather the composite image, so to 1 2 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION speak, of an universe of societies resembling one another in the rudimentary character of their organization. It would thus have the indisputable interest of being a synthetic view of a real type of humanity; in virtue of this it could claim its own allotted place in a history of human evolution. And it would possess the further advantage of providing the history of the more civilized societies with a term of com- parison allowing them to assess at their true value their efforts and their achievements and also perchance, at times, their shortcomings. “ But however deep might be the interest of such an attempt, our contribution, as becomes the limited space assigned to it, has more modest aims. It merely proposes to introduce the reader to an appreciation of the problems which the earliest history of Egypt and the Orient inevitably raises, being yet committed not to solve them. These problems are not only enigmas of Oriental history, but they are problems of origin raised by the history of all the ancient classic peoples from whom our civilization is sprung. Those which are to claim our attention refer to the formation of political organization which is the woof of every civilized society, to the way in which in the bosom of this society sovereignty has been concentrated till its complete incarna- tion in that absolute personal sovereign, of whom the Pharaoh of Egypt is an example so striking and so hard to explain ; in the domestic sphere the ancient pater familias of the prehistoric Roman gens is another parallel instance. Now, as if to defy our imperious need to explain everything, these problems always present themselves in history as in- soluble. The first fixed points of chronology never, in fact, coincide with the first gropings of progress, and only reveal to us institutions that have a long history behind them. Therein lies the whole interest of finding a byway to reach the solution of these problems indirectly, since we cannot solve them directly. It is precisely such a byway that sociology comes to offer in the hope of assisting us to a comprehension of history. It does not mean, as we began by saying, to make history out of prehistory. It will then seek to explain, not to prolong the known backward. And on these terms its whole aim is to contribute a hypothesis better tested than the rest. Now, SOCIOLOGY AND HISTORY 3 the test of its hypothesis is to be verified in actual society. Sociology, therefore, will take the historian to certain selected societies—ours will be those of the Australian aborigines and the American Indians—and there offer him living experiences of the growth of political structure and of sovereignties in the course of becoming individualized. For sociology such experiences are, in relation to those of history, complemen- tary experiences rich in explanatory theories which have, at least, the merit of being something more than mere con- jectures of the imagination, since they correspond to existing facts. It remains, then, for the historian to see whether he can assign to the forms only presented to him as already fixed the same genesis as he has been led to follow in the cases of analogous forms caught in the process of fixation. Do you call bold this ‘‘ complementary experience,”’ this partnership of sociology and history? We reply that ex- planation is only possible by means of hypotheses and that it is something to have hypotheses which are already proved. Do you call it indiscreet? We say that the collaboration attempted in this book is only the fulfilment of a wish long ago expressed by its chief author. Indeed, it is to studies by M. Moret, now fifteen years old, that we can turn for the outline of this complementary experience which we are going to attempt on the margin of history in order to illumine history. In those studies which he has collected under the title of Egyptian Mysteries, does not M. Moret himself show us how the problem of Pharaonic kingship, at first insoluble, only began to be clarified in the light of totemic analogies borrowed from primitive societies? ‘* Fifteen years ago,’’ he wrote,’ ‘‘the Egyptian monarchy presented an enigma which we almost despaired of ever solving. Like the Minerva of the fable who sprang fully armed from the brain of Jupiter, it appeared before our gaze at the epoch then called the most remote (2,800 years before our era) as a fully grown organism which seemed to have attained its complete develop- ment at one stroke and without effort.’? Then came the excavations of Petrie, Amelineau, and de Morgan, allowing us to penetrate farther towards the beginnings and to reach 1 XXXII, p. 143. 4 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION a native civilization of neolithic date. We could then see that, before being united under the rule of a king, Egypt included ethnic divisions, each with their gods and chiefs, and taking as their rallying emblems representations of animals (the falcon, dog, scorpion, etc.) and of plants (the rose, sycamore, palm). Hence the hypothesis advanced by Moret that these ensigns were totems and these groupings totemic clans. On the other hand, when power was con- centrated and royalty appeared, the king was regarded as the descendant of the totem, as embodying and represent- ing it. There then was the kingship linked with a whole past age which it seemed to recapitulate and embody. It ceased to be sprung from the void. And, in fact, our author a little farther on comes to this conclusion : ‘‘ This haughty Egyptian monarchy planted at the portal of history, which masks behind its impressive visage the extent of the past, was not built up in a day. It was made. . . in the course of the shadowy centuries stretching backward towards the un- known, to a time when Egypt was parcelled out among clans, divided into hostile tribes, but marching step by step from a democratic condition under the egis of the totems to a pure autocracy under the egis of the Pharaoh. How many centuries preceded that transformation? What was the turbulent history of those clans? How was the clan itself formed? Did it develop on the same lines as the totemic clans in other uncivilized countries? All these problems remain to be solved.’”* How shall we proceed to solve them? M. Moret was already then suggesting an answer in the terms of nascent sociological investigations on the one hand and of the character of the Pharaoh on the other. ‘‘ What there was of totemism in the social state of primitive Egypt,’’ he wrote,” ‘is no longer visible to us save as distorted and compressed within a single personality—that of the king. In archaic Egypt, society was already levelled down, and on the ground thus prepared the kings and priests will erect by the Pyramid Age the sumptuous edifice of absolute monarchy. . . . What he had become in the course of ages —son of the gods, himself a god, the sole owner of the soil, 1 XXXII, pp. 193-194. 2 [bid., p. 167. SOCIOLOGY AND HISTORY 5 dispenser of all favours terrestrial and divine, the sole inter- mediary between gods and men as magician and as priest, man’s guide on his earthly way and on the path which leads to heaven—the Pharaoh appears in history as the most formidable moral force ever conceived. All that was implicit in the revolution which allowed the king to appropriate to his own advantage the totem’s authority over the totemic clan and to concentrate in his royal person the divine essence of the race.’’ Now, such appropriation which presupposes totemism transforms it. The true totemic society, remarks M. Moret, knows neither kings nor subjects. It is democratic or communistic; all the members of the clan live in it on a footing of equality with respect to their totem. If, then, hereafter the king is Falcon and he alone is that, if the clansmen are his subjects and no longer his comrades, we have the proof that the ancient political organization of Egypt was at once marked by totemism and liberated from pure totemism. In other words, we must find, beside this individualization of totemism realizing itself in the Pharaonic incarnation, traces of a more ancient collective and un- divided totemism from which the individualization in question must have sprung by progressive stages. And, in fact, we meet both things in M. Moret’s studies. First, of course, comes the unification and incarnation of power; for that is the very essence of Pharaonic kingship. The Pharaoh is the Falcon, he is the totem and the only totem. At the same time he unifies the clans and absorbs all power in himself. M. Moret summarizes this double transformation very clearly:' ‘‘ The reconciliation of the clans and the subjection of the natives probably took place at the time when Menes built the White Wall to dominate the North and constructed the palace for his double at Negadah, a site midway between Buto and Hierakonpolis, the centre of Thinite Egypt. A curious transformation then seems to begin in the personality of the Pharaoh. Till then the king, the chief of a particular clan, chose for totem such an animal as is deemed to take part in the struggles. After the union of the Whites and the Reds the Falcon becomes the god who no longer comes down into the arena but remains calm upon his royal perch. The Pharaoh no longer 1 XXXIII, pp. 148-149. 6 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION treats the bird as a totem, a clan-chief, a comrade in battle. He worships it as a national god of unified Egypt, takes its name, identifies himself with it, and makes the Falcon the symbol of his authority and his first ceremonial title. How have the Falcon’s clan and its chief, the Pharaoh, come to absorb the other clans and the other chiefs? The result was not obtained without struggles and reciprocal concessions. The two ancient realms of Hierakonpolis and Buto secured for their totems, the Vulture and the Ureus, the honour of being chosen after the Falcon as the official titles of the king; the Rose of the south and the Bee of the north had the same privilege. The Pharaoh then bought his triumph by adopting, side by side with the Falcon, four of the ancient rival totems, which assured him in return their material and moral might. Some centuries more rolled by, and the theologians of Heliopolis undertook the task of unifying such disparate ideas by constructing the theory of divine dynasties founded by the sun Ra, confirmed by Horus the Falcon, and continued by their son the Pharaoh, ‘ the son of the Sun, who reneweth upon earth the years of the life of Horus.’’’ Here, then, was just the transition from federalism to centralization and, consequently, the limit of the process of individualizing sovereignty. This transition, furthermore, presupposes a prior process of individualizing power within the bosom of each federated clan to which we shall have to return. Let us note, further, that the same transformation at the same time overtakes the mythological conceptions and the organization of political power. We shall see farther on that in primitive societies the development of the idea of chief goes hand in hand with that of the idea of “‘ high god.’’ It is significant to observe that in the case of Egypt M. Moret has drawn attention to this nexus between the unification of the divine and that of sovereignty. He writes :' *‘ Side by side with the animal fetishes of the old tribes later promoted to the rank of national deities, appeared from the earliest days of unified Egypt a god whose cult was common to all the cities. Osiris, at first a multiform fetish—now tree, now bull—frees himself from his totemic origins; very early he clothes himself in purely 1 XXXIV, p. 78. SOCIOLOGY AND HISTORY 7 human form. Wherever shone the calm beauty of that countenance, the oval contour whereof was prolonged by the false beard and the tall white mitre, wherever rose the mournful outline of that body draped in the shroud, the hands, clasped upon the breast, grasping the whip of the ox- herd and the shepherd’s crozier, the Egyptians of all provinces recognized the ‘ chief of mortals,’ the ‘ Regent of Eternity.’ ”’ This unification and this personification, as we have said, evidently presuppose something behind them. M. Moret recognizes this: ‘* Before being unified under the domination of one king, Egypt had been divided. And of these ethnic divisions we know, at least, the emblems round which they rallied.’** These symbols are the ensigns, the totemic nature of which M. Moret affirmed, as we have seen, and the most important of them was the Falcon. But M. Moret admits, indeed, that the very existence of the Egyptian clans dis- tinguished by these ensigns is beyond question,” and that the totem was the providence of the Egyptian clan.* Still he is struck by one fact: it is that from the moment when anything besides simple vases with little or no decoration is found in the graves, as soon as monuments bearing in- scriptions or descriptive figures make their appearance, society is revealed as monarchical, and the monarchy shows itself to be already centralized. The Falcon at this very remote period is not so much the chief of a clan as the protector of the royal family, and, if it be a totem, it seems much more that of the king than of the group. In Egypt there is no longer any other Falcon than the king and his god. That is certain. But if it be admitted that the Falcon is a totem and that the Pharaoh holds a monopoly of it, it remains none the less true that to understand the monopoly we must, by induction in default of direct observation, refer to the object monopolized. Now, after communicating to us his difficulty, M. Moret himself puts us on the track of the explanation and that always from the purely Egyptian standpoint. He does not forget the principle which he began by laying down in reference to the Pharaonic monarchy: nothing is produced from nothing. And he observes that, despite the royal 1 XXXII, p. 145. 2 /bid., p. 152. 8 [bid, 8 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION hegemony and the monopoly we have seen implied thereby, a fragment, as he puts it, of the totemic ideal has persisted throughout the 4,000 years over which the Pharaonic dynasties lasted. It is the belief that an element existed common to the Egyptians, the king, and the gods. We must transcribe word for word the terms in which he defines this common element, this assumed source of differentiated sovereign power, since, as we shall see, they are exactly applicable to that idea of mana from which we shall show every sort of sovereignty among primitive peoples springs. Here, then, is how our author qualifies the Egyptian idea :* “‘ It is a sort of genius of the race and the whole of nature. It animates at once the matter in inanimate bodies, the flesh of animate beings, and the faculties of the spirit. In respect of the whole universe and all beings animate or inanimate, this genius which they called the ka (a word which, like genius itself, means generative force and protecting spirit) played the réle of common substance and collective soul. ... We believe, then, that, after the social and religious revolution that marked the transition from the totemic stage to central- ized monarchy, something of the primitive mentality had persisted in Egyptian society in this idea of the ka. The ka had prolonged primitive metaphysics, since it seems to be at once the very substance of an individual, his living and imperishable name, and his totem.”’ The ka—such, then, was the initial force, the force im- manent in all things and all beings, a monopoly of which the king ended by acquiring at the same time and for the same reasons as he had acquired a monopoly of the totem. But just this immanent force, before becoming the appanage of the kingship alone, was in primitive times and according to primitive metaphysics diffused among all beings, the very essence whereof it constituted. M. Moret shows us the use of the ka as a very usual name in the archaic period not only for the king but also for private persons, as is evident from certain stele at Negadah and Abydos dedicated to such and such individuals. If, then, in the historic period the ka and totem-falecon were embodied in the sole person of the king to form his divine Horus name, it is probable that in the primitive period the ka, like the totem, belonged to 1 XXXII, pp. 168-169. SOCIOLOGY AND HISTORY 9 everyone, and not to individuals only but also to things. ‘‘ The preponderance of the royal ka over the other ka would be explained,’’ M. Moret concludes,* ‘‘ by the progress of the monarchy. The notion of the personal ka peculiar to every man none the less survived in Egyptian society as the attenuated echo of a very ancient conception, that of a force common to all beings and all things which provided them with existence and nourishment.’’ And the ka thus appear- ing as originally the ‘‘ diffuse soul of the primitive clan,”’ our author asks how it is related to the totem. His task consisted, he declares, in assembling the Egyptian materials and framing the question. He left it to the sociologists. The reader will see that sociology, in taking up the challenge, does not aim at trespassing upon the rights of History in the least. It remains for us to show what light it can bring to the aid of History who invokes it. Now, it appears that the Pharaoh, at once Falcon incarnate and privileged and exclusive custodian of the ka, is extraordinarily like a person, the chief or king, whom sociology meets in primitive societies. But more—sociology sees his figure taking shape and individual power gradually growing by slow degrees out of a state of equalitarian communism and un- divided homogeneity that at first presents neither centraliza- tion nor personal sovereignty, properly speaking. From a social standpoint a power may be at first diffused throughout the whole group and then by a gradual concentration become organized and individualized. Of this process sociology, surveying the domain of primitive institutions, can offer an actual experience to history that may be instructive, for the latter finds Pharaonic kingship already formed and merely surrounded with a swarm of survivals that presuppose behind it a whole past, long and obscure, of preparation. With this idea of mana and its totemic symbolization, primitive societies present the exact replica of the primary notion of the Egyptians’ ka. And as the period of pre-individualiza- tion, which in the case of the ka and Pharaonic power escapes our view, is known in the case of mana and the totemic organization of society, you perceive what a con- tribution sociology may make. 1 XXXII, p. 217. 10 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION We make no pretence of giving here more than a general idea of that contribution as a whole. We are going then to show in broad outline, first, how certain primitive societies— Australian societies—are organized when power is not yet truly concentrated or individualized, and then in what way these pass from the totemic régime of diffused power to a centralized régime involving a personal sovereignty in the hands of kings or chiefs who absorb in it all the political and religious sovereignty originally diffused through the group from which it emanates just as Pharaonic kingship did. We shall then be identifying cases where the totemic clan, equalitarian and undivided, actually is, just as M. Moret inferred it ought to be in the case of Pharaonic kingship, the cradle of sovereign power organized and individualized. We shall rediscover the road which leads from clans to empires. ’ CHAPTER II TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION I THE CLANS Wuart, then, in the first place, are those clans which reveal to us the most rudimentary forms of political organization that we meet when we travel backward along the road that leads to centralization of power in early societies? Contrary to what might have been expected, they are not local divisions—not, that is, primitive forms of territorial organization. The village community or, in a still less artificial manner, spatial proximity does not in fact seem to be a primary mode of grouping among men. That is in- telligible when we recall that agricultural and sedentary civilizations are not the first that are known, and so it is quite natural that before their appearance the relation between man and a definite area of territory should not be the factor in social organization that it was subsequently to become. A multitude of signs conduce to the belief that, before geography, religion was called upon to decide the manner in which men should be grouped. ‘The original constitutional right is mystic in nature. It further may be shared in all the ways which are characteristic of mystic thought itself. That is why it appears vain to try and dis- tinguish, according to modern categories of thought, between political groupings and family groupings—vain, for instance, to make the family the primary cell of society and to con- struct genuine political divisions after the image of the family, the city becoming an enlarged family, and so on. No doubt the cohesion that unites the members of the first social groupings does not differ from kinship. That is due to the circumstance that this bond, like kinship, may be analysed into a sort of mystic communion which is not the physical community of blood on which kinship is normally founded. The first grouping which we meet in the lower societies, 11 12 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION the clan, is in fact a grouping, the function of which is at once—without there being any priority to seek—political and domestic, but the nature of which is mystical. Its cohesion arises from the fact that its members regard them- selves as bearers of one common totem and consequently one common name, made of one common mystic substance— that of their totem. All share therein and none monopolizes it, all are sprung from one common source, to which later mythology will give individual appearances, imagining that in a fabulous past the totem has been revealed to an illustrious ancestor of the clan who became, for that reason, the eponymous ancestor. In his memoir on the prohibition of incest, Durkheim defines the clan thus:’ *‘ A group of individuals who regard themselves as mutually related but who recognize this kinship exclusively by the very peculiar mark that they are all bearers of one common totem. The totem itself is a being, animate or inanimate, most com- monly an animal or a plant, from which the group is held to be descended and which serves at once as emblem and collective name. If the totem be a wolf, all the members of the clan believe that they have a wolf for ancestor and consequently they have something of the wolf within them. That is why they apply to themselves this denomination : they are Wolves.”’ The same definition is given by the author in his Elementary Forms of Religious Life,? with the emphasis this time on the denomination: what makes the clan is the identity of the name. This name, it will be said, is now that of the totem, now that of the ancestor. That is true, but it in no wise limits the essentially totemic nature of the clan. The ancestor’s name is still a totemic name, but one to which, as we have indicated above, a more developed mythology gives the form of an ancestral name in so far as it is to an ancestor, more or less individualized, that it attributes the merit of having procured the totem for the clan in question. For the clan the totemic origin and ancestral origin seem to amount to the same thing: the ancestor is never represented solely as he who has begotten his descendants and bound them together by community of blood. He is not the genealogical root—the family tree 1 IV, vol. I, pp. 2-8. * Op, 102 i: TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 13 can never in practice be traced. The ancestor is he to whom is due the common benefit of the totem in all cases where participation in the totem actually needs a sort of personal intermediary. The clan thus defined is, remarks Durkheim, a domestic society, since it is composed of people who regard themselves as sprung from a common origin. But it is distinguished from other kinds of family by the fact that the kinship in it is based simply and solely on community of totem and not on definite relations of consanguinity. Those who belong to it are kindred, not because they are mutually brothers, fathers, or cousins, but because they all bear the name of such and such an animal or plant, because therefore they have the same mystic nature. There is nothing territorial, it is clear, in this type of solidarity. The clan, primarily at least, has nothing about it smacking of the village or the tribe. Certain influences which we shall meet will, no doubt, make it change into a local clan. But this transformation can only be accomplished in so far as the clan lose its proper nature, which is totemic, consequently in so far as totemism disappear or be transformed. That is what will happen, for instance, in certain cases in Australia and very commonly among the Indians of North America. On the other hand, to pass from the clan to the family no such change of nature is needed. The primitive family is not, as is supposed, a restricted group of which the origin is marriage and the characteristic real consanguinity. It is a more extensive domestic group which, we say, is not founded on marriage but on participation in a totem like the clan. The primitive family is thus only a form of the clan specialized and differentiated hierarchically. This identity is revealed in the obligations attached by custom to the fact of belonging to a clan, which are nothing but the obligations of kinship, just as the relations between members of the same clan are relations of kinship in the mystical sense we have given to that word. These obligations include the duty of avenging injuries done to a member of the clan, the duty of joining in its worship, the most important duty of marry- ing outside the clan (exogamy and, from the point of view of the family properly so called, prohibition of incest), and the duty of abstaining from eating the animal serving as 14 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION totem. In Durkheim’s study of Totemism' will be found the reasons which led him to maintain the existence of these duties against Frazer and Spencer and Gillen, and to deny the existence in Australia of primitively endogamous clans. We shall return to the point further on. These obligations and others, nearly all of which have a domestic character, are yet attached to the clan and to it alone, and not to the family in the sense which we give to that word. The reason is that before the family properly so called—a narrower, specialized, hierarchical group, in which the feudal type of sovereignty obtains, a type con- sequently more artificial than the diffuse sovereignty of the clan—reaches maturity, the clan is the true family, that is to say, that legal society of kinsmen mutually united by community of name and worship and reciprocity of rights and duties. These rights and duties are those of kinship, but such as are not yet attached to the little actual group which the married couple and their children can constitute.” ** Undoubtedly the Australian clan includes already in its bosom more restricted families formed of a man, the woman or women with whom he lives, and their young children. But these are private groups which individuals make and unmake at their pleasure, which are not obliged to conform to any definite type. Society does not interfere in their organization. They stand in the same relation to the clan as the circles of friends or the natural families which we may found to-day do to the legitimate family.’’* The time is not yet ripe for a truly centralized political grouping nor for a _ patriarchal family with paternal authority. Such an authority implies a differentiation of the notion of sovereignty which is not yet achieved either in the domestic or in the political domain. The active and passive subjects of obligations are collective in the régime of the totemic clan. Power, like responsibility, still has therein an undivided character. We are in the presence of a com- munal and equalitarian society in the bosom of which par- ticipation in the same totem, which constitutes the essence a IV, V. > Cf. IV, I, pp. 328-831; Durkheim, XII, 149 ff.; and G. Davy, XI, pp. 84-35. 2 IV, I, 10. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 15 of each and the cohesion of all, places all members of the clan on the same footing. Let there be no mistake, however; this primitive absence of centralization and individualization does not imply an absence of regulation. If man is at bottom a social animal, he is also an animal with an instinct for rule; and this rule has at first all the severity of the religious taboo, which it really is, and all the complexity of imperfect organisms which do not yet possess either the ease or the simplicity of definite instincts. But to get an idea of this regulation and, at the same time, of the nature and social function of the totemic clans, the latter must be distinguished from other social groupings with which they are intimately connected—the phratries and the matrimonial classes. | II THe PHRATRIES. TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY The phratry on the terminology proposed by Durkheim is at once the initial totemic grouping from which the various clans are sprung, and the total grouping which embraces the plurality of such secondary clans. It is then, according to the same author, of totemic nature like the clan. ‘‘It is a primary clan which, in its development, has been led to sub- divide itself into a certain number of secondary clans, but without which these latter would loose the feeling of their common origin and of their solidarity. Consequently there subsist between them bonds which make the aggregate formed by their union a group endowed with a certain unity : that is the phratry as we observe it to-day. What specially shows that it began by being a clan, and a clan of this nature, is that it often has a totem of its own and that sometimes the totems of the different secondary clans embraced within it, are obviously derived from that which it bears. Hence the second is anterior to the first.’* In Australia it is a regular phenomenon that the tribes are divided into two moieties or phratries of this type, each 11V, V, p. 91. See also I, pp. 6-8; III, p. 334, with the reservation that phratry should be read where the author by a terminological slip has written class; cf. finally XIV, pp. 151-152. 16 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION forming a distinct moral personality and distinguished also locally by its camping-ground.* If the phratry is a totemic grouping like the clan, it follows that the law of exogamy applies in the same fashion to the phratry and to the clan, since this law is totemic in origin and itself one of the essential characteristics of totemism. Such is the thesis of Durkheim, while Frazer, on the contrary, contends that exogamy is quite independent of totemism. Frazer denies that it applies to the primitive clans, especially to those of the Arunta, in which he sees the most primitive organization of all, almost the absolute beginning of social organization.” For Durkheim, the primitive social organization is religious as well as social, and it is the religious character of the totem which confers upon it its efficacy as a factor in social regulation. The sexual prohibition pronounced by exogamy obliging men to marry outside their phratry or their clan is simply and solely a totemic inhibition. The monograph on the prohibition of incest, published in the first volume of the Année Sociologique, aims at providing a demonstration of this proposition. He starts from the idea of a totemic clan, as we have defined it, and finds in it the origin of the sexual prohibition which is to become exogamy : a man of the clan Wolf, for instance, cannot join himself to a woman of the same clan or to a woman of a different clan if the latter clan bear the same totem. And this prohibition is so stringent that the penalty which sanctions it is most usually death. Now we find ourselves in the presence not simply of two clans, but of a plurality of clans sprung from the subdivision described above and forming these two distinct groups which are phratries. And here sexual rela- tions are prohibited not only within each clan, but also between the clans of the same group in such a way that a man of any clan in the first group can only take a wife from one of the clans in the second. That is how the law of exogamy extends its sway from the clan to the phratry just as naturally as the phratry itself is sprung from the develop- ment of the clan. The members of the various clans of a 1 Cf. Spencer and Gillen, XLIV, pp. 31-32, 56-112; XLV, pp. 14, 70 f. * For Frazer’s theory, see his Totemtsm and Exogamy, vols. I, pp. 162 ff., 272 ff., and IV, p. 265. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 17 single phratry consider themselves brothers, while they treat as cousins those of clans of the opposing phratry. These very expressions remind us that the clan is a family within the limits defined above and that its solidarity is kinship. Hence the prohibition of incest and exogamy are primarily the same thing. Thus, clan, family, and phratry have one common totemic foundation, and are subject to the law of exogamy in the same way and for the same reasons. What are those reasons? Durkheim begins by remarking, in opposition to McLennan, Lubbock, and Spencer, that if marriage be exogamous with respect to the totemic groups (clan and phratry), it is generally endogamous with respect to the political society (tribe). ‘* This unfortunate confusion between the clan and the tribe, due to an inadequate defini- tion of both terms, has,’’ he writes,’ ‘‘ largely contributed to the obscurity which shrouds the question of exogamy.’’ If we can escape from this confusion, we see that exogamy in no sense implies the obligation of marrying a woman of foreign nationality and that it is not in the direction of politics that we must seek its explanation by attributing to some cause or other—the Malthusian practice of infanticide applied to girls, for example—the need for capturing brides from foreign lands. If exogamy characterize specifically totemic societies as opposed to political and _ territorial societies, it is in the nature of totemism that its explanation must be sought. Now, totemism is a religious system which implies a whole universe of ritual prohibitions or taboos of which exogamy is one manifestation. We know that the members of the clan are in a relation of mystic consubstantiality with the totem. Its essence is also theirs. But if this essence be incarnated in individuals, it resides more particularly in certain privi- leged parts of the organism and, above all, in the blood. Blood is then sacred as the vehicle of the totem, but by the same token woman’s blood is even more sacred than man’s; in fact, it is the woman in the system of uterine kinship— and that is the most widespread among Australian societies— who transmits the totem to her children. On the other hand, the physiological constitution of woman brings it about that st Vieni, Dp. ol, bo 18 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION by periodically losing blood she allows the sacred principle which she contains to escape and exposes it to the dangers of contact. It can be understood, then, that contact with woman should be absolutely prohibited. But since it is due to the sacred character of the totem, the prohibition applies only to individuals who belong to the totem and are con- sequently allied in the same cult and subject to the same taboos. For others the prohibition does not exist. And that is how marriage comes to be lawful only between clans of different totem. Such is Durkheim’s explanation of exogamy. ‘* We can explain,” writes Durkheim,’ ‘‘ why it comes about that the sexual inhibitions apply exclusively to members of one and the same clan. The totem, in fact, is only sacred to the faithful. They alone are bound to respect it who believe themselves descended from it and bear its emblems. But a strange totem has nothing divine about it. A man who belongs to the Hare clan must abstain from eating hare’s flesh and keep away from everything that suggests even the external shape of that animal. But he is free from any obligation in respect to animals worshipped by neighbouring clans. He does not recognize their divinity solely because he does not see ancestors in them. He has nothing to fear from them, just as he has nothing to expect from them. He stands outside their sphere of action. If, then, exogamy is bound up with beliefs that lie at the base of totemism, as we have tried to prove, it is natural that it too should be enshrined inside the clan.”’ Totemic and exogamous and exogamous because totemic, such then appears in the memoir which we have just analysed, the most elementary social unit we know, the clan. Some facts, however, soon come to contradict apparently the results just reached. Spencer and Gillen, studying Central Australia, discovered there a people—the Arunta—a people quite exceptionally primitive, according to these authors, because better protected than any other by a central situa- tion and a desert climate from the influences of whites, and yet a people totemic but not exogamous. Must not every explanation of exogamy be revised? Must not the primitive * IV, I, pp. 53-54. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 19 clan be conceived upon quite different lines to those just laid down, if it be true that in the most elementary organizations the clan is endogamous? A fresh start is indeed necessary according to the observers of the Arunta tribe themselves and to Frazer. And it is not only the explanation of exogamy, but also the idea of the clan, the very conception of totemism proposed by Durkheim, that they denounce as mistaken. But is it strictly true that the primitive Arunta clans have been endogamous and that it is thus necessary to review afresh the whole question of totemism? That is what Durkheim asks in a second monograph consecrated to totemism.* In it he seeks to defend his position against the critics we have just mentioned. Now, he remarks, if exogamy do not appear to-day as the law of the clans among the Arunta, it appears as that of those groups of clans which we have termed phratries. And of these we have said that, before being the groupings of subdivided clans, they had been their first roots. If, then, the phratry be indeed a totemic clan and be even the primi- tive clan such as existed before the plurality of clans result- ing from subdivision, and if the phratry be exogamous, it cannot be said that exogamy is contrary to the nature of the primitive clan. All that can be said is that the principle has ceased to rule after the subdivision of this primary clan, which was the phratry. But that would be to admit too much. If, indeed, none of the totemic clans is to-day confined exclu- sively within one of the two phratries, there are strong reasons for believing that it was not always so. There is still a special affinity between each clan and one or other particular phratry—an affinity which recalls the days of the totemic monopoly of the phratry. We find, for instance, significant traits such as these: the chief who presides at the intichiuma, the great totemic ceremony, must belong not only to the totem concerned, but also to the phratry to which the whole of this totemic group is attached. Similarly, the sacred objects, or churingas, may be transmitted from one totem to another on condition that they do not pass outside the phratry. Finally, the traditions of the Arunta—Spencer and Gillen recognize this—show us that originally each BF a 20 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION phratry was divided into a certain number of definitely totemic clans without the clans of one phratry being repre- sented in the other. Now, we know that marriage between members of the same phratry was forbidden. It therefore follows that when all the clans bearing the same totem were comprised within one single phratry, those clans were them- selves exogamous. If after that the Arunta tradition report that there was originally endogamy inside each clan, Durkheim replies that that is a myth invented to explain the current usage. Does not tradition make many other mistakes? For example, it relates, in flat contradiction to all that we know of primitive societies, that the plurality of clans is older than the division into two phratries. To sum up, exogamy among the clans must have existed formerly for the same reason as among the phratries, although that alone has survived. The Arunta are not so purely primitive as has been stated. They have evolved, and it is in the course of that evolution that exogamy among the clans has disappeared to make way for endogamy and to survive only between phratry and phratry. How has that happened? It must have been, answers Durkheim, because the exogamy of the phratry ceased to impose itself upon the clans depending on it, because some clans escaped from dependence on it to pass into the other phratry. Now this is precisely what has happened when patrilinear relationship is substituted for uterine. In fact, on the change in the system of reckoning descent, the children are incorporated in the phratry of their fathers instead of that of their mothers. But they do not change their totem because they change their phratry. They therefore import their totems into the new phratry which they enter and overlay the pre-existing ones with these. In this way the two phratries find themselves interchanging totems. There- after, since all the totems were represented in each phratry, the exogamy of the phratry was no longer sufficient by itself to guarantee the exogamy of the totemic groups. In other words, the obligation of marrying outside the moiety or phratry to which one belongs no longer implied the obliga- tion of marrying outside one’s totem. The clans no longer received the law of exogamy from the phratry. On the TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 21 other hand, as they themselves were weakened by being dispersed, as they lost their cohesion and moral unity and were no more capable of maintaining and enforcing this law of exogamy by their sole authority, they let themselves be converted to endogamy while exogamy persisted in respect of the phratries only. That is how observers may view the endogamous clans without, however, being entitled to draw with Frazer the erroneous conclusion that they had been endogamous from the beginning and that totemism does not imply or explain exogamy. Can it be said that in exogamy there is nothing else than this totemic taboo which we have just seen, pace Frazer, existed in the most primitive clan-organization known? Durkheim, who certainly thought so at the time when he wrote his monograph on the prohibition of incest, was later inclined to seek behind the totemic blood taboo a more objective and profound cause. This cause he ascribed to the separation of the sexes. We have ourselves endeavoured to show that it rested not only on the blood taboo, which remains verified in the case of Australian societies and others too, but also on a principle which seems to us very wide- spread in the primitive world, that of collaboration between the phratries. This collaboration takes the form of an obligatory interchange of customary dues in a sphere at once ritual, economic and legal’ Now marriage, like initiation ceremonies and funerals, is one of the occasions upon which this interchange is obligatory. And such interchange, then, takes not only the subsidiary form of an exchange of presents, but also the much more fundamental form of an exchange of husbands or wives between the opposing clans. We can discern here exogamy, which thus appears as a special case and undoubtedly one of the privileges of this obligatory collaboration of the phratries through the inter- change of customary dues.* Everything, therefore, leads us back to our first con- clusion: the clans and phratries, these communistic group- ings that lie at the basis of primitive social organization, are truly defined by these two features—totemism and exogamy—and these are complementary since the first explains the second. But, beside clans and phratries, the 1 See on this point our oz jurée, chap. II, part II. 22 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION structure of primitive society includes other compartments to be defined now; for without them the application of the law of exogamy would not be intelligible and consequently the nature of the exogamous clan and its social function would not be intelligible. These are the classes. 1 III Tuer CLASSES AND THE REGULATION OF MARRIAGE The classes, which Durkheim proposes to call matrimonial classes, are subdivisions of the phratry varying in number from tribe to tribe, sometimes two, sometimes four, to each phratry. The method by which they are recruited is regu- lated by the following principles: (1) in each phratry each generation belongs to a different class to the generation immediately preceding it; (2) the members of one class cannot in principle contract a marriage save in one special class of the other phratry.* Let us fill in the details. In each of the two phratries every clan is divided into two classes designated by a special name which is the same for all the clans of the same phratry. And in the clan each class corresponds to a different generation. Thus under the uterine system the child belongs to its mother’s clan, but is placed in a class of which she is not a member. What is the nature of these classes P Fison and Howitt have desired to assimilate them to the clan. But that is a mistake, since they have never possessed a totem. Others make the class a caste. But that is pure hypothesis. Finally, Ciinow,’ whose thesis has been adopted by Schurz,” sees in it a grouping of individuals of the same age. Durkheim has forcibly criticized this conception.* He concedes to Ctinow that it is certain that the position occupied in the clan by each member, his rights, and his duties do very largely depend upon age. But Ciinow draws other conclusions from this. He admits the existence of a special nomenclature, including one term for uninitiated children, another for initiated and married or marriageable adults, and a third for married people who have married 1 XIV, p. 153. 2 IX, pp. 144-165. * ALi. “TV, I, p.014,-and Vi. pp. S08, TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 23 children. It is to these distinctions that the classes corre- spond; and the matrimonial prohibitions attaching thereto arise, on Ciinow’s view, simply from an instinctive repug- nance to marriages between individuals too disparate in age. But if the classes really correspond to age, must not individuals change their class as they grow older? Ciinow answers: No—since thus the object of the class would not be attained. A man not yet quite promoted from the class of adults might marry a young girl just arrived in the class of marriageable initiates; for, despite their great difference in age, their position in the class would make marriage between them permissible. ‘‘ It would be,’ says Durkheim, ‘to prevent such a result that the Australians, according to Ciinow, had established the convention that everyone’s class should be fixed by a name for his whole life. In this manner the different age groups could, in fact, never unite, and be confused under a single heading since they bear different labels. Only Ciinow fails to see that in this way he undermines the very foundations of his theory, since then the classes no longer correspond to a division by age strata.’”? Shall we say that the aim of the classes is not to distribute individuals according to age, but to prevent marriage between descendants and ancestors? But if the classes effectively prevent a father from marrying his daughter, since she does not belong to the class from which he may take a wife, they do not prevent the union of a grandfather and oranddaughter. They must, then, have some other aim than to exclude marriage within the direct line of descent. What is certain is that they are connected with the regulation of marriage and that this regulation is even their sole reason for existing. They must not, then, be confounded with the politico-domestic groupings represented by the clan any more than with the groupings based upon age. That is the objection to adopting the terminology of Spencer and Gillen and of Howitt, who call ‘‘ classes’? what Durk- heim calls phratries, and ‘‘ sub-classes ’? what he calls matri- monial classes. ‘In fact,’? writes Durkheim, ‘‘ that gives the impression that the ‘ sub-class’ is of the same nature as the ‘class.2 Now that is not the case. The ‘ class ’—what we normally call the phratry—is a definite society having 11V, I, p. 1b. 24 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION amoral unity. There is often a phratry cult, as Spencer and Gillen tell us. It is probable that, at least in origin, all the totemic groups comprised within it recognized a common totem. In many cases it occupies a specific territorial habitat. The ‘ sub-class,’ on the contrary, does not in any sense constitute a moral personality. It has no rites peculiar to it, no totems specially attached to it. We believe, then, that it is desirable to designate by clearly different expres- sions groups so obviously distinct ; and, in conformity with our usual terminology, we shall continue to call a phratry what Mr. Howitt calls a ‘ class,’ and a class or, more specific- ally, a matrimonial class, what he calls a ‘sub-class.? We say matrimonial class because this group only manifests its existence in the way in which it affects the regulation of marriage. As to the word phratry, it has the advantage of calling attention to the family character of the relations uniting the members of each of these two fundamental divisions in the tribe.’”? Ciinow’s theory thus refuted and these distinctions established, it remains to see in what manner the division into classes affects the regulation of marriage and comes to define the application of the law of exogamy. By virtue of the law of exogamy the women of clan B marry men of clan A. On the principle of uterine descent the children of such women belong to clan B. But in virtue of the further principle that the woman as soon as married lives with her husband—that is, on the territory of clan A—it is in A that the woman has her children and in A that her sons live all their lives and her daughters until their marriage. The result is a general post between the clans; in the second generation, all the children who bear the totem of B and are perpetuating clan B are in clan A, and vice versa. At the third generation, a fresh interchange brings everyone back to the territory the totem of which he bears. Such is the outline of what happens in Australian societies under the system of uterine kinship: ‘* Thus,” concludes Durkheim,” ‘‘ each generation finds itself placed in different conditions to that which immediately follows it. If the first has been brought up on the territory of the clan whose name it bears, the next lives outside it—that is, in 1 IV, IX, pp. 357 f. 21V,)1,'p. 18. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 25 the other clan—but the third finds itself at home again. Since, then, the several generations of one clan pass their lives in social environments so different, it is natural that the custom of calling them by different names should have grown up. That is why one special name was assigned to. those who were born and remained upon their native soil and another to those who, while continuing to bear the characteristic emblems of the clan and remaining faithful to the same totemic cult, still did not reside in the place where the heart of that cult beat. ... In other words, each generation will form a class sui generis which will be distinguished by name from that which follows it. But the one which rises up in the third place will have the same name as the first, the fourth the same name as the second, and so on. Thus arises the periodic alternation between the classes.”’ And now the causes which explain the division of each clan into alternate classes help to explain the matrimonial prohibitions attaching to the classes. The classes of A who find themselves living in B and not having B’s totem seem to be able to marry in B, yet cannot do so in virtue of an extension of totemic exogamy, and because they are in too intimate moral connection with B; for, without sharing in its totem, they share in its existence and its territory. ‘*In a general way, a class of one clan can only contract a marriage with one single class in the other—namely, with that which is correspondingly situated—that of A which is born in A with that of B which is born in B, that of A which is born in B with that of B which is born in A. And as two successive generations can never be similarly situated in this respect, it follows that a woman can never take a husband nor a man a wife from the generation or class which succeeds hers or his.’’* The exogamy between classes is therefore only the exogamy between clans which has been propagated, and this propagation is caused by the amorphous and inconsistent nature of the clan. ‘* No one can tell,’’ continues Durk- heim,” *‘ at what exact point in space it begins nor precisely where it ends. All who have the same totem are parts of it wherever they be. Possessing no territorial basis, it could 1 Vv, I, p. 20. 2 Ibid. 26 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION not resist the causes which tend to split it up into distinct territorial groups. Now the usage requiring the woman to go and live with her husband in conjunction with the prin- ciple of uterine descent make this dispersal necessary. Every clan under the pressure of these two causes combined allows part of the generations rightfully belonging to it to settle outside it and receives to its bosom generations that are strangers to it.”? Thus new combinations are brought forth to which the law of exogamy extends and which constitute classes. If the fact of descent through the mother play the rdéle we have indicated in the formation of the classes, the latter must vanish when descent is reckoned through the father. In that case, children are born and bred in the clan the name of which they bear. The successive generations occupy mutually the same positions and there is no longer any occasion to draw a distinction between them. ‘* The duality of totemic group and territorial group has disappeared,”’ says Durkheim,’ ‘* whether the two have now become one or the first have ceased to exist. Now, it was this duality which produced the alternate combinations to which the system of classes corresponds.’’ That the classes disappear at the same time as the duality and with the advent of patrilinear succession 1s, our author, in fact, thinks, the inference to be drawn from the facts. Frazer, it is true, contests these facts at the same time as he disputes the evidence” invoked by Howitt. In his monograph on totemism*® Durkheim considers the ease of a tribe with four clans (two in each phratry). He explains how the law of exogamy applies to it. The tribe of the Arunta provides an example; it has two phratries and four classes. The first phratry embraces the two classes Bulthara and Panunga, the second the Kumara and Purula. Now, to express the law of exogamy ruling in this tribe it is not enough to say that men of the first phratry can only marry in the second; we must add that either of the two classes in the first phratry can only intermarry with one of the two classes in the second phratry. Thus, the class of Panunga in the first phratry has connubium only with the * EV ak. 7 TV, 1, .p.2), and «Vip. 102. 5 IV, V, pp. 82-121. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 27 Purula in the second, and the class Bulthara only with the class Kumara. Having assumed this, the author shows that for the system of reckoning relationship to change, it is necessary and sufficient that each phratry exchange one of its classes for the corresponding class of the other, the two other classes remaining in their original places. The arrange- ment of classes enjoying connubium Poratry I. Puratry II. which, under the system { Bulthara Kumara of patrilinear descent, is | Panunga Purula must, under the uterine { Kumara Bulthara system, have been Panunga Purula And it can in fact be proved that such a transformation has taken place among the Arunta. Consequently, their example shows clearly that the classes are produced, as we have explained, by the system of reckoning descent and that they are formed with a view to marital regulation. As to the eight class tribes, such as those described in Spencer and Gillen’s second book, they only offer a new type of classes ; the duplication there observed is produced, according to Durkheim,! by the substitution of masculine for uterine descent. The matrimonial prohibitions proper to the system of reckoning kinship which has disappeared survive it and are added to the system which replaces it. The cumulative result is that marriage is impossible unless fresh classes be created. Hence the eight classes. The principle remains the same. The whole difference is that the first system is produced by the system of uterine descent, and the second by the substitution of descent in the male line therefor. These eight classes do not in the least weaken the previous conclusion as to the nature of the classes and their matri- monial function. IV Tur System oF RECKONING DESCENT We have frequently had occasion already to speak of the manner of reckoning descent, and what we have just said about the classes shows what great importance it does possess. No one, then, can get a true idea of the manner in 11V, VIII, pp. 118-147. 28 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION which the clan is organized, of the persons whom it groups in fact and in right, and of the species of authority it exercises without having before him an accurate picture of what this system of reckoning descent is. Descent in respect of the totem may be reckoned in three distinct ways. It may be uterine: the child takes from his mother the totem which is transmitted to him automatically by heredity. It may be patrilinear: the child in that case takes his totem from his father. It may, finally, be local: the child then has for totem that by the influence of which his mother is believed to have conceived him ; and conception is supposed to take place when the woman passes in the neighbourhood of a tree, a rock, or some other place where an ancestor’s soul is hiding and watching for a chance to reincarnate itself. The latter variety of descent is very common among the Arunta, whom Frazer regards not only as the least advanced of the Australian aborigines, but almost as a radically primitive people. The reader knows that for him primitive totemism, which he calls conceptional for this reason, would be nothing but a theory of conception and relationship. Consequently, the mode of reckoning descent in question should likewise be the most primitive, and it is under the influence of external forces that it gives rise sometimes to patrilinear, sometimes to uterine kinship, but neither can lay claim to any priority in the genesis of the modes of reckoning descent. As we have already indicated above in referring to the theory of allegedly primitive endogamy, Durkheim, on the contrary, holds that the state in which Spencer and Gillen have studied the Arunta is far from being their primitive state, and the system of kinship and the totemism corre- sponding to it are a fortiori not primitive. Already,’’ he writes,’ “‘ after the bare facts placed at our disposal by the first work of Spencer and Gillen, we had been able to infer that there must have been a moment in the history of the Arunta people when their totems, instead of being attached to localities, were transmitted by heredity from mother to children.* This inference is definitely substantiated by the new facts discovered by Strehlow,’? which, indeed, just 7 LY er BOL. * Ct. IV, V, pp. 82-121. 8 Die Aranda, II, pp. 57-8. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 29 eonfirm the earlier observations of Schulze. In fact, both these authors tell us that even now each Arunta, besides his local totem, has another which is independent of any geographical condition, but belongs to him by right of birth —that is, the totem of his mother. This second totem, like the first, is regarded by the natives as a friendly and pro- tecting power which provides for their nourishment, warns them of possible dangers, etc. They have the right of participating in its cult. When they are buried, the corpse is so arranged as to face the direction where the totemic centre of the mother lies. That is therefore also, in some sense, the totemic centre of the deceased. And, in fact, the name of tmara altjira is given to it—a word which means ‘camp of the totem which is associated with me.’ It is therefore certain that among the Arunta hereditary totemism in the uterine line is not posterior to local totemism but, on the contrary, must have preceded it. For the maternal totem to-day fulfils only a subordinate and supplementary function. It is a second totem; and that explains how it could escape the notice of such attentive and expert observers as Spencer and Gillen. But for it to be able to hold its place thus in the second rank, being used as a double of the local totem, there must have been a time when it occupied the first place in the religious life. It is partly an expro- priated totem, but still one that recalls an epoch when the totemic organization of the Arunta was very different from what it is to-day. Frazer’s whole construction is thus under- mined at the base.”’ It therefore really seems that the facts about the Arunta are not contrary to the priority of uterine descent. Further, this negative objection surmounted, a certain number of proofs can be adduced in support of such priority. 1. The more rudimentary societies are, the more common is the matriarchal clan—i.e., that in which the children take the legal and religious condition of the mother. Durk- heim, in his monograph on the prohibition of incest, estimates that it is to be met four times out of five in Australia, and in America is twice as common as the patriarchal. 2. Transformations of uterine into patriarchal clans have many times been observed, while not a single case of the inverse transformation is known, those alleged by Boas 30 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION among the Kwakiutl being, in fact, pure conjectures which we think we have refuted by solid arguments in our Foi qurée. 3. Further, no reason can be found which might induce the father’s group to surrender its children to the advantage of the mother’s group. On the contrary, Durkheim has admirably shown the good reasons for which children might have been led to take the totem of the father in preference to that of the mother. In Australia the child is born and grows up amid its paternal relatives. We are, indeed, already acquainted with the custom which in the uterine system required the husband to take his wife to his home— that is, to the territory of his own clan. In such circum- stances the child, although theoretically attached to his mother’s totem, cannot fail sooner or later to fall completely under paternal influence. At the same time, the anomaly which leads him to bear a different name to the group with which he lives becomes glaring. Let the traditions of uterine totemism itself be weakened and this anomaly will quickly disappear to the advantage of the paternal name. Now, the facts do show that—among the Kurnai and Narrinyeri, for instance—the totemic tradition is shaken or even obscured where agnatic relationship is established. 4. When the clan is agnatic, sexual relations are forbidden not only with members of your paternal clan, but also with those of your uterine clan. That is, the old uterine inhibi- tions survive the change of system and are added to those implied by the new patrilinear régime. 5. A significant change is observed—for instance, among the Arunta—which reveals the women as despoiled of certain rights and privileges which they formerly possessed. Now, such decadence implies a past greatness, no doubt that of the time when the women perpetuated the cult and the family : ‘‘ Without meaning to maintain,’”’ says Durkheim,} ** that the system of uterine kinship is always and necessarily accompanied by a sort of matriarchy and gynecocracy, it is nevertheless certain that wherever it is in force the woman enjoys, if not a supremacy, at least a relatively high social position. ... ‘In particular, as each religious society is thus propa- 1 IV, V, p. 99. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 31 gated by them, women under that system quite naturally hold a more prominent position in religious life... . Now, among the contemporary Arunta, women are excluded from the ceremonies and kept almost completely outside the fold of the worship. But formerly they played a much more important part in this tribe. Traditions often depict them even as initiators. There are some rites they are supposed to have instituted, some totemic groups they have founded. A number of sacred objects are said to be derived from women of whom the myths preserve memories. Spencer and Gillen themselves note the contrast between the present and the past. ‘Many traditions,’ they say, ° can undoubtedly be regarded as evidence that in the past women have possessed greater privileges than at present.’ ”’ 6. Father and mother in the lowest societies each use different expressions to designate their children, sons or daughters alike. That must go back to a time when the relations of a child to his mother were quite different to those with his father. 7, The husband remains, in some respects, in dependence on his wife’s parents all his life long. He owes part of the products of his hunting to his father-in-law and to the children of his wife’s brothers, to his mother-in-law and to his mother-in-law’s father, and so on. Conversely, a taboo forbids his eating an animal slain by one of those persons. There is, therefore, a veritable tribute paid to the wife’s group. And that always implies an organization of uterine succession. Another indirect proof is derived from facts which are, so to speak, the opposite of these. On the authority of Rivers, as well as of Haddon, the Melane- sians make a brother designate the children of his brother and the children of his sister by the same name. They similarly identify the mother, the mother’s sister, and the brother’s sister. And all this arises just because the system of patrilinear kinship has been substituted for uterine kin- ship, and a child’s relations to his father’s sister, for instance, become identical with those which he bore on the uterine system to his mother’s sister. 8. Beside the obligations which weigh upon the husband in respect of his wife’s relatives, the rights and privileges conferred on the latter, and specially on the wife’s brother, 32 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION the uterine uncle, are particularly worthy of attention. This is the analysis we' have given of his position: ‘* In Melane- sian societies, as in a host of others, he is the keystone of the family vault, the centre of which is the mother, and of which he himself is the chief so long as the father’s part remains in abeyance, and consequently until the final advent of definite patrilinear kinship. A special word, wadwam, denotes him, and it is further applied collectively to all the mother’s brothers. He enjoys the following prerogatives : He has the power to stop a combat; he is possessed of eminent right of ownership over all that is possessed by the clan to which he is united by this bond of kinship; he even has the right to take from them certain objects which are yet their property without their being entitled to resist him; finally, he takes the first place in guarding the young initiate, and it is he to whom are sent the marriage gifts which the husband’s brother presents to the wife’s family. Frazer? points out that if the uterine uncle sees his nephew’s blood flow as the result of a fall, a cut, or a bite, he pronounces the words na kul, which give him rights over his nephew’s property. In the same way, if the nephew is bitten while fishing, the uncle takes his net; if he is wounded, the uncle may pay him a domiciliary visit and plunder his hut.”? 9. Finally and above all, the organization of the classes in Australian tribes presupposes the priority of uterine kin- ship. As we have shown in detail above on analysing the nature and function of the matrimonial classes, the system of four classes is necessitated by the existence of uterine kinship, and that of eight classes by the substitution of the patrilinear for the uterine system. The latter point, fore- shadowed by Durkheim in his monograph on totemism,? has been taken up again and developed at length by him in the special study which he has devoted to the Australian matrimonial classes.* 10. Till now we have been speaking of Australia and Melanesia. Among North American nations we find the system of uterine kinship so firmly established and current among such well-organized tribes that it must have been 2 XI, p. 87. 2 XVI, II, p. 66. > IV, V, pp. 106-7, ‘ IV, VIII, pp. 118-147. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 33 re-enforced by causes peculiar to these peoples. That is what happens, for instance, among the more northerly nations—the Tlinkit and the Haida. Boas and Swanton themselves are agreed in attributing uterine kinship to them. Not only does the uterine uncle occupy there his usual privileged position as head of the family, but certain tradi- tions even describe the tribal chief by the very characteristic expression town-mother. It is also, on the testimony of Swanton and Krause, the regular custom among these peoples that in case of war or disputes, husband and wife betray one another to their respective families. When one proceeds from north to south, and leaving the Haida reaches the Kwakiutl a complete change is perceptible, according to Boas. Then we meet people with a primitive patrilinear and local organization who are actually taking over uterine totemism from their northern neighbours, the Haida and Tlinkit. As we have already indicated above, this unique case of passage from patrilinear to uterine totemism is im- probable. And we refer the reader, not being able to re- produce it here, to the lengthy refutation we have given’ to the theory of Boas. Let us limit ourselves to summarizing the conclusions we believe justified on the two points which particularly concern us here—the transmission of forenames from grand- father to grandson, and the transmission of names and crests from father-in-law to son-in-law. In both cases among the Kwakiutl we have to do with uterine inheritance disguised. In the first case, a privileged person, the paternal grandsire, who stands as representative of the two lines, is used to pass by a trick from one manner of reckoning kinship to the other. In the second case, uterine inheritance, no longer capable of being transmitted directly by the female line, is transmitted indirectly to the children to be born by medium of a masculine holder, the son-in-law, who appears as destined to give heirs to the uterine line and to hand on to it names and privileges which he assumes provisionally. This, then, is how the transmission of forenames first introduces a patrilinear element into the matrilinear system. Let us imagine two lines—one maternal, the line Crow, and 1 XI, pp. 271-289. 34 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION the other paternal, the line Wolf—corresponding to the division into phratries still effective among the Haida and already extinct among the Kwakiutl, but yet implied behind the dust of their clans. To express these relationships let us consider the case in one generation of the son of a Crow mother and a Wolf father (exogamy, of course, requires that the father and mother belong to separate totems). Imagine a stage at which, as is for practical purposes the case with the Haida, relationship is still only reckoned in the uterine line. At this stage, nevertheless, the forenames will be handed on from grandfather to grandson. Here is the ex- planation we have suggested’ for this fact: ‘‘ Our son Crow will say: ‘I am a Crow by my mother and maternal ascendants (my mother’s mother, the mother of my mother’s mother). Relationship not being reckoned on the paternal side, I am nothing by my father, who is a Wolf. I am not a Wolf, but only a Crow. But if Iam nothing by my father, I am yet something by my father’s father, by my paternal grandfather; by him Iam a Crow. I can hold from him, for example, by way of forename such and such variety of Crow name. How is that possible if by definition no one yet reckons by males? Quite simply, because my paternal grandfather is at the same time—exogamy demands it—my uterine great-uncle (my maternal grandmother’s brother).’ It then merely remains to ask what causes him to retain— from the point of view of relationship—his quality of paternal grandfather in preference to that of uterine great-uncle. That can evidently only be due to the tendency towards reckoning by the paternal line of kinship. ‘** Now, to achieve this result without at first violating the rule of uterine succession, the father cannot be invoked, for he is perforce of the other line to his son—a Wolf when his son is a Crow. In the generation before, however, is to be found this privileged person, the paternal grandfather, who, qua uterine great-uncle, is, in fact, a Crow like my mother. Advantage is therefore taken of this double character. He is regarded as the transmitter of relationship without violat- ing the matrilinear rule since the relationship he is going to transmit to me will be precisely that of my mother, whose uterine uncle he is. Under a purely uterine system of reckon- 1 XI, pp. 287-8. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 35 ing descent, there would be no reason to mention the title of paternal grandfather to express a relationship. So we are actually in a period of transition.”’ This conclusion is verified by the second point we have mentioned—the transmission effected by Kwakiutl marriage. The father-in-law Crow transmits his wife’s name, Wolf, to his son-in-law, who is, in fact, at the same time his uterine nephew—according to archaic ideas if not among the Kwakiutl of to-day—in order that this son-in-law-uterine nephew may hand on to his son the name Wolf. The son-in- law, indeed, only enjoys the usufruct of the name which is to represent to the son the heritage from his maternal grand- mother transmitted through the agency of his father and his grandfather. As a whole, the transmission is uterine in principle. But in practice it is only the men who are capable of effecting it. As in the previous case, then, things are in course of changing. The difference is that in the previous case the transmission of forenames alone betrayed the change and caused men to enter the scene. This time it really seems that all sorts of transmission require men as agents. Still, the man’s role remains quite subordinate. He is only the executor, as we have explained. He has no proprietary right, only a trusteeship of the names and privileges which he is charged with transmitting. But that is a move in a specific direction ; soon he will be both executor and heir. He will no longer be agent only, but also author of a succes- sion which will become wholly patrilinear. Meanwhile, to this transitional réle which makes him a trustee and executor of the uterine heritage, corresponds— another sign of transition—a further manifestation of autonomy. He takes his wife to live with him. The indi- vidualistic and patriarchal privileges do not yet belong to the eldest male in the line as under a true agnatic system, but to the rich son-in-law who can pay a heavy cautionary deposit for holding on hire and deposit the uterine names and crests. These are conclusions with a double interest. On the one hand, they attest, in fact, the existence of a patrilinear system gradually usurping the place of an older uterine system, and establish thereby the priority of the uterine which we have asserted. On the other hand, in this transi- 36 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION tion they show an advance towards that masculinization and individualization of power which is our goal. We will return to this second inference later. For the moment let us keep to the first: the case of the Kwakiutl, far from constituting an objection, is, on the contrary, evidence in favour of our thesis. All their essential institutions—their precontractual system and their system of transmitting names, crests, and privileges—are explained as transitional institutions between the uterine and totemic system and the patriarchal and local system. In our book quoted above, we have attempted to work out traces of an analogous transition in the ancient law of Germany, Greece, and Rome. It is well known that on one special point—succession to the throne—Frazer has brought out some very curious survivals. **It would be neither unnatural nor surprising,”’ he writes,! ‘‘if among the ancient Latins female kinship sur- vived in the royal family after it had been exchanged for male kinship in all others. For royalty, like religion, is essentially conservative; it clings to old forms and old customs which have been long vanished from ordinary life.’’ And, in fact, Frazer points out that that is what happened in Ancient Greece and Rome. ‘“‘ It is,’’ he says,’ ‘‘ very remarkable that not one of the Roman kings was immediately succeeded by his son on the throne. Yet several left sons or grandsons behind them. On the other hand, one of them was descended from a former king through his mother, not through his father, and three of them—namely, Tatius, the elder Tarquin, and Servius Tullius—were succeeded by their sons-in-law who were all either foreigners or of foreign descent. This suggests that the right to kingship was trans- mitted in the female line and was actually exercised by foreigners who married the royal princesses. ... The children of such unions would inherit their mother’s name, not their father’s; the daughters would remain at home; the sons, when they grew up, would go away into the world, marry, and settle in their wives’ country whether as kings or commoners.”’ In Greece the same sort of custom is traceable. On the 1 Lectures on the Early History of the Kingshit, p. 249. 2 Jbid., pp. 231-238. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 37 testimony of Pausanias, two of the most ancient kings of Athens, Cecrops and Amphictyon, had married the daughters of their predecessors, and the sons’ destiny corresponds in reality to the law of uterine succession. They are perceived emigrating and scattering abroad in quest of a crown which they cannot find in their own family. Among a host of examples which Frazer cites we will quote that of Pelopids. ‘‘ Their ancestor was Tantalos, king of Lydia, but his son Pelops passed into Greece, won Hippo- dameia, the daughter of the king of Pisa, in the famous chariot race, and succeeded his father-in-law on the throne. His son Atreus did not remain in Pisa, but emigrated to Mycene, of which he became king. In the next generation, Menelaos, son of Atreus, went to Sparta, where he married Helen, the king’s daughter, and reigned himself over that country. Further, it is very notable that according to the old lyric poets, Agamemnon himself, the elder brother of Menelaos, reigned not at Mycenz, but at Lacedemon, the native land of his wife, Clytemnestra.’”* Frazer infers from this the existence of an Aryan usage allowing royal descent to be transmitted through women and not through men, and bestowing the kingship from generation to generation on a man of a different family, sometimes on a foreigner, who, by marrying one of the prin- cesses, would then reign over his wife’s people. ‘* The popular tale with many variants,’ says he, ‘* which relates how an adventurer arriving in an unknown land wins the hand of the king’s daughter and the half of his realm, may very well be a reminiscence of a real custom of the past.”’ The great difficulty in asserting the existence and re- constructing the features of this primitive uterine right which is supposed to have ruled the clan at first is that nowhere, no matter how rudimentary be the society under consideration, can it be isolated immediately and in a state of purity. It is chiefly by survivals and various indications that we are obliged to infer its existence. Sidney Hartland, one of the most renowned exponents of the theory of uterine right and matrilinear descent, gives express recognition to this. He is reduced to culling from all over the world 1 Of. cit., p. 240. 38 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION isolated facts which seem to him to be indications of the uterine reckoning without finding that system really function- ing anywhere. As everyone knows, this author has come forward to champion this theory of uterine right or matriarchy in an important work, Primitive Paternity, and in a quite recent little book, Primitive Society, has returned to the charge in order to defend his theory against the unfavourable deduc- tions which the facts about the Arunta allow to be drawn. This new book, however, brings forward no fresh evidence. If the demonstration be regarded as a whole, the value of a certain number of the proofs advanced, especially in Chapter IV. of the earlier volume, Primitive Paternity, cannot but be recognized. The reader is struck by cases where there is a complete absence of any kinship between father and sons, and consequently the possibility of the latter fighting the former, and by cases where there is a corresponding absence of kinship between brothers born of the same father. The following facts are no less striking: In Malabar a wife con- tinues to live with her own family; and when the husband is permitted to take her to his abode, it is only on condition that, if he die, she shall return at once to her own kindred and that even before the corpse has been carried out. On the other hand, a wife has no part in the funeral ceremonies and receives nothing from her husband’s estate. Again, in the same spirit it is reported that among many African peoples, when a married woman is murdered, the duty of avenging her falls not upon her husband but upon her own kindred. Likewise in the case of debts, the family of the mother alone and not the father can give a child as surety. Similarly, again, the father’s estate is not inherited by the children, but returns to the mother’s family. As to the uterine uncle, he possesses very generally the rights and privileges of which we have spoken above, and of which he preserves at least a part for a long time under the patri- linear system. Nevertheless, these facts do not form the chief basis of Sidney Hartland’s theory, which is mainly founded on his well-known conception of paternity among primitive peoples. In any case, this theory does not appear to us perfectly coherent. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 39 Durkheim! complains that this hypothesis bases maternity unhesitatingly on the physical evidence of the tie of blood, while in the case of paternity it very justly admits that relationship does not result from consanguinity. In what way, asks Durkheim, does maternity become an exception to the general rule? It might perhaps be answered that Sidney Hartland does not put the question in quite that way and that, if he exclude physical paternity, it is not because it is a tie of consanguinity, but because it is not perceived as a tie at all; primitive man, according to Hart- land, is absolutely ignorant of the procreative effect of the sexual act. This act, then, if irrelevant to procreation, could not establish any sort of bond at all between the man who performs it and the children who ultimately result there- from. But it may be questioned whether the savage’s ignorance of the efficacy of sexual intercourse is as certain as Sidney Hartland says; if without being a sufficient cause such inter- course is not still regarded as a necessary cause, a prepara- tory condition, of procreation. And, in any case, it may be asked whether such ignorance, presuming it to exist, is a sufficient explanation for the uterine family and system of kinship. Still, from the standpoint which concerns us, we are in no wise obliged to take sides in this controversy. We add to the host of other indications of the priority of the uterine system of kinship those which we meet in Sidney Hartland’s works. And, rather than the explanation he offers for this priority, it behoves us to emphasize what he rejects—namely, classificatory kinship interpreted in the sense of McLennan—that is to say, primitive promiscuity.” Therefore it is, in his view, not community of wives and the resultant impossibility of determining paternity with a view of basing authority and the right of hereditary trans- mission thereon that have produced the uterine family and uterine kinship. The latter are then not incidental to primitive anarchy, but correspond to a definite organization and regulation of the clan. Uterine kinship gives its peculiar conformation to the primitive clan, makes it a uterine clan, and imposes 21V, XII, pp. 411-2. 2 See XVIII, p. 12, and also XVII, I, p. 325. 40 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION upon it the system of matrimonial classes which we have described. Undoubtedly, some authors refuse to assign it such social significance, and they see in the transmission of the totem only a superficial fact affecting neither the structure of the society nor the essential relations which give it cohesion. Such, for instance, is Ciinow’s standpoint. According to him, the uterine family is only a relatively late phenomenon, the appearance of which synchronizes with the introduction of agriculture; there is thus no occasion to base it on the transmission of the totem, the sole object of which would be to prevent incestuous unions. Durkheim has forcibly assailed this view which misapprehends the importance of the totem and the totemic grouping.! ‘‘ Far from being merely a conventional sign,’’ he writes, “‘ the totem is the symbol of the religious life, and there is nothing in such times over which religion does not extend its sway. Consequently, the transmission of the totem in the female line is of capital importance for the constitution of the primitive family. Wherever it occurs, it attests the existence of uterine clans. And as it is much more common among the lower races, everything concurs in demonstrating that the primitive fact is that, at the beginning, the clan was recruited exclusively through the women. But, if long before the introduction of agriculture, the child followed its mother in everything that concerns the most fundamental social relations, uterine kin- ship is not due exclusively to agricultural civilization.” Two conclusions follow: the uterine system is original, and it is constitutive of the clan. Abstraction made of the divergences in explanation, this important view is common to Durkheim and Sidney Hartland. The latter has given a synthetic tabulation of this system,” in which he recognizes the following characteristics : (1) Descent and, consequently, kinship are reckoned exclusively through the mother. (2) Uterine society is divided into clans embracing men and women who are related through the mother and mutually treat one another as brothers and sisters. The descendants of sisters, but not of brothers, belong to the clan. (8) Ex- ogamy is the law of these clans. (4) The avenging of blood is for them a collective obligation, as in every kind of clan. IV, II, pp. 316-317. * XVIII, p. 32-37, TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 41 (5) In the clan authority belongs theoretically to the mother, but is rarely exercised by her. (6) It is most commonly exercised by men who are not their husbands, but their brothers (the children’s uterine uncles) or their own sons, Such men have descendants in the opposing clan. They are, therefore, never fathers of the children of the clan in which they live. (7) After marriage the husband either con- tinues to live with his mother and her family, limiting him- self to paying visits to his wife (in the other clan), or else he goes to live with his wife in her clan and in dependance on her relations. In such a case we have what is called ‘“matrilocal®? marriage. (8) Property and functions are handed on from maternal uncle to nephew or niece and niece’s children, or again from brothers and sisters to brothers and sisters. These characters are obviously theoretical and are not met pure in any uterine clan, for the simple reason that patrilinear organization and local organization must very soon react upon uterine organization. But they have the advantage of setting up an ideal type of uterine clan and allowing us to recognize and appreciate the survivals which it leaves in the paternal régime—survivals which, to speak the truth, constitute its most concrete manifestation. The uterine clan, therefore, appears primarily as a sort of limiting case. That is the danger of attempting, when its existence has been legitimately inferred, to picture it as actually yielding in a primitive reality all the fruits which the theory seems to attribute to it. To that danger Bachofen, for instance, has fallen a victim, speaking of matriarchy and gynecocracy where he should only have spoken cautiously of clans constituted by uterine kinship. It is all the more difficult to maintain the proper restraint since the criterion of facts very often eludes us. Without going so far as to talk of matriarchy, it is reasonable to inquire whether the exceptional legal position that the uterine régime conferred upon woman did originally raise her status and endow her with privileges and a measure of authority. On that point, Durkheim’s ideas have remained very tentative, as is natural in the case of facts so complex and so dubious. His conclusion in the monograph on the pro- hibition of incest and contemporary articles is categorical 42 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION and negative. ‘*We have not the least intention,’? writes he in the monograph in question,' “ of maintaining with Bachofen and Morgan that in principle each little family group was centred round the wife and not the husband, that it was in the mother’s abode and under the direction of the maternal relatives that the child was brought up. Facts show positively that in Australia such an arrangement is contrary to the ordinary usage. We only meant to speak of the group of which the totem is the base. Now, we hold it indisputable that originally the totem was transmitted exclusively in the uterine line and, consequently, that the clan was composed only of descendants through women.” Uterine transmission of the totem, that was the minimal assertion. The scope of this assertion was reduced as far as possible in another contemporary passage,” where the ‘author specially commends Grosse, the author of an im- portant work on the evolution of forms of the family, for having well expounded the extreme rarity of matriarchy. ‘** Wherever the child follows the mother,’ says he, “the wife is in a state of subordination and inferiority in respect to male relatives in her own family as she is again in respect to her husband and his relatives. It is the maternal uncle or the brothers on the maternal side who govern the child. {t is not the mother. In a word, the respective positions of the two sexes do not appear to differ from what they are elsewhere. What is peculiar to this type of family is the relative position of the husband as compared to the wife. It could not, therefore, be explained by the rdéle of the wife in economic life.” Later the same author seems less categorical and more inclined to allow the wife a preponderant moral and legal place in the clan under uterine kinship. ‘‘ Without intend- ing to maintain,’? he declares,’ “that uterine kinship is always and necessarily accompanied by some sort of matri- archy and gynecocracy, it is nevertheless certain that, where it is the rule, woman enjoys, if not a supremacy, at least a relatively high social status.’? And, as cult is then perpetuated by women, our author recognizes that they naturally occupy a privileged place in religious life. To what extent is the situation of woman under the IV, I, p. 22. 2 IV, I, p. 325. *1V, V, p. 99. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 43 uterine system one of legal and moral privilege? That is obviously a question of degree, and the answer will vary with the tribes and their conditions of existence and the influences to which they are exposed. But, however un- favourable to feminine privileges the answer may be, and however complete the wife’s subjection to her male uterine relations, it remains none the less true that it is uterine kinship which gives its distinctive features to the clan; it is, in fact, that which determines who are members of the clan, just as under the agnatic system it will be kinship through males. We have also seen that a very common system is the transitional one, in which both reckonings are combined. Now, kinship is not only a quite external prin- ciple of classification destined to determine by difference of name who belongs to such and such a grouping. It is a bond of unity with the clan. But we know that what makes the clan is the mystic community of the totem. It is, then, kinship which in each generation creates new totemic com- munions—from the point of view of the family, new relation- ships. It perpetuates totemism in the clan across the succes- sive generations: it thus perpetuates the clan itself. The reader can now see that we were justified in assert- ing above that an understanding of the system of kinship was indispensable to a comprehension of the totemic clan. Even when it is local, as in the case of the ‘* conceptional totemism ’’ of the Arunta, which assigns to the child the totem of the place which his mother has passed in order to conceive him, kinship does not, in fact, connect the child with this place, but with the ancestor who was awaiting reincarnation at the spot. And as this ancestor is himself a totemic personage, it is always the totemic principle the continuous existence of which is ensured by the several modes of reckoning kinship, whether through the influence of proximity to sacred places, or through the female line to which it is at first attached, or through the male line in which it subsequently makes its home. 44. SOCIAL ORGANIZATION V EXPLANATION OF TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION: ITS PRINCIPLE AT ONCE SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS We are now acquainted with the main features of totemic organization ; it only remains to explain the nature of the principle which underlies it. What in itself is the principle of which the totem is the symbol? Is the totem the ancestor in the personal and mythological sense of the word and con- sequently the god who protects and founds the clan that bears and perpetuates his name? That is, no doubt, an attractive solution, for it would refer the foundation of the city and its religion to ancestor worship. But such a solution assumes that the primitive totemic clans knew such ancestors and, consequently, that individual totemism is the most archaic form of totemism. This thesis is dear to the hearts of American anthropologists, who derive the clan’s collective and undivided totemism from manitous individuals, divine heroes who would have revealed the totem to the group which became that of their disciples and descendants. But such a manner of regarding the subject is open to most serious objection. The totem possessed personally by the individual is one thing; the group’s totem, no longer an individual, but a collective totem which endows the group with cohesion and constitutes its very essence, is something else. Genuine totemism is of the second kind. The first is a sort of fetishism, or a deriva- tive form of the second; for the theory of the priority of individual totemism comes to shipwreck on certain facts. In the first place, the strict distribution of the totems and subtotems among the phratries and clans is incompatible with an origin in the choice of individuals and attests a collective organization. On the other hand, if individual totemism were really primitive totemism, it ought to be met principally among the least advanced peoples. Now, on the contrary, it is collective totemism that is found among such, as the example of Australia shows. There collective totemism reigns alone in almost all the tribes, while the privilege of the enjoyment of individual totemism is not found among any of them. The totem is not, therefore, in origin an ancestor; it is TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 45 a collective and undivided principle, the cohesive force, as it were, immanent in the clan, the diffuse soul of the clan. Is this impersonal collective principle, immanent in the clan, deified in the strict sense of the term? Does it become the object of a cult and make totemism a religion, the most elementary of all religions ? Durkheim answers in the affirma- tive, Frazer and Loisy deny it. Durkheim is at pains to demonstrate that the totem is not only the name and emblem of the clan’s members, but that it also possesses a sacred character and is the type of the sacred things. He points to it engraved on the sacred instruments, the churingas, a sort of bull-roarers which are whirled and made to whistle, the note emitted by which has magic properties. The totem is also carved upon the sacred posts. And it is the totem which confers their sacred char- acter upon these instruments and posts as upon bodies on which its likeness is tatooed. Human blood would likewise be held sacred in so far as it serves as the totem’s vehicle. And, in a general way, beings of the totem’s species and the clan’s members, too, would be sanctified by reason of the relations with the totem which they enjoy. There is nothing in the universe which is not embraced within the totemic system, which thus forms a sacred cos- mology completing the religion of the totem. ‘** The circle of religious objects,’’ writes our author,’ ° extends far beyond the limits within which they at first seemed to be confined. It includes not only the totemic animals and the human members of the clan, but, since nothing exists which is not classified in a clan and under a totem, there likewise exists nothing which does not receive in varying degrees some reflected religious character.’? The same religious character, then, compenetrates the first social grouping, the essence of which is totemic. ‘‘ The members of a single clan are not united by community of habitat nor of blood, since they are not necessarily blood-relations and are often scattered over various tracts of the tribal territory. Their unity, therefore, springs solely from the fact that they possess the same name and the same emblem, that they believe themselves to be related in the same way to the same categories of objects, and that they practise the same rites—in a word, from 1 XIV, p. 219. 46 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION the fact that they have communion in the same totemic Cnty i It remains to ascertain what constitutes the sacred char- acter of all the miscellaneous objects to which, as we have just seen, this cult extends—that is, of the figured representa- tions of the totem, of the animals and vegetables the name of which the clan bears, and of the clan’s members. Durk- heim replies :° ‘* Since all these objects are sacred for the same reason, although in different degrees, their religious character cannot be inherent in any of the peculiar attributes that distinguish one from the other, nor in their intrinsic properties, but in a principle which is common to them all indifferently. ... It is to this common principle that worship is really addressed. . . .. In other words, totemism is not the religion of such and such animals or men or images, but of a sort of nameless and impersonal force which recurs in each of these beings without, however, fusing with any of them. None possesses it completely and all partici- pate in it. And it is so far independent of the individual subjects in which it incarnates itself that it precedes them as it survives them.”’ But if it be, in truth, such an impersonal force that the Australian represents to himself in the material species of the totemic animal, ought he not to form some notion of it himself? As far as the Australian is concerned, our author does not think so, but the Australian’s more advanced brothers, the Melanesian and the American Indian, although impregnated with totemism, do, in fact, attain to the idea ~ of a common force diffused among all beings united by totemic kinship. They call it by various names, of which the best known is the Melanesian mana, that savage replica of the Egyptian ka, which we have already forecasted. This notion, already very widespread, could only disentangle itself against a background of federalism. It could then only exist potentially in the particularist environment of the Australian clans. It is well known with what penetrating insight Hubert and Mauss have studied this notion of mana, and have ascribed to it a nature both religious and magical. ‘The + XIV, pp. 238-9. 2 Ibid., pp. 268-9. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 47 word mana,’ they write,’ ‘‘is common to all the strictly Melanesian languages and to the majority of the Polynesian tongues too. Mana is not merely a force, a being, it is also an action, a quality, and a state. In other terms, the word is simultaneously a substantive, an adjective, and a verb. People say of an object that it is mana, meaning that it possesses that quality. In this case, the word is a sort of adjective (it cannot be applied to a man). People say of an entity, man, spirit, stone, or rite, that it has mana, the mana to do this or that. To Mr. Codrington, it [the idea of mana] extends to the whole of the magic and religious rites, to the whole of the spirits of magic and religion, and to the whole of the persons and things taking part in the whole of the rites. Mana is properly that which constitutes the value of things and people, magic value, religious value, and even social value. The social position of individuals is in direct proportion to the importance of their mana; this applies especially to their position in the secret society. The im- portance and inviolability of taboos upon property depends upon the mana of the individual who imposes them.”’ Further on (p. 111), the same authors explain how we can even succeed in widening still further the meaning of the word and say that mana is the force par ewcellence, the veritable potency in things which re-enforces their mechanical action without annihilating it. It is mana which makes the net catch, the house stand fast, the canoe be seaworthy. It is the fertility in the field and the healing or deadly virtue in drugs. In the arrow it is mana that kills. And in this case it is represented by the death-bone with which the dart is armed. Let us remember that tests by European medical men have shown that the poisoned arrows of Melanesia are simply enchanted arrows, arrows with mana. Yet they are held to be poisoned. It is clear that their real deadliness is attributed to their mana and not to their points. Mana appears here as a quality added to things without prejudice to their other qualities, or, in other words, as something superadded to things. The surplus is the in- visible, the marvellous, the spiritual, and, in short, the spirit wherein resides all power and all life. It cannot be 1 < Théorie générale de la magie,” LV MILE pe 108. 48 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION the object of experience, because it really absorbs experience ; the rite adds it to things and it is of the same nature as the rite. It is at once supernatural and natural, since it is diffused through the sensible world, where it is heterogeneous and yet immanent. The magic, religious, and social nature thus conferred upon things by mana is evidently not an intrinsic property of the things which could be detected by an analysis made of them or by simple experience. We have just said that it is superadded to things; that is to indicate that it is only attributed to them in the common representation of consciousnesses which think them thus transfigured and dignified. Hubert and Mauss explain that very clearly in the case of all the magic virtues which judgments ascribe to the entities—things, individuals, or rites—of magic. ‘* What imposes a magical judgment,’’ they write,’ “is a quasi-convention which lays it down in advance that the sign creates the thing, the part, the whole, the word, the event, and so on. In fact, the essential point is that the same associations are reproduced necessarily in the minds of several individuals, or, rather, of a mass of individuals. The universal and @ prior character of magical judgments seems to us to be the mark of their collective origin.’’ In social matters it is Just the same. The efficacious value of the totemic bond, for instance, as constitutive of cohesion of the clan and of relationship in the family group is created by the mystic and collective representation that the com- munity of the group itself forms of it. Thus it is not the elements which appear to us as the real constitutive moments of paternity or kinship—the sexual act or physical con- sanguinity, for example—that appear as such to primitives. In the light of this we can understand the meaning which the idea of mana may have behind the totemic repre- sentation symbolizing it. It is the very essence, the might, and the sovereignty of the clan. Now, it is precisely of this nameless, diffuse, impersonal force, the genesis of the notion whereof we have just traced, that Durkheim makes the following assertions: (1) It is the source and prototype of that which all religions will assume as sacred and will then individualize in the guise of divinity. 1“ Théorie générale de la magie,’? IV, VIII, p. 126. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 4.9 (2) It is nothing else than the collective might inherent in every group qua corporate group, and it therefore constitutes the social being of the primitive clan represented as its sacred being under the varieties of the totem. ‘* The totem,”’ he says,’ “‘is, on the one hand, the outward and visible form of what we have called the totemic principle or god. But, on the other hand, it is also the symbol of that specific society which is called the clan. . .. If, then, it is at once the symbol of the god and of the society, is it not because the god and society are one? ... Theclan god, the totemic principle, cannot then be anything else but the clan itself, but the clan hypostasized.”’ Totemism, the tangible image of the impersonal and abstract principle of mana, therefore possesses a double virtue in Durkheim’s eyes, at once religious and social. We could not dissociate the two things save at the cost of dis- torting our author’s thought. But they are, nevertheless, not necessarily inseparable—at least, not so absolutely as Durkheim implies. His apotheosis of society, hypostasized as divinity and exalted to be the unique source of everything that can be regarded as divine, has been keenly contested by a great number of authorities and can, in fact, only be offered as an explicative hypothesis. Above we have cited Frazer and Loisy who, among others, reject such a hypothesis. But the same Frazer who denies totemism any sort of religious character,” yet assigns it an important role as a factor in the primitive social bond :° ‘Tf totemism,’’ he wrote, ‘‘ has apparently done little to foster the growth of higher forms of religion, it has probably done much to strengthen the social ties and thereby to serve the cause of civilization, which depends for its progress on the cordial co-operation of men in society, on their mutual trust and good will, and on their readiness to subordinate their personal interests to the interests of the community. A society thus united in itself is strong and may survive. The tendency of totemism to knit men together in social groups is noticed again and again by the writers who have described the institution from personal observation. 1 XIV, p. 294. 2 Cf. XVI, IV, pp. 5 and 27. 3 Jbid., IV, p. 38. : 4 50 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION They tell us that persons who have the same totem regard each other as kinsmen, and are ready to befriend and stand by one another in difficulty and danger. Indeed, the totemic tie is sometimes deemed more binding than that of blood. A sense of common obligations and common responsibility pervades the totemic clan. Each member of it is answerable even with his life for the deeds of every other member ; each of them resents and is prompt to avenge a wrong done to his fellows as a wrong done to himself. In nothing does this solidarity of the clan come out more strikingly than in the law of the blood feud.”’ Totemism is therefore in every way a very active ferment engendering social solidarity. Frazer even tells us that in the bosom of the clan the totemic bond is more potent than the bond of blood. But he does not explain why, and he does not tell us how the clan could have been led to form its cohesion and its internal relationship by means of a kinship of the nature of the totemic. Undoubtedly in his first study on totemism—1.e., in the article written in 1886 for the Encyclopedia Britannica and completed to appear in book form in 1887 and reprinted, although partly disavowed by its author, in vol. i of Totemism and Exogamy—in his analysis of the social aspect of totemism, Frazer insisted that the totemic tie is more solid than the tie of blood or of the family in the modern sense." He based his conclusions on the examples of the tribes of West Australia and of North-West America. In these tribes, in fact, as he explained, the local group was necessarily composed of members belonging to at least two different clans in virtue of exogamy. As a result, it ran the risk at every moment of seeing its totemic elements dissolved by the advent of a blood feud. Such an event ranged husbands and wives in opposing camps, and divided children against their fathers or against their mothers according as to whether descent was reckoned through women or through men. But these explanations only succeeded in vindicating, without genuinely explaining, the power of the totemic bond and the imperative nature of the obligations to which it gave rise. The question then remains: why is the totemic + XVI, I, p. 58. TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 51 tie originally a more potent bond than the tie of blood or of vicinity? In other words, how does the totemic bond acquire its position of privilege in constituting the first solidarity of the clan? The answer seems simple enough. The clan has at first no means of ensuring its cohesion or of defining itself save by adopting a totemic name and emblem. Durkheim rightly points out that it cannot define itself by its chief, since power is still quite diffuse and in no sense individualized. Nor can it be defined by the locality it occupies, because nomadism prevents its being sufficiently attached to a specific locality, and also for the reason that Frazer has just suggested: because the law of exogamy compels husbands and wives of different totems to live together in the same family—and on the same territory when territorial fixation have advanced that far. As to consanguinity in the physiological sense, it cannot suffice for the purpose in itself, because the primitive with his mystic mentality cannot imagine it as effective. His ideas of re- incarnation and of conception stand in the way. Blood is to him much more the mystic vehicle of the essence of the species or of the genius of his ancestors than the organic element nourishing physical life. Durkheim tells us* that **the unity of the group is only perceptible thanks to the common name which all its members bear.’’ But it would evidently involve a misapprehension of all the element of magic in primitive thought not to admit that this common name is the symbol of a common nature in which all bearers of the name share. Therefore, after inquir- ing why the totemic denomination and emblems should define the primitive clan better than anything else, we return to this notion of a common and impersonal nature which is the reality symbolized by the totemic name and which we have above called mana. The virtue superadded by mana to the intrinsic qualities of the group and its constituents when the group tries to define itself and to assert itself, is not merely, as Frazer contends, the surplus of material or even moral power which union produces in time of danger. In the case of this mana, as with that which animates magic, it is a power, mysterious, collective, and immanent not only in the present members of 1 XIV, p. 333. 52 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION the clan, but in the whole line of its ancestors. And this mysterious, ancestral, and superior power cannot but be thought in a religious form by the primitive’s mystical men- tality, and can consequently only be regarded as a sacred principle. It is, then, impossible with Frazer to deny the simultaneously religious and social character of totemism. But, on the other hand, let us remark that this religious character which we attribute to the principle of cohesion in the primitive clan does not take us outside the domain of the explanation of primitive social organization, and does not prejudge any theory on the origin of religion. We, indeed, assert that the primitive categories of social thought are not only not emancipated from religion, but still only exist through it. But that is not to affirm the converse, that primitive religious categories are nothing else than a mode of translating the essence and structure of the social group. In other and simpler terms, to say that the social mana which forms the essence and cohesion of the clan can only be represented under the guise of a sacred principle, a religious force, is not to say conversely that every sacred principle is a social principle. To treat these two proposi- tions as identical means, in the end, the apotheosis, the deification of society; it is to assume that the clan and only the clan is god. It is for this postulate that Durkheim has been so bitterly criticized. Obviously, then, it is desirable to dissociate, as we have just done, such a postulate from the religious and totemic explanation of social origins. Is not this explanation in itself speculative enough to deter us from duplicating it unnecessarily by a second hypothesis which to us seems quite unneeded to support it? This latter explanation certainly attributes a religious, as well as a social, character to the totem; it is not thereby obliged to postulate a monopoly of this religious character by the totem and can leave open the question whether other trans- cendent forces, such as the powers of nature, may not possess the same character in the eyes of the primitive and appear to him as equally sacred. We now know the main features of totemic organization, and we have isolated the principle on which it is based. We are therefore in a position to understand that character, at once communal and regulated, which we assigned to it in TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION 58 describing the structure of the clan. We had said that any centralized power was absent therefrom and that, despite its homogeneous and amorphous character, it nevertheless represented neither anarchy nor promiscuity. We saw, indeed, that membership of the clan implied obligations and that, far from promiscuity being the rule, marriage was not only regulated by the law of exogamy, but regulated in the most strict and extraordinarily complex manner— that is, through the system of classes. We saw that these obligations and regulations, as well as the customary dues interchanged between the phratries, were collective. We now understand how they can be obligatory while remain- ing collective and anonymous. It is because they were im- posed by a far more imperious command than that of any individualized chief, through this diffuse impersonal force, mana, the principle of cohesion in the clan, immanent in all its members and regarded by them with a religious awe. In attempting to retrace the genesis of political power, we therefore speak of sovereignty before speaking of chiefs properly so called. The sovereignty we speak of is as national and democratic as possible in the sense that it is diffused through the whole group without being really con- centrated at any one point. Why this immanent, anonymous, collective character ? Because the individual, in whose hands alone concentration could be effected, does not yet live a life separated and distinct from that of the group. Not that his original absorption in the group is, as Herbert Spencer alleged, the result of artificial constraint necessitated by the state of war and exercised by a military despotism. This primitive effacement of the individual, and the resultant absence of concentration of power, correspond to the type of society which the totemic organization, just analysed, offers us. As Durkheim has noted, this primitive effacement of indi- viduality only renders its progressive development in the bosom of society more intelligible; for, if the individual arise out of the group by incarnating it instead of first asserting himself in opposition to it in order to dominate it, his authority is quite naturally accepted, appearing as a delegation of the authority of the group. This is a point to which we shall return in studying the transformation of 54 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION communal totemic organization in the direction of concen- tration and individualization. But this study must begin with that of another organization than the totemic—the territorial organization which is to react on the former and facilitate its evolution in the direction of concentration and individualization. CHAPTER III TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION IN RELATION TO TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION Tur totemic is not the only organization encountered among primitive societies. Besides the totemic framework, there is another which interferes with it, and, moreover, soon rivals it; this is the territorial grouping. As soon as we are no longer dealing with pure nomadism, such groupings always co-exist more or less with the totemic groupings. And they quickly tend to absorb and destroy the latter; for the soil is a great tempter and a stern master to men, and community of local life is a source of habits which become necessarily accepted and deeply rooted until they create instincts of sociability and solidarity in co-operation. These will render the ties of mystic communion, such as those exemplified in totemism, useless to cement together cities. On the other hand, besides these influences of community of local life, there is another reason explaining the formation of territorial divisions within societies—namely, that such divisions correspond to a need to which the clan system also corresponds, but which survives the latter by producing its effects under a new form. This need is the division of the first societies into similar compartments—segments, to use Durkheim’s expression.! As far and as fast as social organ- ization replaces totemic organization, these segments them- 1 XII, p. 150: ‘‘ We apply the term ‘societies segmented on a clan basis’ to peoples constituted by an association of clans. We say of such societies that they are segmented to indicate that they are formed by the repetition of mutually similar aggregates analogous to the rings of the Anulosa and we speak of the elementary aggregate as a clan because this word well expresses its mixed nature, at once domestic and political.” Cf. also XII, p. 108 : ‘© When the horde becomes a social segment instead of being the entire society, it changes its name and is called the clan, but it preserves all its constituent features. It will perhaps be objected that wherever we observe it to-day the clan generally embraces a plurality of individual families. But, firstly, we believe that the formation of these small family groups is posterior to the clan. And, secondly, they do not constitute social segments strictly speaking, because they are not political divisions. Wherever it is found the clan is the ultimate division of that nature.” 55 56 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION selves cease to be family aggregates to become territorial communes.* The passage from one state to the other takes place only through a slow evolution. ‘*‘ When the memory of a common origin is extinct and the domestic relations, which derive from it but often survive it, have themselves also disappeared, the clan is no longer conscious of itself save as a group of individuals who occupy the same tract of land: they become the village proper. It is in this way that all peoples who have outgrown the clan phase have formed territorial districts, marches, communes. As the Roman gens came to be enlisted in the curia, so these were fitted into other districts of the same nature but wider, called sometimes the hundred, sometimes the parish or union, which in their turn are often incorporated in others yet more ex- tensive (county, province, or department), the union of which forms the society.’ In Australian societies, besides totemic groupings and matrimonial classes, a third variety of groupings is distin- guished. The latter are territorial and based upon com- munity of territory, and vaguely subject to the vague authority of those embryo chiefs called alatunjas of whom we shall speak shortly. This duality of organization has been analysed in the case of Australia, especially by Howitt,® and interpreted with penetrating insight by Durkheim.* Now, what strikes us when we examine the territorial organization, which people are prone to picture as something clear and sharply defined, is its extreme indeterminateness. ‘* Under the influence of our modern ideas,’’ writes Durkheim,’ ‘‘ we should be inclined to picture it as constituted at base by a fundamental and well-defined geographical district which, joined to other districts of the same sort, would form a more extensive territorial division until we reached the political society as a whole. And that is exactly how the author does view it when he defines the tribe as an union of local groups— that is, on his terminology—of clans or hordes. Unfor- tunately it is very hard, if not impossible, to define the local group with any precision. Its dimensions and forms are kaleidoscopic. It is sometimes so extensive that it bears all the aspect of a tribe, and Mr. Howitt warns us in many cases ; ee nea ee XII, pp. 157-167. * XII, p. 162. IV, IX, pp. 358-360. * 06 2tthe TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION 57 that he is unable to say what sort of a group he is dealing with. Sometimes it is the family which constitutes the terri- torial unit. The same indefiniteness infects the higher grades of organization. Undoubtedly the group called a tribe is not without a certain unity. The tribe is presided over by a group of chiefs who meet to deliberate upon common affairs ; all the individuals who compose it bear one common name. But the material and moral frontiers between neighbouring tribes are often barely perceptible. It frequently happens that contiguous tribes assist one another in religious cere- monies. The structures of their matrimonial organizations are identical; the same names serve to denote the phratries and the classes (cf. e.g., the case of the Kamilaroi). But the conclusive proof of the fluctuating nature of these territorial divisions is the ease with which the populations intermingle. In principle a child is of right a member of his father’s local group, and for this reason can hunt and fish on the territory occupied by this group. But he has analogous rights on the territory of his mother’s group and also in the country where he was born or where he was brought up, even when this country is not that of either of his parents, but belongs even to a foreign tribe.’’! For this territorial organization to acquire a little more fixity the final establishment of the patrilinear principle in reckoning descent is needed. But at the same time as the territorial organization pro- gresses, the older organization, which we have called totemic, and which Howitt calls social, goes on growing fainter. The Kurnai and the Narrinyeri, for instance, who possess a constitution based on territory, only exhibit vestiges of totemism. ‘‘ That means,’’? writes Durkheim,’ ‘‘ that the two organizations are mutually opposed, since the one re- cedes as the other gains ground, and consequently they correspond to two successive phases of social evolution. In other words, organization must have begun by being totemic and has only subsequently become territorial. That, of course, is not to say that there could have been a moment when the Australian societies were quite without relation to the land, when their structure was altogether independent of their geographical basis. It is impossible that any social group should not be attached in some degree to the territory 1 IV, IX, p. 359. 2 Zbid., p. 360. 58 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION it occupies and not bear its mark at all. Only, whatever territorial element there was in the social organization was then quite secondary, quite latent. What marked the bounds of the society was no natural barrier, what deter- mined its form was not the configuration of the soil. The tribe was essentially an aggregate of clans, not of districts, and what constituted its unity was the totem and the ideas centring about it. In a word, totemic organization must be regarded as congenital to Australian societies.’’ Let us recall that Sumner Maine had already pictured affairs in this manner, save that he said tie of kinship instead of saying totemic tie. In his Notes on the History of Ancient Institutions, published in 1874, he examines kinship as the foundation of society, and sees therein what he calls the most ancient tie binding human societies together. It makes little difference that for him this kinship was exclusively patri- archal and that he misapprehended the importance of uterine relationship. The important point here is that he based the first human groups on something other than terri- torial contiguity. And he shows how the tribe only becomes settled on the soil subsequently and by gradual stages. ‘*From the moment,’’ he says,’ ‘‘ that a tribe settles per- manently upon a given tract of territory, the earth and land replace kinship as the foundation of its social organization.”’ Territorial sovereignty is then substituted for tribal sovereignty. ‘‘ England was formerly inhabited by the English; the English are to-day the people who inhabit England.’”’ This striking formula might serve as the epitome of the history of the human origins as well as of that of constitutional law. ‘‘ The history of the Greek and Latin cities proves,’’ remarks our author, ‘* that in them, as in a great number of countries besides, community of territory has been substituted gradually and not without violent shocks for community of race as the foundation of national unity.’’ And he adds that the one ambition of the ancient democracies was, at base, to be accepted as equals by the aristocracies, for the sole reason that the old and the new aristocracies dwelt together within the limits of the same territorial district. In conclusion, and when viewed as a whole, this evolution towards a territorial basis has produced a ee, TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION 59 the notions of feudal lordship, monarchy, and sovereignty in the case of large groups, and the idea of landed property among more restricted groups. Yet it is notorious that both in respect of so-called primitive societies and of those of preclassical antiquity a certain number of authors have upheld the contrary thesis to that which has just been expounded, and have asserted the original character of organization in territorial districts. To begin with the primitives, this is what has been argued by several American anthropologists in reference to the Indian societies of North America, and especially by Mr. Boas in regard to the Kwakiutl societies, so typical of that civilization of developed totemism among the Indians of North-West America (British Columbia, Vancouver, and Queen Charlotte Islands). According to Mr. Boas,' indeed, the Kwakiutl, in contradistinction to their neighbours in the north, knew neither the uterine system nor totemic organ- ization; they possessed from the beginning a territorial organization and a patrilinear system of kinship. But we have expounded this theory elsewhere and tried to do justice to it.2 * Mr. Boas,’’ we wrote, “‘ ascribes to the Kwakiutl a primitive organization, territorial and not totemic. 4%." No doubt each family group lays claim to an ancestor who pro- cured it an emblem, if not a totem. But the vital point, and what determines the social organization, is where this ancestor, who comes from heaven or from the depths of the earth or from the ocean, has appeared and founded his family. This territorial principle asserted in the Fifth Report® is reaffirmed, perhaps still more positively, in the study of secret societies. Firstly,’ the clans’ traditions clearly reveal what we must regard as the original cellule of Kwakiutl society. Each clan traces its origin to a mythical ancestor, who has built his hut in a certain place, and whose descendants have lived at this place. In a large number of cases these places correspond to the sites of ancient villages which have been inhabited for a long time, as the accumula- tion of shells discovered there proves. We conclude from this that the clan was originally a village community the members of which, seeing their numbers diminishing, or AGE 2 Cf. G. Davy, XI, pp. 277-8. EVIL pe 80: 4 VI, pp. 333-4. 60 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION feeling the need of protection, abandoned their primitive habitat and went to join forces with other analogous com-» munities, while preserving a certain degree of independence.”’ We have italicized all the territorial expressions to bring out the spirit of the theory. It is found again more distinctly expressed a few pages further on. It is just what we have stated—the substitution of the local tribe and clan for the totemic phratry and clan as the original division. What is to be thought of this theory? The first remark which suggests itself is that Mr. Boas is, and declares himself to be, incapable of defining precisely either the mode of division or the details of the divisions which his system implies. Not only is the agreement between the table of organization given in the Fifth Report! and that in the work on secret societies” only partial, not only do the divisions called gentes in the first become clans in the second, but, further, these clans are presented as themselves subdivided into narrower groups called subdivisions, but as to the nature of which we are given no precise information. Then, to complicate matters further, when he comes to speak of the subdivisions of the clans, Mr. Boas mentions subdivisions of the tribes in the same breath. And it is not plain in what relation the latter stand to the former. Cases of segmenta- tion into two of one primitive tribe and others of the fusion into one of two distinct tribes are reported. The first case is exemplified, for instance, by the Guetela and the Qomoyne, who are Kwakiutls, and have, it is said, been disrupted as the result of a quarrel in which the chief of the former was killed. The legend says that they were twins, and one sucked the right, the other the left, teat of their mother. But is not that merely a legend corresponding to the duality of the phratries, and therefore implying a totemic and not a territorial origin for the divisions in question ? Similarly, Mr. Boas tries to explain apart from totemism how the names and crests of the several clans—he does recognize the existence of clan crests—have been acquired by their owners. For that purpose he very naturally refers to the legends. These he divides into two classes: some introduce the eponymous ancestor directly in the form of a supernatural being; others describe him as meeting the 1 VI, p. 47. 2 VI, p. 31. TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION 61 ~ supernatural being who grants him his protection and the hereditary possession of his masks and crests. But, as Sir James Frazer very justly remarks, and as we have ourselves tried to show in reference to the Haida, these legends sus- piciously resemble those of totemic mythology, and the crests are nothing but totems. Besides, has not Mr. Boas himself come to agree to this? Here is, in fact, a very significant confession which he makes in the Twelfth Report :* ‘* The Kwakiutl are divided into a number of clans, the majority of which have animals for totems. The origins of the greater number of these totems are explained in the same way as among the tribes of the North, while the others are regarded as descended directly from the totemic animal.’’ There we have this people, not only assimilated to their neighbours of the North, but even more archaic than they in respect of some of their clans, since they sometimes admit direct descent from the animal. We ask for nothing more. But, to tell the truth, Mr. Boas is far from always granting us as much. If, now, turning from ethnography, we direct our gaze to the prehistory of the classical peoples, we equally meet the assertion that social organization among them was originally based on territory, and that the gentile division of society only appeared later as a result of the transmission of the same lands in the hands of the same families from generation to generation. This is the view advanced by Szanto”? in the case of Greece, and by Holzapfel* in respect of Rome. ‘‘ But,”? Durkheim‘ answers, ‘‘ if the nation was divided into three tribes (Hyleis, Dumanes, and Pamphyles, in the case of the Dorians), only after being settled on the land, and if each tribe had begun by being just a territorial division, there would have been a time in which the whole country occupied by the invaders was parcelled out into three great territories, three geographical provinces, independent or not, whereas no trace of such a division is detectable. But how can it be conceded that a quite artificial division, with no roots in the moral consciousness of the people, should have been so religiously imitated and reproduced even down to the nomenclature adopted by the different Dorian cities as soon as they began an independent life? It seems much 4 VI, pp. 328-332. 2 Die griechischen Phylen. 3 Die drei dltesten romischen Tribus. VS TY fp.o2e: 62 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION more natural to suppose that the Dorians were thus divided from the beginning—that is to say, while they were still just an ethnic group with no territorial basis. For such a hypo- thesis it is not, however, necessary to suppose that these tribes had been at first three distinct societies. It is enough to see in each primitive tribe a natural group of phratries linked together by special ties, just as each phratry was a natural group of yévn. In this way it is possible to explain how much later, when the phratries, after being settled on the soil and dispersed in villages, came again to be concen- trated to form cities, the need was felt, and felt as an obligation, to revive the ancient threefold division; for, con- secrated by a long tradition and embodying old religious beliefs and practices, it appeared as the necessary foundation of every social organization. If this model had not pos- sessed in itself some such authority, if from the first it had been only a conventional arrangement, it would not have been reproduced everywhere with such fidelity.’?! All this likewise shows that the distinction we have drawn between the territorial settlement and the totemic or family foundation of the first societies must not lead us into a mis- apprehension of the very intimate interaction of these two fundamental factors in social organization at the dawn of history. The first village is very often just a totemic clan which has settled on the soil, and then the development of this village and of the tribe or territorial society which contains it results from the interplay of these two factors. The one, gentilic, is proper to the clan, the other, local, to the village as such. Territorial sovereignty, with the organiza- tion of society that it implies, always preserves a certain number of the features of the gentilic sovereignty with which it has been combined. Durkheim rightly points this out in reference to a very interesting study by Francotte on the Formation of Cities, States, Federations, and Leagues in Ancient Greece.” Everywhere we find in the primitive forms of the city the gentile organization, generally with its three degrees of gené, phratries, and phyle. But it is no longer in a state of purity there. Indeed, in itself it does not entail any regular form; for it is dependent on the accidents of births and deaths, adoptions, and the extinction or develop- ment of family groups. It could not, therefore, be pent PLY gl Ver be ake. *-IV, Vi, pp. B7ae: TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION 63 up within any strictly defined framework. Now, in Greece it always appears endowed with a perfect symmetry indica- tive of the hand of the legislator; each phyle contains so many phratries, and each phratry so many gené. We are therefore, in the presence of a gentile system, reshaped by political artifice and more or less altered thereby, while we cannot discern precisely in what these alterations consist. It is well known how in the course of history the gentile organization, already impaired, but only to a limited extent, went on growing weaker. This organization by developing had become more narrowly aristocratic; it had then to be broken up and replaced so soon as democracy was in a position to vindicate its rights. The best way of obliterating the social distinctions which had thus been engendered was to take territorial groupings (the demes) directly as the basis; it was notoriously in this way that Cleisthenes went to work at Athens. And yet so strong was the force of tradition that the new structure was, up to a point, planned upon the model of the old. There were always phylx and phratries. Furthermore, it was kinship, an essentially gen- tilic principle, that determined membership of the deme. .- It may, then, be said that the idea of a strictly territorial sovereignty was never developed in its full form in Greece. Under the new system the old system showed through, although fainter. Thus mystico-domestic constitutional law and territorial constitutional law mutually interpenetrate and react upon one another. But if perchance the first already contained within it something to orientate its development towards a concentration and individualization of sovereignty, it seems to us certain that this evolution was peculiarly favoured by the reaction of the territorial upon the totemic organization. It is, no doubt, not accidental that sovereignty so often alights upon a specific person at the same time as it becomes attached to an area of land. At the point we have reached it would be premature to speak of a genuine personal sovereignty, but what we are going to see is power beginning to individualize itself in the bosom of the communal and quite democratic organization we have just sketched, and especially in proportion as the clan takes shape as a terri- torial group. CHAPTER IV FIRST TRACES OF INDIVIDUALIZED POWER IN THE COMMUNISTIC TOTEMICO-TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION Ir remains for us to show that a certain individual sovereignty exists even in the bosom of this organization as we have just described it. But we shall show that it remains truly in the embryonic state. If we believe Frazer,’ in accordance with a general theory of his which we shall have occasion to criticize further on, the only chiefs originally known in Central Australia would have been public magicians. Frazer, indeed, tells us of a democratic organization supposed to have existed among the Australians, in which the only manifest power was that of the tribal assembly of the elders—that is, of the chiefs of each totemic clan. But, according to him, these assemblies scarcely ever met even for religious purposes, but only came together for magical ends and to be able to multiply the totemic species, with a view to the food supply. In the same way in South-Hastern Australia the chief was allegedly always a sorcerer or a medicine-man. In one tribe the name designating him was also that which meant magic (mobung- bai—‘ chief,’’ derived from mobung—*‘magic’’). In another, authority passed to the best conjurer. And a chief of the Dieri is cited for our benefit, a great medicine-man and braggart who succeeded in passing himself off as the tree of life, and derived from this reputation an indisputable authority as well as very obvious emoluments. Analogous facts are to be met in Melanesia, America, and Africa. These facts are unquestionable. But what is questionable is the fact of selecting magical powers, to the exclusion of all others, as the source of the authority of the chief or king. It is very far from true that this idea of sovereignty has such a simple origin. + Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship, pp. 108 ff. 64 TRACES OF INDIVIDUALIZED POWER 65 It is, in truth, very complex, as we shall gradually come to realize. Let us, then, not shut our eyes to everything which is not magical, nor desire to see only magic every- where, and so with open minds let us see what manifestations Australia has to offer of a power which is not merely collec- tive and undivided, but which may be suspected of being already on the way to individualization. In this quest let us have recourse to Spencer and Gillen, whose works have to-day become classics. In their first great book! on the aborigines of Australia they deal with the tribes living between Lake Eyre on the south and the Macdonell Ranges on the north, and of these especially with the Arunta. Among the latter they introduce us to personages, the alatunjas, who foreshadow, albeit still very distantly, what under a more centralized régime— among the American Indians, for example—will be called chiefs. These personages stand at the head of tribal groups which, according to the tribe and the manner of reckoning descent—uterine or agnatic—in vogue, coincide more or less exactly with the totemic groupings. Their authority, based at once on age, experience, and capacity, is purely local and not tribal. It is not susceptible of extension save in so far as the group over which they preside grows more numerous and a little, too, in proportion as their renown is bruited abroad. But our authors expressly warn us against using the word chiefs to describe the wielders of such authority. ‘‘ The authority exercised by an alatunja is,’’ they tell us, ‘‘ vague enough in character. He has no definite power over the person of any member of his group. He calls together the elders, who are always consulted upon important matters such as the performance of the sacred ceremonies or the punishment of individuals who have transgressed tribal custom. And his opinion carries just so much weight as his reputation confers upon him.’’ Here again is a peculiarly significant trait: ‘‘He (the alatunja) is not necessarily recognized as the most important member of the council, whose advice must be followed, although, if he be old and qualified, he can exert powerful influence. Perhaps the best way of putting the matter is to say that the alatunja holds ex officio a position which, if he possess personal merit, and 1 XLIV. oa | 66 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION then only, enables him to exercise considerable power not only over his own group, but also over neighbouring groups the directors of which are his inferiors.’’* Let us note that, though personal aptitude is capable of increasing the authority of our personage within his own group, or extending it beyond it, it does not create that authority. In fact, such power seems to come initially most often by heredity, provided the heir-presumptive fulfils the conditions requisite for it—namely, that he belongs to the totem of the group he is about to be called to guide, has passed through all the stages of initiation, and is old enough to preside at all ceremonies. Within the limitations thus imposed the office passes from the holder to his son, or, failing a son, to his brother or his brother’s son; in short, it is handed down in the male line. Now, what are the essential functions of our alatunja? Nothing indicates that they are specifically and exclusively magical, as Frazer desires. Indeed, Frazer, after referring everything to magic, is himself obliged to declare, after reading Spencer and Gillen, that the alatunjas play the following role: ‘‘ Furthermore and above all,’’ he writes— let us remember that ‘‘ above all ’’—‘‘ their chief mission is to watch over the sacred store, usually located in a cleft of the rock or a hole in the ground. There are stored the holy stones and the hallowed sticks to which human souls, both of the living and of the dead, are somehow bound in their essence and fate.’? There already we have apparently an essentially religious rather than a magical office. This sacred reserve referred to here is, in fact, just the ernatulunja, a sort of enclosure absolutely forbidden to profane persons. In it the churingas, those symbolic reliquaries supposed to con- tain at once the ancestors’ souls and bodies, are deposited. And the ernatulunja serves as a place of asylum as well as a sacred treasury, which once more demonstrates its religious character. On the other hand, in a second réle the alatunja proclaims the ritual festivals of the intichiuma and acts as master of ceremonies thereat. No doubt Frazer would like to reduce the intichiuma to a magic operation and nothing else, but no explanation is less natural. On the contrary, the inti- 1 Spencer and Gillen, XLIV, p. 10. TRACES OF INDIVIDUALIZED POWER 67 chiuma seems to be a religious rite, very indefinite and, like the processes of the earliest law, adaptable to many different ends—for instance, to the initiation of novices as well as to the annual regeneration of the totem, and to the maintenance of that mystic communion which for each individual is the source of his being, and for the group is that of the ties of kinship which constitute its cohesion. Naturally we cannot enter into the details of the proof; let us confine ourselves to drawing attention to this religious interpretation which Durkheim’ opposes to Frazer’s. We take it, then, as proved that the function of the grand master of the intichiuma is much more truly religious than magical. But, granting this, the point to bear in mind is that -the alatunja is the minister in a cult bound by the forms of that cult, much more than he is a chief invested with absolute personal authority. Here as everywhere in this primitive world the sovereign mistress is custom, collective and hereditary custom, of whom individuals invested with authority are, in fact, only the docile executors. In any case, these chiefs periodically assemble the clan to perform the customary and obligatory rites and join with the alatunjas of neighbouring clans, who have, on their part, summoned the same assembly for the same end. And it is inevitable that in so doing the chiefs, thus assembled, should consult together, experience the ascendancy of those among them who know how to assert it, consider changes, and thus engender and implant the first habits of individual initiative and authority. There exists there, sketched first in the domain of ritual, the outline of representative and federative government in the hands of the assembly of local chiefs acting as ritual heads in those ceremonies, the scope of which transcends the limits of the clan, and which are, therefore, tribal ceremonies. When, as so often happens, mythology echoes revolutions effected by certain ancestors in the ritual or in some institution, such as marriage or the system of kinship, it is only expressing in its own language and reflect- ing in the imaginative plot of the legend the history of advances due precisely to the formation of a nascent organ of legislation and government. Hereditary custom begins to 1 See especially Book III in Zlementary Forms of Religious Life, which is devoted to a study of ritual attitudes. 68 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION find interpreters who take upon themselves the task of secur- ing its application and, simultaneously and very gently, its modification. In any case, we must be careful not to hasten or distort the evolution. Something resembling a true sovereignty un- folds itself before us, only very slowly; and this something does not at first appear with a specialized body. We have elsewhere tried to show that a law of initial participation and progressive segregation, accompanied by a law of dispersion and excess of social effort, governs the development of primi- tive institutions. Here is the place to apply these results. Forged in the religious domain, not without many contribu- tions from magic, sovereignty is not at first and exclusively political ; we shall see below that to be political it must also be economic, and an analysis ~will be needed to determine how much the power of the Indian chief among the North American aborigines is due to his character of collector of property and provider of food. For the moment we are not in a position to achieve the synthesis of all the necessary elements. Let us just state that no specialized power is at first perceptible among the Australians, and that in any case nothing justifies the conclusion that magic plays the part of a monopolist in the first investiture of chiefs. Let us add from this standpoint that Spencer and Gillen contrast the alatunjas to the magicians properly so called, such as the medicine-men. And so they tell us’ that the latter are not to be found in all groups, while in very striking contrast there is an alatunja for each local group. Magic has not, then, by its unaided forces created either the political framework or the political power, since it appears as independent; and according to a statement of Durkheim’s,* confirmed by the facts, it soars above the social organization. On _ the contrary, religion, over whose rites we have found the ala- tunja presiding, is housed within distinct and definite social structures as the germ of political power which we have detected. Magic gifts may indeed serve to enhance and still more to extend the chief’s power. But it is his function, at once religious and political—the two become confused, as do the categories of religion and society—which effectively constitutes his power. 1 XLIV, p. 16. 2 XIV, pp. 282-3. TRACES OF INDIVIDUALIZED POWER 69 In the Central Australian tribes living north of the Arunta, studied by Spencer and Gillen in their second book,’ political sovereignty is still very faintly marked. Our authors at once reject the expressions ‘chief’? and even “head of the tribe’? as premature,” and speak only of a vague local gerontocracy the members of which, as among the Arunta, possess almost exclusively religious attributes relating to the ceremonies of the engwara and the intichiuma. These ceremonies are directed by the alatunja of the place where they are performed. And when it is a question of rites which do not concern a single specific local group only—as, for instance, the initiation and fire rites among the Warramunga direction is taken, not by a local chief, but by five of the elders, chosen from different totemic groups who form a sort of council. And what shows how little tendency power yet has to become concentrated in a single individual is that these councils remain essentially deliberative assemblies, while the chief of any important local groups claims as such no pre- ponderating authority in them. At the most, age and ex- perience may ensure, and that quite contingently, some individual ascendancy. To judge by the purely totemic functions assigned to them, one might even consider the chiefs of the north as yet more lacking in political attributes than those of the centre proper. Among the Warramunga, for instance, nothing resembling the ernatulunja of the Arunta is discernible. Hence there is one function the less for the chief to fulfil. Similar remarks would apply to the Binbinga, who live still farther to the north. Still, despite these causes which tend to reduce the rudi- ments of authority of which we have spoken, there are other factors which counterbalance and even outweigh them. Spencer and Gillen note the following difference between the Warramunga and the Arunta: Among the latter we encounter several alatunjas corresponding to a single totem— three chiefs, for instance, for the three local groups which have the witchetty grub as totem. On the contrary, among the Warramunga and the northern tribes each totemic group is connected with a single great ancestor and recognizes a 1 XLV. 2 Jbid., pp. 20 f. 70 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION single alatunja, and there is no interpenetration or mingling between the two moieties or phratries of the tribe, any more than between the totemic clans. The chiefs of one whole series of totemic groups belong to the totem of one of the phratries, and those of the other series to the totem of the other. . In contradistinction to the Arunta, the Warramunga have, in fact, preserved their phratry names. It results from these facts that among them authority is more concentrated than among the Arunta. Let us not forget that among the Warramunga kinship is patrilinear, so that a child belongs to his father’s totem on the territory of which he is born and lives. There is, therefore, a coincidence between the totemic groupings and the territorial groupings. We understand the concentration of which our authors speak so much the better. It is evident that the geographical dispersion of the totems observed among the Arunta! is an obstacle to the formation of a government which can be genuinely organized on a territorial basis. Where a concentration is attempted we see mythology itself planting its traditions and enclosing them within the same limits as the authority which means to be totemico-local. Thus the Warramunga legends restrict the wanderings of the totemic ancestors of the groups now composing the Uluuru phratry to the southern part of the tribal territory, those of the ancestors of the Kingilli phratry to the northern. Each lived at home, which means at once at his local and his totemic seat, since it no longer happens, as it does under the uterine? or conceptional systems, that 1 XLV, p. 18. * We mean a uterine régime in which it is the usage for a woman to go and live with her husband while keeping her own totem and transmitting it to her children. On the other hand, in cases where, under the uterine system, the wife stays at home and rears her children at her knee without quitting the territory of her uterine clan, it is clear that there would be no divorce between the totem and its habitat. The totemic group might in that case have a territorial basis just as well as under the patrilinear system, We call conceptional a system in which kinship is reckoned neither through the mother nor through the father. Under it the child receives his totem from the mythical ancestor who is supposed to have been in proximity to the mother—in a tree or rock, for instance, which she passed—at the moment of conception. This is the system in vogue among the Arunta and the Loritja—a system which, according to Frazer, is quite primitive, anterior to uterine as well as to patrilinear kinship and consequently capable of growing into the one as easily as into the other. In Durkheim’s eyes this system among the Arunta was the result of evolution; it had replaced the uterine régime, survivals of which actually persist among the Arunta. On these points consult the chapter devoted to kinship above. TRACES OF INDIVIDUALIZED POWER 71 the totem periodically sends a contingent to live outside its bounds. It is now only the women who are tossed to and fro as a result of exogamy. It is, therefore, the same chief or elder who is the mouthpiece of tradition and of the com- munity, at once totemic, ancestral, and local. It can be easily understood that his voice can already carry farther. In his study of the South-East Australian tribes, Howitt gives prominence and devotes a long chapter to what he calls tribal government. However, this denomination must not create an illusion. It may, indeed, correspond to a real fact—namely, the political aspect of the more or less differ- entiated organs of direction and authority among certain Australian tribes which subsists beside the religious aspect of the same institutions. Nevertheless, it does not mean that among the tribes in question power is substantially more organized than it is from the religious standpoint among the Arunta or the Warramunga. We already know that the organization of primitive societies into clans, phratries, and classes represents a sort of communism, but an organized communism entailing a whole system of imperative customary rules, the strictness whereof is due precisely to their religious character. We know what respect attaches to taboo, and with what cer- tainty the primitive would admit that its breach would necessarily provoke a sanction. We shall, then, not be sur- prised to find that there are ministers charged with the duty of reminding everyone of the inevitability of such sanctions and of presiding at their application, just as there are ministers to superintend the ritual observances. There we have an imperceptible and natural passage from a religious to a political office at first in the repressive aspect of the latter. The fact of the sanctions being administered in this manner does not limit or dismember the undivided and uniform sovereignty of the groups; it affirms and realizes it. And if the administration seem to be attached to the person of an individual, it resides in him only as a delegated and partial power. But does not absolute and independent sovereignty presuppose a background of power of this kind? It is natural that we should find such to allow of the former’s existence. In what forms, then, do we, with Howitt, encounter it in South-Eastern Australia? Its forms, let us first remark, are 72 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION not very obtrusive, since the author begins by warning us! that they have commonly escaped notice. In a general way Howitt agrees with Curr” that it is necessary to recognize a quite impersonal character in the obligatory power of custom. For instance, no personal will need intervene to enforce observation of the taboo which keeps apart son-in-law and mother-in-law, or that which forbids the novice to receive food from a woman’s hand, and so on. But when we come down to details we perceive that not all taboos are thus self- sufficient, that to secure their observance something else is requisite besides the feeling of horror or traditional obliga- tion induced by education. That is particularly true in respect to the positive obligations—obligations to do, as our law would put it—which are binding upon members of the clan. These, like the sanction which is often the correlative of offences committed against members of the clan, must find their counterpart in a sort of executive power. Such, for example, is that exercised by the pinnaru of the Dieri, who otherwise resembles like a brother the alatunja, of whom we have spoken in connection with the tribes of the centre. Like the latter, he owes his authority sometimes to age, sometimes, too, to his personal qualities in preference to age. He presides over assemblies, arranges marriages and divorces, sends messengers to neighbouring tribes, and visits them periodically in order to receive presents. To sum up, save that he is depicted as administering the secular rather than the sacred interests of the group, the pinnaru has neither more nor less power than the alatunja. Let us emphasize the trait, always significant, noted several times by Howitt :* magical skill does not suffice to qualify him. To say medicine-man is, pace Frazer, not necessarily to say chief. The one may inspire fear, the other must impose obedience. The rules of inheritance, also masculine, are, again, the same for the pinnaru as for the alatunja. Apart from the more purely political aspect of the office, it offers nothing specifically new. And all the other personages in various tribes whom Howitt passes in review are, indeed, cast in the same mould. They never possess any autonomous power, they are responsible to the group and justiciable by their peers in the tribe. “If a chief commit any offence 1 XIX, p. 295. ele £21 Mg iy ® lbid,, p. 801, etc. TRACES OF INDIVIDUALIZED POWER 73 towards the people, or if exception be taken to his authority, the other chiefs consult together in a great tribal assembly and may condemn him to death; and the assembly is prob- ably held under the presidency of one of them.’ If to these limitations on autonomy be added the fact that the office was, though often, not necessarily hereditary, it will be clear that we are not in the presence of a true sovereign, but of an administrator subject to recall of the several vital concerns of the group. This administrator was, moreover, surrounded by a veritable administrative council formed by the tribal assembly.? It was composed of all the elders, who played a preponderant réle in it, and, after them, of all the fully initiated male members of the group. That is, then, an example of an organization as ‘‘ representative ’’ as can be, with which a personal power is scarcely compatible. The chief—whom we have thus designated only for convenience— has his power as administrator tempered to a peculiar degree by this council. Nevertheless, he exercises it most often in conjunction with the council. Without considering the exceptional cir- cumstances in which the chief can be deposed by the council, we must cite the frequent and normal cases where he assembles it and presides. The commonest case is when it is a question of the power to repress crimes and mis- demeanours and to organize avenging expeditions. The tribal council likewise takes cognizance of infractions of the marriage regulations, of disputes relating to hunting- grounds, of quarrels with neighbouring tribes, and so on. Such is the political and legal aspect of the governmental organization so far as it can be dissociated from the religious organization with which it is so often confused. Whether it be a question of sacred law or profane, the nature of the chief’s power is obviously the same at bottom: sovereignty remains diffused throughout the group. The latter doubtless begins to delegate it to certain of its aged or qualified members. But it always keeps these in close contact with itself, and through the councils collaborates in the exercise of the said sovereignty, which is, therefore, as we have ‘XIX, p, 205. 2 Ibid., pp. 8206. 74 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION remarked, reduced mainly to a power of administration over the common concerns. Now, according as the administrator administered all or a part of these concerns, it is evident that his authority, like his jurisdiction, was more or less extensive. Howitt himself tells us that, when the totems are scattered over the whole territory, each individual owes to each local chief totemic obedience in addition to local obedience only in case the chief is of the same totem as he. In the alternative he is amenable simultaneously to the authority of his local chief, who is on the spot, and to that of his totemic chief, who is somewhere else. As we have already seen in the case of the Warramunga, the first condition is peculiarly favourable to the organization and concentration of power. CHAPTER V THE PROGRESS OF INDIVIDUALIZED POWER AND THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE COMMUNISTIC TOTEMIC ORGANIZATION: EVOLU- TION IN MYTHOLOGY AND IN POLITICS We had previously laid it down that the collective and undivided character of power in the primitive clans was bound up with the very nature of the mana from which it emanated, and with the originally collective and not indi- vidual character of totemism. For individualized power, the first gleams of which we have Just noted, to become possible, a transformation of totemism is necessary. We have now to give an account of this transformation and of its individuat- ing qualities. I Tue Data or MyTHOLOGY But since religion pervades primitive constitutional law in the way we have described, it will not seem surprising that the evolution of totemic mythology sheds some light on the transformation in the social organization which we wish to understand. Let us, then, begin by having recourse to this light. The study of mythology, in fact, reveals that the latter does not begin with the idea of a personal divinity, but reaches it after several stages, starting from the notion of an impersonal divine something. We have already had occasion above to demonstrate the priority of collective totemism over individual totemism. Let us now turn to the development of religious thought as Durkheim has traced it. We then find that what he places at its base ‘‘ are not determinate and distinct objects or beings possessing in themselves a sacred character, but indefinite powers, nameless shapes, more or less numerous according to the society, sometimes even reduced to one, and in their impersonality strictly com- parable to those physical forces the manifestations of which 79 76 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION the natural sciences study.’’! It has required a real elabora- tion of mythological thinking for the personal notions of spirits, demons, heroes, genii, or gods to emerge out of this common substratum which answers to the mana already mentioned. The idea of soul is the category under which individuals, spirits, and gods, be they the particular gods of a clan or great tribal or national deities, all alike and simultaneously come to be conceived in personal form and as contrasted to the immanent and impersonal spirit of our last sentence. Is this notion of soul, which is to play such a leading part in the progress of individuation, posterior to the notion of the im- personal principle with which we started, or are both given together? Durkheim’s thought is not entirely consistent on this point. In some places” he declares categorically that the notion of impersonal mana is the *‘ first stuff,’ and that the ideas of soul and spirit are the ‘‘ products of secondary formation.”® ‘‘If,’? he adds, ‘‘in primitive society such small room is allowed to individual personality, that is not because the latter has been compressed and penned into a corner artificially, but quite simply because at that moment in history it did not exist.’? Elsewhere, on the other hand,’ he abandons the idea of secondary and later formation, and criticizes Preuss and Lévy-Bruhl* for having adopted it. ‘* From the fact that the idea of soul is derived from that of mana, it does not follow in the least that the first is relatively late in origin, nor that there was a period when men knew religious forces only in their impersonal forms. When the word pre-animism is used to denote a historical period during which animism was wholely unknown, an arbitrary hypo- thesis is advanced; for there is no people among whom the idea of soul and the idea of mana do not coexist.”’ Undoubtedly it remains possible in this author’s eyes to speak of a logical posteriority of the idea of soul, because the latter ‘‘ can only be understood in relation to the idea of mana,’’ while *‘ the idea of mana does not presuppose the idea of soul.’? But it may be questioned whether this recon- ciliation is quite satisfactory when it is seen to be accom- ATL VG ADD. Boo f, 2 XIV, pp. 284-5, and XII (2nd ed.), p. 381, note 1. ARV, peal: 4 Jbid,, p. 381, note 1. INDIVIDUALIZATION OF POWER 177 panied by the following argument directed to proving the contemporaneity of the two notions: ‘* Just as no societies exist without individuals, so the impersonal forces which emerge from the collectivity cannot be constituted without being incarnated in individual consciousnesses in which they become individualized themselves.”’ If, in fact, the relation of the impersonal mana to the individual soul is the same as that of the society to the individuals composing it, if, there- fore, mana is just the society itself, and mana individualized in souls is just the individuals, it is not clear how it can be said that the idea of mana does not presuppose that of soul; for what is a society which does not presuppose individuals P To us it seems more accurate to say that the individuals whom society certainly does presuppose, exist, indeed, but only in the organic sense of the word. They exist only to form a mass and in so far as their union constitutes society, but their distinct and independent existence is neither recog- nized nor sanctioned by religion and law. Their existence does not count socially any more than that of slaves in a society based upon the contrast between slavery and liberty. We have therefore still to pass from a state where only common sentiments and interests legislate, as in communistic totemic societies, to one in which individual wills emerge. Now, to such an evolution in the realm of political sovereignty corresponds in the religious sphere the indi- vidualization of the notion of the sacred and of the authority it possesses. And it is just the notion of soul which seems to be the ferment in this latter transformation which in the mythological domain culminates in polytheism. Let us see how this whole process of mythical creation is summarized by Durkheim.’ ‘‘ The great tribal god is only an ancestral spirit who has at last won a place of pre-eminence. The ancestral spirits are only entities cast in the mould of indi- vidual souls of which they are destined to provide an ex- planation. The souls in turn are only the forms assumed by the forces discovered at the basis of totemism individualizing themselves in particular bodies.’’ The rdle played by the notion of soul is evident. It consists not, as the animists maintain, in producing and explaining the idea of gods and all the ideas of religion, but in allowing religious thought to 1 XIV, p. 428. 78 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION individualize itself, beginning in the common substratum which we have described. Thus a hierarchy of divine beings, distinct and endowed with authority, is constituted, and they correspond exactly to the framework of social organization we know—clan, phratry, and tribe. The phases in the formation of such beings correspond at the same time to those of the concen- tration of political sovereignty. As far as Australian societies are concerned, it seems that the apparently divergent data given by Spencer and Gillen and Strehlow can be harmonized. It may be admitted that the Australians see in individual souls a reincarnation of ancestors’ souls. As they believe these ancestral souls to be themselves made of the same substance as the totemic prin- ciple, the individual souls, in their turn, appear indirectly, by virtue of this incarnation, as emanations of the impersonal totemic principle. Strehlow, like Spencer and Gillen, in fact, insists upon the relations which unite each ancestor to an animal. Among the Arunta this relation is made manifest in language: the name by which a child designates his mother’s totem enters into the composition of the word which signifies great ancestor. From the Australian evidence Durkheim concludes:! ‘‘ The idea of totem and that of ancestor approximate so closely that sometimes they seem to be confused. Thus, after speaking of the mother’s totem or altjira, Strehlow adds: ‘ This altjira appears to the blacks in dreams and gives them warnings as he brings tidings of them to their departed friends.’ This altjira who speaks and is personally attached to every individual is plainly an ancestor, and yet he is also an incarnation of the totem. .. . It seems, then, probable that the totem is sometimes repre- sented in their minds in the form of a collection of ideal beings, mythical personages who are ancestors more or less distinct. In a word, the ancestors are the totem splintered.”’ On the other hand, the churingas, of which we have spoken before, represent the body at once of the individual, of the ancestor, and of the totemic animal, which thus forms, as Strehlow says, ‘‘a joint unit.’? Here are plenty of grounds for admitting that the ancestors’ souls are personal figurations of the totemic principle, and for admitting the 1 XIV, p. 365. INDIVIDUALIZATION OF POWER 79 same proposition applied to souls proper if these are only the foregoing reincarnated. With this idea of souls, and starting from the impersonal principle with which it is bound up, all sorts of possibilities of individualization are opened up. Let us watch them realizing themselves in mythology. We shall then under- stand better how they can realize themselves in the political domain, starting from the undivided sovereignty of the communistic clan. In the political sphere we do not jump from the particu- larism of the clan straight to a sovereignty individualized in kingship, but concentration of power has to pass through stages corresponding to the various social structures. Just so in mythology the notion of high god is not at once attained. Men rise first to the notion of spirits which are not yet very different from souls proper and have local ties as the souls have individual ties. But if these nascent mythological personalities succeed in winning recognition over a wider social area, they are naturally going to gain in prestige and to represent a wider religious sovereignty. Now, there are, in fact, reasons why the cult of the clans should outgrow its narrow particularism.' It presents similar traits from clan to clan; the initiation ceremonies in particular include rites. common to all the clans, and not varying with each totem. It is the same with other rites, certain prohibitions, etc. Furthermore, initiation necessarily takes place in the 1 On the islands east and west of the Torres Straits, Haddon and Rivers. have collected a mass of facts which likewise reveal the transition from totemic cult to the hero cult. The development is more and more marked the further one travels from the islands of the west to those of the east. The latter no longer have totems, but only traces of totems. In compensation they possess a national worship, the cult of Bomai-Malu, which must have developed out of the cult of a tribal totem, the crocodile, itself derived from a phratry totem. For this interpretation see Mauss, IV, IX, p. BS rac Al the members of the confraternity of the Bezzam (crocodiles), although recruited from different local clans, consider themselves related: they are all crocodiles. This kinship is established both by the funerary rites and by the ceremonies of the great cult Bomai-Malu and by various powers such people possess, notably that of putting a taboo in the form of a crocodile upon property.” ‘‘ The men’s society, then, originally confused with the: system of totemic clans, would have become focussed round this cult (of the crocodile), which would have absorbed all the rest or subordinated them to itself.’ Thus we see the evolution in the direction of concentration and its stages : totemic cult of the clan, cult of the men’s society, national cult. 80 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION presence and with the co-operation of another clan or other clans. We are already aware of the existence of obligatory interchanges of prestations between the phratries both in the ritual and in the matrimonial domain. Initiation has, moreover, an interest which transcends the special interest of each clan, since it is designed to make men. There are, then, a thousand reasons for the emergence of a tribal cult to unify the clan cults.’ ‘‘ The unity of the tribe,’’ says Durkheim, ‘‘ cannot but make itself felt across the diversity of particular cults.’’ And quite naturally figures of common ancestors take shape to whom the invention of these rites common to diverse clans, these tribal rites, is ascribed. Hence arise religious personalities, more assertive, richer in sovereignty, and already stationed higher up in the divine hierarchy. But let us not lose sight of the social structure we know. The phratries which just represent the unity of a plurality of clans are admirably adapted to furnish the necessary nuclei of crystallization. The phratry totems possess all the qualifications for playing the part of the unitary god who is in process of formation, and for presiding over rites of a tribal character. For that result to come about, the eclipse of the totem of one phratry by that of the other is all that is needed. Then the latter will possess all the characters of a tribal god. Howitt reports the existence in South-Eastern Australia of tribal deities exactly of this sort—Bungil, Dara- mulun, Baiame, Nuralie, etc. Now, they are all phratry totems—eagles, falcons, or crows—and mythology recounts conflicts which they have had to wage one with the other. Indeed, the fact that the names of the phratries are often common to very different tribes might permit the notion of a deity thus constituted to universalize itself rapidly and become common to a number of tribes. We thus catch a glimpse of the limiting term of this concentration of divine power which we have been tracing ever since the notion of individual soul led us beyond the circle of impersonal religious forces. Behind the fluctuating fortunes of the cults of clan, phratry, and tribe, we have watched their usurpa- tion by an ancestral spirit. ‘*‘ He has ended,’’? Durkheim writes,” ** by winning a position of pre-eminence ’’; that is 1 XIV, p. 406, IV, ix, pp. 179 7. 2 XIV, p. 423. INDIVIDUALIZATION OF POWER 81 to say, by absorbing and incarnating in his own person all the religious authority which had been diffused throughout both the group itself and the whole line of ancestors. II DETERMINATION OF THE FIELD OF OBSERVATION Our path thus illumined by mythology, we shall be able to explain how the political power of the chief, the pre- condition of that analogous but simply more unified power of the king, of the Pharaoh, proceeds to consolidate itself by a similar usurpation which is to transfer into the hands of one man the authority hitherto diffuse in the bosom of the mass. But first, to show that our analysis does not rest on the clouds, we must indicate in what societies we observe this transformation. We have frequently used—we could not help it—the expression “‘ primitives.’? Not that we imagine that a people per se primitive or a mentality primitive per se and in abstracto exists. We indicated in our introduction that we were setting out into the province of ethnography for the benefit of the history of the most ancient East, on a quest for experience of a society wherein sovereignty is at first diffuse and then concentrated. Now, despite the con- venient word ‘‘ primitive’? which we have often used, we have not travelled into the primitive world in general, but to the Australian totemic societies, in our quest for ex- perience of the diffuse mode. We therefore were observing institutions and a mentality in relation to a definite social structure and definite social conditions. We do not change our procedure in order to observe the passage from the diffuse to the concentrated form. We appeal to the Indian societies of North America,’ and incidentally to Melanesian societies, * Frazer, XVI, Ill, pp. 251 /f., of course, draws a distinction between Indians and Esquimaux. He classifies the Indians into eight groups : 1. Zlingits or Koloshes inhabiting the south of Alaska. 2. Hatdas. Queen Charlotte Islands and the south part of the Prince of Wales Archipelago. 3. Tsimshians. Valleys of the Nass and Skeena Rivers and the adjacent islands on the Columbian coasts. 4. Kwakiutl. Coasts of British Columbia from Gardiner Channel to Cape Mudge, except the region round Dean Inlet; west coast of Vancouver Island. 6 82 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION because we have good grounds for believing that both present a totemism quite analogous to the Australian—transformed. In fact, their institutions, bristling with survivals, allow of no explanation save in terms of the same totemic principles— division into totemic clans and phratries, collective obliga- tions as between phratries, originally uterine inheritance of the totem, etc.—which hold together the most rudimentary organization of Australian societies. We have, then, the right to maintain that, in comparing methodically Australian aborigines and American Indians, we are dealing with two forms of the same organization, unequally developed but identical in nature, and therefore that we are following the evolution of the said organization from one society to the other. In our Foi jurée’ we have -endeavoured to justify this comparative method and the two terms of comparison. ‘‘ Take two groups of societies,’? we wrote, ‘* whether they be related or no. Is it not legitimate to say that the second is more advanced than the first if the social structure in it is less rudimentary, if the social categories are more stable, power more organized, the classes more marked and their relations more complex, and if institutions—contractual institutions, to be precise—have assumed a clear-cut form while they are scarcely to be found in embryo in the first? Now, it is such differences that distinguish the Indian system from the Australian. They accordingly justify us in con- sidering the latter less evolved than the former. On the other hand, analogies in structure allow us to refer to approximately the same grade of civilization the phenomena observed in Melanesia and those met in British Columbia. The fellowship between the two Australian cultures and those of North-West America, identical in kind but different in degree, has been very accurately described by Durk- 5. The Nootkas. Coasts (east or west) of Vancouver. 6. The Salish (of the interior). East of Vancouver and Southern Columbia. Of the coast: Bella Coola, Coast Salish. From Dean Inlet and Bentinck Arm. 7. The Kootenay (Kutenai—Kutonaqa). Upper valley of the Columbia River and the adjacent region in U.S.A. 8. The Denes or Tinnehs of the Athapascan family are the most northerly, neighbours of the Esquimaux. 1 pp. 25 f. INDIVIDUALIZATION OF POWER - 83 heim: ‘The Australian aboriginal clans are not only very numerous. They are unlimited in number within a single tribe. The same process of segmentation which has originally dismembered the phratry and given rise to the clans proper continues without respite within the latter. As a result of this disintegration a clan can often muster only a very small effective force. In America, on the other hand, the totemic system has better defined forms. Although the tribes there are on the average perceptibly more voluminous than in Australia, the clans are less numerous. A single tribe rarely comprises more than a dozen, and often less. Each of them, therefore, forms a much more important group. But, above all, their number is more fixed. The people know how many clans there are, and can tell us. This difference is correlative to the superiority in social art. From the moment when these tribes were first studied, the social groups were fast rooted to the soil, and consequently better able to resist the disruptive forces which assailed them. At the same time society was already animated by too keen a feeling of its unity to remain unconscious of itself and of the parts which composed it. This greater stability has even allowed the archaic system of the phratries to maintain itself with a sharpness and relief that it no longer possesses in Australia. The tribes of the north-west coast, notably the Tlinkit and the Haida, have already reached a relatively advanced grade of civilization, and yet they are divided into two phratries, which in their turn are subdivided into a certain number of clans—Crow and Wolf phratries among the Tlinkit, Eagle and Crow among the Haida.”’ The stability of these societies is further indicated in the superiority of their industry, which knows already tents, houses, and fortified villages. But this progress does not prevent the societies being thoroughly totemic. ‘‘ The volume of the society,’ concludes Durkheim, ‘‘is much greater, and centralization, utterly lacking in Australia, is beginning to appear; we see huge confederacies, like that of the Iroquois, subject to a central authority. Sometimes a complicated system of differentiated and hierarchical classes occurs. Yet the essential outlines of the social structure remain what they were in Australia. It is always organization based on clans.’”! 1 Cf. XIV, pp. 156-161. 84. SOCIAL ORGANIZATION Thus with these two cultures, at base totemic but un- equally evolved, we are really in the presence of two variants of a single type. We have, then, good reason for comparing them and following from one to the other that process of the individualization of power which concerns us. Now that we know where we are going to make our observations, we can rapidly sketch the analysis without fear of talking in abstracto or speculating in the clouds. CHAPTER VI THE CONDITIONS OF THE INDIVIDUALIZATION OF POWER In attempting above to throw the light of mythology upon that political evolution which we aim at explaining, we have seen the idea of an individualized ancestor in the several forms of spirit totem, phratry, and tribal divinity win- ning precedence over the idea of a nameless and common totem. Let us begin by pointing out how such a transforma- tion of mythology is necessary when a hierarchical society dominated by chiefs takes the place of a democratic, com- munistic society like the primitive totemic society. We have tried to give an explanation in our Foi jurée:' ** An individual who is a noble and a chief and who has all the people of the clan for clients, necessarily must appear to such people as the tutelary genius of the clan if he wish to retain his prestige as noble and his authority as chief. The totem, the arms, the insignia, the masks, and the other emblems of the clan can only proceed from him or one of his ancestors. If he have good grounds for saying hence- forth: ‘Le clan, c’est moi,’ why could he not also say: ‘The clan’s totem is the manitou of my ancestor or my own’? What becomes of his authority in the clan if the greatest treasure of the clan come not from him? It is the new social necessity, implicit in the new social structure, that comes to be translated into mythology by assigning henceforth a predominant réle to the manitou and the ancestor. ‘To rid himself of the rivalry of collective totemic inheritance the chief absorbs and symbolizes this inheritance in himself. He gives himself out as the hereditary owner of the totem. And it is thereby that he becomes chief.’’ Here is something new. On what conditions is it possible? If the totem which we have hitherto beheld shared equally by all become the monopoly of some persons, 1p, 825. 85 86 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION it is In our opinion because this monopolization has been favoured by the following circumstances: (1) The hereditary transmission and possession of the totem have been appro- priated by the men at the same time as the totemic clan has tended to become a local clan; power, therefore, has tended to become concentrated and individualized at the same time by becoming masculine and territorial. (2) In the course of this transformation of the hereditary rules of kinship, and thanks to the very vagueness which the transi- tion created, the hereditary method of acquiring the totem finds a rival in a new method, the contractual. Contract, here brought forth under the curious guise of the potlatch, that sort of sale-exchange with a challenge at the end of it and presenting a ritual rather than a commercial char- acter, competes with heredity. ~And such competition in turn only becomes possible in so far as the nature of totemism itself has been modified until the totem has come to seem, not so much a mystic principle which possesses you, as a title which you possess and exchange and hoard up along with other titles. (3) The practice of this exchange arises out of a transformed totemism, and is added to the appropriation by males of the hereditary principle. As such it favours the individualization of power in the person of the chief all the more that, at the same time as it gives rise to a sort of feudalism, that of the potlatch civilizations, it encounters in the domains of religion, magic, and economics, the action of other causes making for individual prestige. (4) Another structure, finally, is met in societies the totemism of which has been transformed in the manner just described—a structure which tends to supplant the clan. This is the confraternity. And this quasi-feudal organization is destined to contain the hierarchy and the personal relations resembling vassalage which are suited to those oligarchical societies dominated by chiefs in which power appears con- centrated and individualized and ripe for the final unifica- tion—kingship. CONDITIONS OF POWER 87 I Tur MASCULINIZATION OF KINSHIP AND AUTHORITY We may rapidly pass over the first of these conditions, the advent of masculine kinship and masculine power, after the study we have made of the system of counting descent and after what we have said about the way in which patri- linear replaces uterine kinship. The north-west coast of North America offers us a whole gamut of civilizations, all of the same sort, but unequally developed, which allow us to perceive the change from one system to the other quite clearly. In the most northerly of these civilizations, those of the Tlinkit and the Haida, we know that kinship is frankly uterine; Frazer agrees with Krause and Swanton in affirming it. The children there belong to their mother’s phratry, and they inherit totem, name and crest, rank and property, from their maternal uncle. However, certain signs, especially among the Kwakiutl, already herald the trans- formation which is going to be accomplished when we travel farther south. Despite the uterine principle, it becomes lawful for a father who wants to give special proof of his affection for his son to hand on to the latter his own crest, which the son will bear beside that of his mother. Another symptom detected among the Haida is that the village chief, who still bears the significant title of ‘‘ mother”? at Skide- gate, is styled “‘ father ’’ at Masset. But there are more important symptoms still. First, consider the manner of transmitting forenames among the Haida; passing from paternal grandsire to grandson, they introduce, as we have explained above, an element of the patrilinear system into the uterine. Transmission through the men is beginning to be taken into account, and their legal rdle is emerging. There is, next, a still clearer symptom, the transmission of names and privileges by marriage, whereby the uterine inheritance is entrusted to the hands of the son-in-law. Even among the Haida, on the testimony of Swanton and Dawson, the chief’s power may be transmitted by marriage. But above all, among the Kwakiutl is this special function of marriage developed, and allows us to put our finger upon the transition from one system to the other. In fact, of all the North American 88 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION Indians, the Kwakiutl illustrate the transitional system most perfectly. The function of heredity is there shaken, and, instead of operating in the normal manner according to customary use, it delegates its office to substitution- functions, such as marriage, or even shares it with comple- mentary functions, such as the potlatch.! These are two points in which tradition has been modified to the advantage of males; we need not define them more precisely. We have already had to record the first in treating of kinship in order to prove the priority of the uterine system. We need only return to it to follow the progress of mascu- linity. This is the principal fact, well attested and reported by Mr. Boas himself, who can but disclose it in its full brilliance before trying to draw therefrom the strange con- clusions which we have refuted: “In the tribes of the North the rank and privileges of the wife always descend to her children. Among the Kwakiutl the same result is obtained in practice. Among them the wife brings to her husband as dowry the position and privileges of her father. But the husband is nevertheless not permitted to enjoy them him- self. He acquires them only to secure to his son the enjoy- ment of them. And as the wife’s father has, in turn, acquired these privileges in the same way through the media- tion of his mother, it is a purely uterine law of descent that is applied here, although always through the mediation of the husband.’? There! is not the transition of which we spoke a reality? There is the germ of what will become the privilege of masculinity. Marriage is employed as a substitute to secure the heredi- tary transmission of the titles of the wife’s family just because this transmission can no longer be effected directly through the uterine line. The husband reaps no personal advantage from the names and titles of his relations-by- marriage. He only receives them to pass them on to the children, whose procreation for the aforesaid family is the mission assigned to him by the marriage pact. He is, doubtless, not the beneficiary of the inheritance, he is only its vehicle, but he is its necessary vehicle.” And it is already 1 Cf. our Foi jurée, pp. 102, 110, 114, 234 7f. and 270 7. * Of course in the eyes of Boas we ought to see here a return to uterine right produced by northern influence. But this opinion is untenable. See our Foi jurée, pp. 275-285. CONDITIONS OF POWER 89 something that it is necessary to entrust him with this mission of executor, of emptor familiw, we might say, to use a very exact analogy. If we have not yet reached the privilege of masculinity, we are, nevertheless, on the way thither. In the same way, the emptor familie marks a stage on the way to testamentary succession proper. As we have tried to explain elsewhere, marriage is the sub- stitute for heredity among the Kwakiutl. It functions in the interests of the waning uterine succession, and so causes the father to intervene in a transaction, secured at first without his mediation, since it was effected directly or by the mediation of the uterine uncle alone who, himself bear- ing the same totem and name as the mother, had no real significance from the standpoint which concerns us here. But quite on the contrary, the rdle devolved upon the father introduces a germ of change and prepares the way for the final usurpation by patriarchal lineage. For that result to be achieved it will be enough that, instead of being content with holding the names and privileges in question, the father acquire possession of them, and that from being a mere minister he become the author and sole author of hereditary transmission. One circumstance will help him to accomplish that usurpation—the usage found almost always in vogue even under the uterine system, which allows the husband to take his wife away to live with him. The husband thus lays the foundations of the paternal household. With the aid of a de facto authority he paves the way to a de jure authority which will confer upon him the title of chief in the paternal line. And, at the same time, he takes advantage of the local authority which he may possess in his territorial group. That is why we said that the process whereby power becomes masculine and that whereby it becomes territorial go hand in hand. That is, in fact, what we see among the Kwakiutl, where, simultaneously with the patrilinear system, the importance of the territorial organization obtrudes itself upon our notice. Its importance is just what we have spoken of in a previous chapter in contrasting territorial with totemic organization, while Boas presents the local clan community as the original system in vogue among the Kwakiutl. 90 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION II ** POTLATCH ’’ AND TRANSFORMED TOTEMISM Thus the transformation of the system of inheritance and the concomitant transformation of the totemic clan, which tends to become a local clan, finally culminate in the same result: they come to favour individualization by allowing the male chiefs of agnatic lines and local chiefs to win recognition for their personal prestige. But, besides this corner in heredity and this consolidation into locality, there is yet another means whereby the individual is enabled to assert his personal prestige in the American societies, and also certainly in the Melanesian, and probably in many others too. This means is the potlatch. Potlatch is an extremely complex institution, at once ritual, legal, economic, and social. To expound its nature fully here is out of the question; we must confine ourselves to explaining its function. It is undoubtedly an economic institution, since in it men exchange goods; but it is still more social, since men exchange goods only to exchange titles and acquire rank. And it is primarily and essentially a ritual institution, since it forms part of a cycle of rites and does not even confer an obligatory character upon the ex- change of prestations, of which it is composed, save in so far as it attaches their enforcement to that of the ritual cycle of which it itself forms part. And it is also a ritual institution in as much as it springs from the fundamental primitive rites of mutual obligatory prestations between the phratries. These prestations (customary dues) it trans- forms by introducing into them the principle of the chal- lenge, the logical consequence of rivalry, and by using them to produce inequality and no longer to maintain equilibrium. In its concrete manifestations, this potlatch is a feast given in expectation of a return, and constituting a religious ceremony in which both the living and the dead members of the clan concerned come to take communion together and at the same time to confront one another. This feast con- sists in a solemn distribution of food and presents. This automatically entitles the distributor to be the recipient of similar distributions, and confers upon him the right to annex part of the names, crests, and privileges of rivals CONDITIONS OF POWER 91 whom he has eclipsed in munificence and has_ publicly exposed as unable to reply to his challenge.* Such a ritual exchange of competitive prestations, wherein the donors vie with one another in lavishness, provides, side by side with inheritance, a second way—this time derivative, not original, contractual, no longer statutory—of acquiring new names and crests. Personal prestige is, in fact, founded, asserted, and enlarged through potlatch; through it power is indi- vidualized. We have analysed the institution at length in our Fo jurée. Here we are obliged to refer the reader to that analysis; its conclusion we quote:” ‘‘ Potlatch is not the substitute for heredity, but its complement, and, we may add, its corrective. In society it is promotion by election in contrast to promotion by birth. It promotes the new men whom wealth favours. We shall find it again by the 1 We do not mean that the gotlatch is exclusively a means used by an individual, the clan chief, for acquiring new names. We are quite well aware that it is not only an individual means of advancement, but also the normal expression of certain relations between the clans, relations which are collective rather than individual. We also know that the fot- latch is always described in our authorities as given and directed by a chief, and this must not be forgotten. This latter aspect, which concerns us directly here, will be found studied in our work cited above. Excellent synthetic definitions of the potlatch will be found in Mauss, IV, XI, pp. 296 7f., and in L’Anthropologie (1920), pp. 396 ff. (a paper read before the French Anthropological Institute). We will quote the latter definition : ‘* Potlatch is that institution, hitherto held to be peculiar to the Indians of North-West America, in which the clans and phratries confronted vie with one another in the expenditure, even in the destruction, of wealth. It dominates the whole social, political, religious, and zsthetic life of the Kwakiutl, Haida, Tlinkit, etc. It forms part of a system which we have proposed to call ‘the system of total prestations,’ which is the normal thing in all clan societies. Exogamy is an exchange of all women between clans cognatically allied. Rights and objects, religious rites and anything and everything are interchanged between the clans and the several generations of the several clans. That is clear, for instance, among the Warramunga in Central Australia, where all proceeds from the acting phratry to the watching phratry. ‘* But fotlatch is distinguished by its markedly sumptuary character, by the usurious nature of these loans granted to one clan by another, and in general by the competitive character of this opposition of the clans, which appear to be engaging in a mortal struggle as much as in a series of peaceful collective contracts.’? Potlatch certainly does possess this nature. But that does not prevent its being used, chiefly, perhaps, among the American Indians, for the individual ends we have named by chiefs who are just struggling to usurp to their own profit the virtue which is peculiar to it. 2 pp. 234-5. 92 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION same token as a factor in the hierarchy within the secret society, where we shall, in fact, discover in it a nursery for the new individualism of wealth as well as a place of con- secration for the old individualism of birth. Thus regarded, potlatch is truly the social factor in a new order. That confirms the inference we had already drawn from the study of the specifically contractual réle of marriage among the Kwakiutl—namely, that the function of potlatch was to introduce mobility and change into the stability of totemic organization. It tends to substitute acquired for inherited prestige, and becomes the greatest factor in the social order in competition with heredity. It turns the distribution of the totems topsy-turvy, and consequently upsets the balance of social influences. It is novelty and adaptation. To the totemic constitutional system it is what contractual right is to statutory right in law. Socially speaking it is a ferment of revolution, since it is the herald of a new order. It opens the door through which the individual may stride on to the social stage, because it breaks down the rigid hereditary framework within which no scope has been allowed either for competition or adaption of individuals and because it enthrones rivalry as a social institution. It is the ancestor of trade and of the contract; to it, then, we must ascribe all the innovations that commerce and contract have intro- duced into the world.” And we compared the social function of potlatch, which is so patent, to that of contract in Rousseau. “ To sum up, potlatch viewed from this standpoint is just a continued social contract. Rousseau’s contract determined the social order once for all; potlatch is determining it at every moment. Further, Rousseau’s contract founds it upon equality; potlatch upon a hierarchy, and upon a hierarchy sprung, not from inheritance, but from competition, a peculiarity that explains the ceaselessness of the need to repeat it. But, apart from these differences, the deeper end is the same—to fix the social order.”? Potlatch thus produces enlargements or diminutions of prestige and, thereby determining the individual’s position on the social ladder, gives prominence to the figure of the chief. That this.is so is indeed evident as much in the case of the Kwakiutl as with the Haida or Tlinkit. On the other hand, studying its development from the northern to the CONDITIONS OF POWER 93 southern tribes we can see that it gives an ever greater importance to the principle of the challenge and to the striving after inequality, and that it is just to this extent that it becomes an active principle of individualization. The increase of prestige is derived quite naturally from the names, crests, and privileges which well-conducted potlatches can add to those which you possess by birth. Adam, who is the author of a series of excellent studies’ on the people who concern us, explains very clearly that even among the Tlinkit, a people normally and strictly uterine, children may already acquire other names than the inherited uterine ones, such, for instance, as those of defunct paternal ancestors.2. He adds that, to acquire such names, expensive feasts have to be given, and that many, lacking the means therefor, do without such names. There we can recognize acquisition by potlatch which not only allows a man to win privileges to which he has no right by the same title as by murder or by war, but which also serves as a general and necessary procedure for vindicating one’s claim to a thing to which one may eventually have a right. The possibility of thus acquiring supplementary names is depicted as a prerogative not only of the rich, but mainly of chief’s sons. In the same way, Swanton, referring to the Haida, tells us that a man of sufficient rank can be inspired by a fresh spirit at every potlatch, provided that that spirit be not already possessed by a chief of the opposite clan.” This word chief crops up again and again in dealing with these people. That is because the climate, fishing, and hunting have attached them permanently to the soil, where they own durable establishments and an already elaborate organization. Such are circumstances favourable to a local organization of power. On the other hand, the practice of potlatch evokes an organization of the same order. Not only is someone needed to take the initiative in arranging the feast and to preside at it, but also the several clans, which can only be invited in a body, are led to have them- selves represented at the feast by persons who occupy the place and play the part which is the due of each of them. As Adam has ably demonstrated, these are often circum- 1 They have appeared in Zettschrift fir vergleich. Rechtswtssens., vols. eek XXX, and XXXV. aol, XXIX, p. 92. 3 XLVIII, pp. 160 7. 94 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION stances and de facto necessities which culminate in the establishment of a power. Among the Tlinkit, for example, the system is still too archaic and the totemic framework too well preserved for the chief’s power to be perceptibly more firmly established or more clearly defined than in Australia. It is striking to see what difficulty Adam ex- periences in explaining precisely of which group the de facto chief is chief theoretically and why. It is, in fact, a combination of contingencies that gives rise to the power of the village chief which alone counts and which is re- enforced in the religious sphere. But as for clan chiefs, our author tells us that they are equals. There is, doubt- less, an individual figure who represents the clan, but centralization has made but little headway. Among the Haida matters appear in a different light : the chief’s authority is much more substantial and more regu- larly established than among their Tlinkit neighbours. In Adam’s description we no longer find the early indecisions of childhood, although the chief’s power there is described as identical in kind with what it was among the Tlinkit. Despite the uncertainties of terminology which cause the words clan, phratry, family, and house to be used in different senses by different authors, it is at once obvious that an individual authority exists and what it corresponds to. What Adam calls the Sippenhauptling and Swanton and Frazer the family-chief is quite evidently the clan-chief, a chief whose authority is no longer that of a primus inter pares as it is among the Tlinkit. This chief Frazer,' follow- ing Swanton and Dawson, tells us was at the same time village-chief. And in the large villages embracing clans belonging to both phratries that clan chief who was at the same time village-chief prevailed over all the rest. He occupied the first place at ceremonies and had his house in the centre of the village. The clan (which Frazer and Swanton call the family) was, in its turn, divided into families (which they call houses). These had their own chiefs, subordinate to the foregoing, and who, like them, possessed power proportionate not only to the number of their group’s members, but also and above all to their wealth. Birth still played its part, but, as Adam at once PURVES eh CONDITIONS OF POWER 95 proved in the case of the Haida and Kwakiutl, the chief appointed by heredity had to have himself solemnly installed and consecrated by a feast at which he displayed his wealth —that is to say, as we have explained above, at a potlatch. Thus, as we said, potlatch really plays the leading part in the formation of an individualized power. And that is true to such a degree that we actually see the individualiza- tion of power and the development of potlatch going hand in hand. Among the Haida we find the potlatch definitely segregated from the system of phratry relations, and pre- senting, after this segregation, two distinct varieties. The one is religious in character and continues to be given by one phratry to the other, as among the Tlinkit (potlatch sitka). The other is more social in character and is given by the chief to his clients within the clan, while it does not exist among the Tlinkits (potlatch walgal). Now, it is also among the Haida that, simultaneously with this new pot- latch, the figure of the individualized chief begins to stand out in clear-cut relief. The principle of the challenge then assumes the importance we had prophesied. But these points need emphasizing. Among the Tlinkits, where we seemed to catch the in- stitution in its least developed form, we saw the potlatch scarcely distinguishable from the normal collective relations which express the constitutional rivalry of the phratries. Among them the famous “ principle of respect ’’ so clearly distinguished by Swanton rules. According to this principle, the two phratries owe each other mutual co-operation, the one always acting in the interest of the other in the ritual, economic, matrimonial, and funerary domains. Now, the potlatch is so intimately bound up with this system of total prestations that it is barely distinguishable therefrom and still only very imperfectly serves to establish individual superiority, at least, inside the clans. With the potlatch walgal of the Haida a great change comes over the face of the scene. This principle of equilibrium, the principle of respect, yields ground more and more to the principle of inequality and competition, that is, of individualization, the challenge. We have elsewhere tried to sketch this evolution of potlatch. Beginning by being a token of respect from one 96 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION phratry to the other, it proceeds to become a means of en- forcing the respect of others just in so far as in the exchange of gifts and services this competition in generosity comes ever more into the foreground ; for it becomes a challenge to prove one’s power of repaying it. Thereafter, the potlatch will not merely express the constitutional and obligatory co-operation of the two phratries, the moieties of the tribe, and tends to become a means of asserting superiority and prestige. If this be so, it may become useable within the phratry itself as a means for founding the superiority of a clan, and within the clan for founding that of an individual. Viewed from the economic standpoint, potlatch serves to concentrate wealth before putting it into circulation. From the social point of view, it is going to serve to concentrate sovereignty. That is just what happens among the Haida and Kwakiutl, and that gives the key to the riddle of the role played thereby, as we shall see, in building up a species of religious and plutocratic feudalism such as that of the confraternities. But it is primarily among the Kwakiutl that potlatch reveals its full import as a principle of individualization ; for it is among them that we encounter the true challenge potlatch—i.e., that which aims at sanctifying individual superiority. ‘*The chiefs of the different clans or tribes,”’ Boas writes, ‘‘ from their youth up are urged by their elders to excel one another both in bravery and in the prodigality of their feasts. This spirit of emulation is maintained throughout life. They keep continually challenging one another to see who will distribute the greatest quantity of property.’ Hence arise challenge potlatches, at which the competitors try to eclipse each other by the number of blankets they can display, or by the prizes of precious coppers (at once money and symbols of authority) which they offer, or by the quantity of food which they distribute, or even by the quantity of property which they do not shrink from destroying, by throwing it into the sea, for instance. These challenge potlatches, the chief varieties of which we have just examined, turn into tourneys of prodigality, the victor wherein sees his superiority solemnly proclaimed. Thus, at the same time as the archaic totemic system and the distinction and opposition between the two phratries CONDITIONS OF POWER 97 implied in it become more and more obliterated, as happens among the Kwakiutl, the corresponding principle of ‘‘ the testimony of respect’? gives way to the principle of the challenge. But the evolution from the idea of collective equivalence and co-operation to that of individual inequality and competition is a continuous one. The cases in which it is obligatory to earn esteem by giving potlatches—house- building, the erection of a funerary post, initiation of youths, matriage—are just those in which the Tlinkit exact the testimony of respect from the opposite phratry. In our Fot jurée we have drawn attention to this agreement and survival as especially significant. ‘‘ The social fabric having crumbled away and the distinction between the phratries being no longer apparent among the Kwakiutl, it is no longer the obvious or easy course to have the services in question rendered to you by the opposite phratry. But, in default of that, you proceed to lavish on a potlatch the quantity of wealth and food you would have paid out to reward the opposite phratry under the Tlinkit system. The remunera- tive prestation has simply become an ostentatious one.” This change is of capital importance, not only because the practice of the challenge sanctifies inequality, but also because the victor at the challenge potlatch carries off as the fruits of his victory part of the names and privileges of the vanquished. There we have a principle of submission and hierarchy which comes to change the whole social order. It substitutes for totemic communism the oligarchic indi- vidualism of the societies we called potlatch societies, in order to mark potlatch as the great factor in forming the new social order among them. But names—i.e., totems which are now chiefly crests— cannot thus pass from hand to hand according to the fortune of the potlatch unless the old conception of totemism has been transformed. We have seen that the transformation of the system of kinship favoured the individualization of power by making authority masculine. In the same way, the indi- vidualization produced by the potlatch is conditioned by a transformation of totemism. Has totemism, then, disappeared to make way for a quite different mythology and policy ? Not in the least. We have 98 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION already indicated that the social organization of those American Indians among whom we were going to study the process of individualization was fundamentally totemic and only explicable with the help of totemism. But we also stated that, just in proportion as individualization became manifest, the method of conceiving this totemism was modi- fied. It is now by the aid of the chief’s ancestor that a man participates in the totem. This participation, none the less, remains the same at bottom, for all that it demands an individual mediator. But, nevertheless, the cardinal differ- ence appears—men owe the totem to the chief and his ancestors. The chief to whom a line of ancestors is assigned therefore owns the totem as something which he and his ancestors have won, as his own possession. He, more than anyone else, has a right to claim the totemic emblem, and so he depicts it on his crest so often and to such good effect that the totem of the group ends by being considered the erest of the chief. Such is the progressive transformation in the direction of individualization. Swanton has misapprehended the nature of these crests as far as the Haida clans are concerned, but he clearly sees that they were tending to absorb all the importance which had once been reserved to totems. The truth is that the crests are totems, but totems transmuted into commodities to become exchangeable at the potlatch. At this they may be lost and won and even accumulated upon a single head, that of the chief. The crests, then, are totems transformed in such a way that they become the exclusive property of the chief, who is held to have won them through his ancestors. This transformation of the totem which caused it to lose its collective character, caused it to lose its religious character, as M. Mauss has admirably shown:' ‘‘In order that the totem should have been able to circulate from clan to clan, and to serve as an object of exchange or as a present, it is requisite that its religious character should be to some extent obliterated. And, in fact, it is essentially a crest, an emblem, a religious property, rather than a mythical figure, among the Tlinkit and among the Haida. Much less than in Australia or other parts of America do men see in it a species of animal to which the clansmen belong. You possess it PaEVGVAL, Dpse ac i CONDITIONS OF POWER 99 much more than it possesses you. Hardly any worship is paid to it. Yet indisputable though these facts be, it would be wrong to assume that the original totemic clans had been without a cult of their own. To possess a totem is to possess at the same time a line of ancestors to whom you pray and who aids you, it is to be owner of the phratry’s field, of the special field of the family and the clan.”? And just there lies the novelty as we have ourselves tried to explain: the totem which appears more and more to be represented in the varieties of the crests and as appropriated by the chief has a double character. It keeps its traditional religious character and the social consequences attaching to this character, nobility. But it becomes at the same time an object of exchange and personal appropriation. Hence, it comes about that this prestige of nobility that the totem possesses from its originally religious nature is no longer transmitted only by birth and undivided to all those who are held to be descended from it. It can also be acquired by one individual to the exclusion of others, just as a result of the potlatch. Individuals who do not hold it by right of birth, and even those whom heredity has endowed with it but who no longer feel themselves sufficiently endowed by that right alone, have consequently a new means of acquiring prestige, rank, and power. And thus from the potlatch societies, heirs of the totemic societies, a feudalism of chiefs may arise. III THe *‘ PoTuatcH’’ AND THE CONFRATERNITIES Now, as an instrument of this new order, there exists in these new societies a new structure which, according to the season, alternates with the old structure of totemism, the clan; and which, arising out of the latter, depresses it ever more and more to a secondary place. This new structure is the confraternity, usually, but wrongly, called the secret society. In our eyes, these confraternities appear to be, to a peculiar degree, incubators of individualization for sove- relgnty. On the one hand, their organization, in comparison with the clans’, marks a step towards unification and concentra- 100 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION tion; do not all the members of one confraternity, although sprung from different clans, regard themselves as kinsmen ? On the other hand, it implies and introduces for the first time a hierarchy in the bosom of which individuals may advance in grade and thus acquire, with the series of magico- religious powers corresponding to the successive stages of initiation, a prestige which is the foundation of their sove- reignty as chiefs. These confraternities play a particularly important rdéle in the life of the Kwakiutl, where they have been minutely studied by Boas. Participation in societies of this sort determines the rank and office of individuals. The latter gain admission by means of a series of successive initiations. To each of these corresponds the possession of a certain spirit, the last initiation conferring possession of the highest spirit. The organization into clans continues to exist during the summer—that is, during the time of profane life. At the beginning of winter, at the moment when religious life begins, the organization into confraternities makes its ap- pearance. We have endeavoured to show (Foi jurée, p. 350) that this alternation corresponds exactly to the oscillations of Kwakiutl society. Inaugurating a new system, the system of individualization, it cannot at the outset and completely abandon the old system, but keeps it for the less significant period of the year. Of the two alternating organizations, that into clans appears to us naturally condemned; that which is vital and effective is the organization, hierarchical and no longer equalitarian, of the confraternities. A first distinction among the members of the confraterni- ties is that whereby the active members, or memqoat, are contrasted with the honorary members, or qgequtsa. The first are those who are actually possessed by the spirits and perform the rites, dance the dances, and sing the songs at the religious ceremonies. The second are those who have resigned office and are simply spectators at the ceremonies. From this distinction one consequence arises which concerns us: power belongs to the active members, while the others are subject to them and are bound by strictly defined obliga- tions to them. But differentiation has progressed still farther. All the active members are, in fact, far from being on the CONDITIONS OF POWER 101 same footing in their superiority to the honorary members. On the contrary, they are themselves hierarchically ranked according to the nature of the spirit which possesses them. At the pinnacle of the hierarchy stands the spirit, hamatsa, a cannibal spirit who is superior to all the rest and owns the most exalted masks, chants, dances, and rites. Possession of this spirit can only be acquired through a series of initiations lasting over, at least, eight years, in the course of which the brother passes through all the inferior grades— i.e., grades conferred by possession of less exalted spirits. What, then, are these spirits, and what is requisite to obtain possession of them ? To understand what they are we must compare the pos- session obtained through totemic participation, and, con- sequently, explain the spirit by the totem and the confra- ternity by the clan. Let us first note that, according to tradition, the confraternities originate in a similar way to the clans. One of the clan’s ancestors has met the spirit which presides over a society. He has been initiated during a sojourn with the spirit. Then he has returned to his own people and organized the secret society with all the rites which had been revealed to him. We have already shown that a mythology of this sort is just a mythology adapting itself to the requirements of thought in process of individuali- zation. The guardian spirit of the confraternity is, then, in our eyes merely the totem, though under an individual form and transmitted by the mediation of an ancestor instead of being the object of immediate and collective participation. In the second place, it is very striking to see that the spirits into which one may be initiated in a secret society, and hence the names which one may earn, are not unlimited in number, as they ought to be if it were merely a question of genii or individual spirits. On the contrary, they are strictly limited in number. That causes the above-mentioned division into active and honorary members; for possession of a new spirit can only be obtained by a new titulary if it has been re- linquished by the former one. But that also shows that there are specific spirits attached to specific confraternities, just as under the totemic system there was a totem reserved to each clan. Here we see analogies between the totem and the spirits, the confraternity and the clan. They encourage us 102 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION to think that we are in the presence, not of separate things, but of two facies of one and the same thing. There is yet another reason to encourage us in this same conclusion. Webster,’ in his study devoted to secret societies, shows very properly that they are not just little magical congregations, but organs of government, political forms, strong and lusty. The confraternities, therefore, in our eyes, take up the political rdle of the clan just at the moment when the transformations of totemism and kinship are rendering obsolete the conceptions of communal authority diffused throughout the totemic clan, and are demanding a structure adapted to making power individual and_hier- archic. That is why it is a mistake to see in them mere secret societies. The societies in question, which we propose to call con- fraternities with M. Mauss, are not the appanage of the Indian tribes of America alone. Melanesian comparisons, too, may be very helpful in explaining them. The Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands offer very interesting examples. Now, from the material collected by Parkinson,? it follows, on the one hand, that the term secret society * Webster (L., pp. 74-5) shows clearly that the secret societies only have a specifically religious nature and function after having had a political role. They have begun by being organs of government in the absence of genuine political government. In communities where the political power of chiefs was still in process of formation it was they which enforced an effective social constraint and the execution of the indispensable political and legal functions. But with the development of genuine political centralization and powers of government their political aspect tended to become superfluous. Only then did the religious and dramatic aspects come to occupy the foremost place and the confraternities to deserve the mame secret societies. This view is correct save that, in our opinion, Webster did not insist sufficiently upon the fact that such societies disclose the structure most favourable to the formation of that aristocracy of chiefs whose political Power progresses by replacing theirs. Further, Webster seems to us mis- taken in classing the North-West American secret societies among the most evolved, and, consequently, among those which have lost their political importance. G. Brown (VII, p. 270), referring to the Bismarck Archipelago and Samoa, also reveals the political function of secret societies very clearly. ‘‘ There was no form of government outside the secret societies, and the only revenue collected was the fines imposed upon the members of such societies for transgressing the statutes of the societies. Moreover, these statutes were practically the only laws in existence.” * XXXVIII. CONDITIONS OF POWER 103 should be used only with great caution and in distrust of appearances which cause superficial observers to take for a true secret society what is in reality only a confraternity, only a derivative of the men’s society. On the other hand, it is clear that these confraternities, sprung from or con- tained in the men’s society, are centres of concentration for religiousness and political power. At the same time, they naturally are centres of the masculinization of this power through a process to which we have given prominence. M. Mauss! conjectures with much probability that there are no proper secret societies in the Melanesian Islands in question save in some parts of the Solomons and in the centre of the Bismarck Archipelago! Everywhere else, in his view, the facts collected by Mr. Parkinson refer, not to secret societies, but to the men’s society, or Ingiet, with which the alleged secret society, or Duk-Duk, often coexists. The latter would therefore be, in most cases, only a contfra- ternity—that is, a new grouping sprung from the union of totemic clans. Within the men’s society, of which it would be in origin only a sub-group, this new group would be charged with the performance of certain rites and functions. Only in case one of these confraternities emancipates itself does it tend to form a genuine secret society. In the second place, it appears that in either one of these two forms, con- fraternity or secret society, the grouping in question is an organ of concentration which proceeds to individualize power to the advantage of the men. We had seen above that the progress of individualized power was accompanied by the progress of masculine privi- lege. It was, therefore, interesting to remark that our con- fraternities, although not to be confused with the celebrated men’s societies, are none the less essentially masculine asso- ciations. It is in the bosom of them and thanks to the personal magico-religious prestige which they confer and the differences of rank which they sanctify, that men have established that personal power of domination which first the chief and then the king are to be able to arrogate to themselves. Our second question now remains. What is the qualifica- tion requisite for being initiated into the society’s rites and DV Rr OF: 104. SOCIAL ORGANIZATION possessed by its spirits—in short, for being a member of the confraternity, or, in other terms, a candidate for indi- vidualized power? The requisite step is to buy this right, for it goes to wealth. That is the great difference between the confraternity and the clan, entrance to which is by birth. But there, too, reappears our potlatch, which is most decidedly the great instrument in the individualization of power. It is, in fact, by virtue of potlatches that you force your way into the confraternities and earn advancement there. The potlatch is the continually recurring rite in confraternities. To be convinced of this it is enough to read the winter ceremonial among the Kwakiutl as described by Boas. It is a succession of food potlatches and property potlatches. IV Power, ‘‘ PotLatcu,’’ AND PRovISIONS And here we touch at once upon the economic aspect of potlatch and upon the economic causes which contribute to the concentration and individualization of power. Potlatches, in fact, have, as we saw above, to be given in order to win names and crests in the procedures by challenge. As we have now seen, they have to be given also to gain access to the confraternities and possession by their spirits. These pot- latches, then, which are distributions, are distributions of something—essentially of property and food. It is, therefore, chiefly by means of potlatch that the individual succeeds in imposing his personal prestige and power. It is, on the other hand, riches—food and property— that are the sinews of the potlatch. That being so, it is . easy to discern the economic factor in the establishment of individual power. At the same time, it must be added that the role of magic as a factor is evident; for we are going to see that the magic capabilities of individuals, concurrently with success in trade and war, contribute to endow them more abundantly than others with that food and property without which there can be no potlatches, and, consequently, no advancement towards sovereign power. In the first place, he who aspires to become a chief in virtue of numerous and sumptuous potlatches must be a CONDITIONS OF POWER 105 great food-provider to his clan. Everywhere and always he needs the most profitable hunting and fishing. Mythology gives us very instructive hints on this point. We find, in fact, that nearly all the stories of heroes begin in the same way: the clan or tribe is in an extremity of famine. Certain destruction looms before them when one member of the group disappears, goes and gets initiated by one of the multitudinous supernatural beings—spirits of the sea, or of the canoe, or of the forest—to an extraordinarily fruitful hunting or fishing and returns as saviour. Besides the pro- ducts of his hunting or fishing needed to relieve immediate necessities, he brings secrets of hunting and fishing which henceforth will place the group beyond the reach of any famine. J. Boas’ and Hunt’s collection of Kwakiutl tales and those collected among the Tlinkit and Haida are bristling with deeds of this kind. Furthermore, as we have pointed out,’ these myths which illustrate the personal might conferred by the possession and acquisition of food, at the same time explain the origins of the distributions made at the potlatch. The hero of the miraculous hunting or fishing that is destined to save the famished tribe proceeds in fact to distributions of victuals when he returns clothed with prestige as initiate and grand provider of food. And in the course of these distributions it is just the quality of the morsels distributed that determines the rank of each partici- pant in the hierarchic distribution. For instance, in the Kwakiutl legend of Omaxtalale? the places allotted at the banquet determine a whole hierarchy of vassals, of retainers,? as our own Middle Ages would term it. These will henceforth enjoy the right of participating in the distributions of victuals and commodities at the potlatch. At the same time, they will undertake the duty of assisting the chief to amass the reserves of wealth necessary to swell the abundance of these feasts with which the chief’s power and the clan’s honour are alike bound up. That shows clearly that this acquisition of food designed to swell the potlatch corresponds not only to an economic but also to a magic office. First we saw that the hunting 1 XI, p. 340. 2 Boas, VI, pp. 384-8. * The French term is nowrris (‘‘ fed”’), to which English feudalism does not provide a quite exact equivalent.—V. G. C. 106 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION and fishing were fruitful because supernatural and guided by a spirit. Harpoon, canoe, and arrow have been endowed with mana; it is that which makes them catch the game and fish. In the same way, the hero returned in the guise of an initiate. Not only will all the rites, the secret of which he learnt, be used henceforth, not only will hunting and fishing expeditions be accompanied and preceded in future by in- cantations and magic rites, but also the food assumes a sort of mystic value at the same time as its bringer becomes invested with a halo of prestige. Food is life and force, it is mana. Therefore, he who gives the food or eats it accumulates strength and produces life. And food itself, by an extension in harmony with the mystical mentality of the primitive, becomes one of the categories under which domination and appropriation are thought. You eat your dead enemy in order to assimilate his substance, his mana, as food. And Polynesian mythology, for instance, recounts terrible conflicts between the sons of heaven and earth. In the course of these conflicts one of the combatants is seen triumphing over all his brethren save over him alone whom he has not succeeded in transmut- ing into food. In the rites of secret societies we behold the hamatsa spirits biting the onlookers; that is an attenuated cannibalism which by metonymy possesses the same virtue as the other, and testifies to the domination of the hamatsa and the subjugation of those who are bitten. Thanks to the same magic participation, the chief, the mighty man, who is able to give plenty of potlatches because he is the master and dispenser of food, appears as the dis- penser, or, at least, the mediator of fertility and life. He communicates both to his subjects, to nature, and to things this vivifying mana which makes them be. Lévy-Bruhl, in his recent book on primitive mentality, has very happily described this mystic virtue in the chief’s person.' He ingeniously compares it to the mystic virtue attributed to women which causes agricultural labours to be reserved to them because they are the principle of fertility. Like the personal influence of women, that of the chief is needed in order that the fields may feed the tribe, as, for instance, 1 XXIV, pp. 366 7. CONDITIONS OF POWER 107 among the Mosutos. ‘‘ There is a sort of ‘ contact-action,’ as it were,’ he writes, ‘‘ comparable to that of a catalytic agent. The chief is the necessary intermediary between the social group and the unseen powers upon whom the fertility of the soil and of plant life depends. Should he fail to fulfil that office, these powers . . . become hostile or even simply indifferent, and the tribe is threatened with death by famine.”’ Evidently it may be the products of the chase, of fishing, or of agriculture that swell the potlatch, and the potlatch, therefore, may have an economic aspect without presuppos- ing in him who gives it purely economic activity or wealth. It does presuppose, on the other hand, in him, the chief, the magic powers to which we have alluded. Thus we again encounter Frazer’s celebrated thesis of the magic origins of kingship. But we meet them in their proper place, which is not that which Frazer assigns to them; for he will recog- nize nothing else, and refers all personal power to magic.’ We have already said in a previous chapter that those embryo chiefs who are found at the head of the local divisions among the Australian aborigines were not mere magicians, but also already religious chiefs. We must indeed allow magic its place, a real place. But we must not do this for magic only, nor must we systematically degrade to the level of magic rites all rites—totemism, intichiuma, and the rest—nor yet see only magic in the fear mana, to which a force other than magic contributes. What an exaggeration, and also what an error, to say with Frazer that “* the kingly regalia are for kings only the conjuring apparatus of their predecessors, the magicians,”’ and that “‘ the magician is the humble chrysalis which in due time bursts and discloses the gorgeous butterfly, the rajah or king!’’ Let us observe that even in the cases of the acquisition or production of food cited above, in which we have assigned its part to magic, magic was not the only factor concerned. If the chief possessed a special mana to feed his people and make their fields fertile, he held it from the spirits, and it, like all mana, indeed, as we have previously demonstrated, was a power quite as much religious as magical. Moreover, the distribu- * [But compare the reservations Frazer makes—e.g., in The Magic Art, (1911), I, pp. 332 #.—V. G. C.] 108 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION tions made of this food at potlatches are distinctively religious ceremonies. They involve a regular ritual of gestures and words, they establish a mystic communion, and the food-quests attributed to the ancestors, the food-provid- ing heroes from whom the chiefs are descended, form an integral part of mythology. Vv Power, ‘*‘ PoTLATCH,”’ AND PROPERTY Property is just as necessary for the potlatch as food. And like it, property is hallowed by its own mythology. That is exemplified inter alia in the legend of Dame Property among the Haida and that of the purchase of the precious coppers among the Kwakiutl—of those precious coppers which serve at once as crests and as money, and which represent ‘*the weight of the name” of their possessor. With these symbolic coppers, which you amassed only to be able to distribute or even destroy as many of them as possible as a proof of prestige, the chief identifies himself in many incantations. The price which the chief asks or offers for them does not represent their intrinsic value, but his own value, the value of his name. Further, neither this nor any other form of property can be exchanged or circu- lated in response to economic needs and in the guise of a pure and simple economic phenomenon. In the potlatch societies where exchange is very active, goods are not ex- changed or put into circulation save on the occasion of changes in the status of persons. Real right with all its modes is only an epiphenomenon of personal right, which is religious by nature. Exchanges are not made for their own sake, but for the performance of an obligatory rite on the occasion of personal events, such as a birth, initiation, mar- riage, or death. At this point it is often found necessary to induce modifications in personal right in order to allow real right to function. And thus adoptions or marriages— chief’s marriages, for instance—are multiplied in a wholly fictitious manner merely to give opportunity for the trans- action of exchanges which could not be realized without such accompaniments. That is not all; among some Melane- sians commerce is seen to be practicable only by virtue of CONDITIONS OF POWER 109 the epiphenomenon of a ritual commerce, purely religious in nature and dealing in commodities without any intrinsic value—the so-called kula traffic.’ But the prerogative of religion, even in economic matters, being thus reserved, it must be confessed that trade, in the most material and mercantile sense of the word, is all the same a powerful individualizing factor, just because it concen- trates wealth in the hands of the most skilful. It can truth- fully be said of potlatch societies, in contrast to totemic societies, that they are essentially societies of the nowveaua riches, in which wealth is the chief element in prestige and power. The people of North-West America are great traders, very greedy of gain, and Frazer could say of them that they engaged in the scramble for blankets (blankets are current coin among them) with as much avidity as their white neigh- bours engaged in the scramble for dollars. The potlatch and the advance to higher grades in the secret societies demand, besides distributions of food, huge payments which are only within the reach of those enriched by commerce. Let us, however, remark that wealth is not in itself suffi- cient for these rich men. They proceed to buy grades and titles in religious confraternities, and the potlatches they give, though rites of wealth, are rites none the less. This proves that wealth does not suffice to create social power whether in its feudal or regal form. Were it otherwise, the rich parvenu, sure of his power, would not go on to solicit investiture in the confraternities and successive initiations into the secrets of the spirits. This is because power and mana remain, in their essence, religious things, and the pro- fane means, such as power, wealth, or force,? which procure their material equivalent, are only secondary and occasional causes of genuine social prestige, of true sovereignty. That the individual can only usurp to himself by plucking it at its root, which is social and religious, as it was in the first communistic totemic societies. The chief whose physical strength, technical skill, success as hunter and fisher, commercial aptitude, and wealth make aman who must rule, yet cannot truly rule save on one 1 See our fot jurée, pp. 187-192. * In fact, what we have just said of wealth might be repeated in reference to war. 110 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION condition—that he hallow himself, as it were, in the confra- ternity which alone possesses the true power. This hallowing takes the place of birth when he have no hereditary coats of arms, and when he have such, the same hallowing still remains useful; for though birth play a réle at the potlatch it is not the high or only mistress.* Thus it is far from being a stroke of force or a stroke of luck that allows of the usurpation of authority in these societies. The origin of sovereignty is neither violence nor despotism. True sovereignty—that of the feudal chief and, more universalized, that of the king, of Pharaoh, which is to appear in the continuation of this book—has deep roots. It is in the fullest sense a national sovereignty, which means that it is rooted in the very heart of the group. It is not to be found at the point of a sword nor at the bottom of a sack of ducats. It is enshrined in the social body itself; it is its immanent tradition, will, and consciousness. We have seen it diffused through the totemic clan, then more concentrated in the confraternity. Here, as there, it was enshrined like a religious treasure, proving that it is the very soul of the society which thus preserves it in its loins. We know, then, whither the personal titulary of this sovereignty must repair to seek it, and we understand, too, that, if he have some right to incarnate it, it is only in so far as he exercises it as a mandatary of that collective consciousness from which sovereignty is sprung. 1 Very important note.—The final process of condensation and generaliza- tion—the last phase of the evolution we have been studying—could also be studied in primitive societies and it would be the phase which would carry us from the feudal sovereignty of the chief to the national sovereignty of the king proper. But, though I have sacrificed much, I have already exceeded the number of pages allotted to me. So I stop here. My explanation of the genesis of power in primitive social organizations does not, however, lose thereby any indispensable elements. Firstly, regal power, in fact, differs not in nature but only in degree from a power such as we have seen forming. And secondly, we should have gone to seek the final phase of our evolution among African tribes. Now, it is precisely the power of a Semitized African monarch, the Egyptian Pharaoh, that will appear in the rest of this book. On the kingdoms of the lower peoples of Africa (Negritos, Bantus, Nilotes) and their tribal legal systems, highly suggestive notes by Mauss and Durkheim will be found in l’Année soctologigue, vols. XI, pp. 186-148 and 317-323, and XII, pp. 149-156, 381-4, 128-132, 390-4, 142-6, 395-7. CONDITIONS OF POWER 111 That is the only way of explaining both authority and its acceptance by the group. Durkheim remarks that in a general way individuals can only be subject to a collective despotism; for the only force that is superior to them is that of the group. No personality whatsoever, however potent it be, could by itself avail aught against a whole society. That is why the strength of authoritarian govern- ments does not come to them from themselves, but is derived from the very constitution of society. It is incomprehensible, he adds, how primitive populations should have been sub- jected, as easily as Spencer alleged, to the despotic authority of the chief if individualism were really inborn in mankind. On the contrary hypothesis, everything is explicable. ‘* Indi- viduals, instead of being subordinate to the group, are sub- ordinated to him who represents it. And as the collective authority was absolute when it was diffuse, so that of the chief, which is only an organization of the foregoing, natur- ally assumes the same character.’?! If it be so, to explain the individual authority of the chief it is necessary to observe, as we have done, the nature of primitive societies and the beliefs and feelings which, becoming incarnate in one person, have communicated to him their might and have made him sovereign politically. That is the essential point. ‘‘ As to the personal authority of the chief,’? Durkheim concludes, ‘it only plays a secondary part in this process. It explains why the collective force has been concentrated in these hands and no others, but not its intensity. From the moment that this force, instead of remaining diffuse, is obliged to be delegated, that can only be to the advantage of individuals who have already given evidence of some superiority in other directions. But if the latter indicate the direction of the current, it does not create the current. If the pater familias at Rome enjoys absolute power, it is not because he is the eldest or sagest or most tried. It is because as a result of the circumstances in which the Roman family was placed, he embodies the old family communism. Despotism, at least when it is not a pathological or degeneration phenomenon, is nothing but a transformed communism.”’ This conclusion is just; for nothing comes out of nothing 1 XII (2nd ed.), p. 172. 112 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION —Pharaoh’s absolute kingship no more than any common- place natural product; and that is one of the first maxims we have laid down in these pages. Sovereignty has a ‘‘matter,’? and it cannot be created by a mere fiat of the sovereign’s will. Such a will is, then, in this sense only a secondary cause. But history, down to its latest self-revela- tion, stands as a witness to warn us that a secondary cause is not necessarily an ineffectual cause, and that according as it assume this figure or that it can modify surprisingly the “‘ form ”’ of the ‘* matter ’’ in which it works. AppITIioNaL Note (APPEARING AS AN ADDENDUM TO THE SECOND FRENCH EDITION). I should perhaps insist on a factor in social concentration and individual- ization which I left rather on one side in the first edition of this study, but on which some notes will be found in my Lléments de sociologve (i, pp. 146-163), published subsequently. I refer to the appearance of military and agricultural chiefs—always, however, invested with a sacred character—in tribal societies. It is the African material, to the importance of which I particularly called attention in the note on p. 110, which allows us to per- ceive this formation of chieftainships in societies where potlatch does not seem to have been an agent in making power feudal or the clan hierarchic. To elaborate this overcurt hint, I have explained in my Z/éments just cited, and in accordance with the views of Durkheim and Mauss set forth in the articles mentioned in the note on p. 110, how the transformation of totemic clans into local groupings and the transition from uterine to masculine kinship must have prepared the way for “ the chief phenomenon of social concentration which takes us from communistic totemic societies to tribal societies with organized chieftainships. This concentration seems to have taken place in the neolithic age when the tribes came together and settled down, abandoning nomadic life for sedentary, agricultural, and industrial life. This new manner of life necessitates the institution of chiefs proper, chiefs whose struggle for frontiers, as well as their hunting expeditions and efforts at settlement and organization, must make them in a sense military chiefs, but who are going to find in the totemic traditions, which they have only to monopolize and individualize, a reservoir of power and prestige from which they will draw the consecration of their sovereignty ”’ (Davy, op. czt., i, pp. 146-7). The Bantu and Nilotic societies well illustrate the manner in which centralization is bound up on the one hand with military despotism and agricultural organization and on the other with monotheism. Coming together both for defence and for the exploitation of the soil, it looks as if the clans needed a single god as much as a single military chief. “ Military power and religious power are thus the attributes with which political power appears when it is concentrated. Among all the peoples whom we have passed in review, the cult of the king accompanies military chieftainship. Often, too, the initiation rites, which are a tribal worship and consequently represent an advanced degree of religious concentration, play a pre- dominant part.’? Thus at the same time as the great gods are conceived as gods above the particularism of the clan by the tribal worship, so the CONDITIONS OF POWER 113 chiefs or kings who unite tribes or kingdoms under their authority are worshipped like these gods and assimilated to them. It seems, then, that the chief is the living synthesis of all the energies, all the capacities, and all the rights which are latent and diffuse in the group. To prove that the king really absorbs everything—religion, force, property—in himself, the Baganda, to take but one example, represent him after his accession as ““eating the country.’? The king is the group, he is its land, he is its defence, he is its religious force, its ancestral tradition: he is its all. ee ayy ees Bin, * rl ire re awe the L Pgh! baie ‘7 A ae on oe . wy q way ey aay: 1 Pack J ai . ;* ‘ a x ' - t a¥ me oe it oa . i 7 j rt y mid df Pe ¢ hye "Ber ? Wis in! a « ay ri tes ] , Polen i: Ce eae J a, < 7% y i } : | ’ \j “ > é > > ‘ 4 ' j - oe ‘ ‘ v: ' U ; 4 7 * ‘ ~ (s » 5 “Og ‘. ‘> ' . j %, ty ted - ' te . i ' . ‘ : ‘ ' f 7 tl eit “5 agthg * bea i, “4 iaty Ap md al + ths. ae SE ase ins aaa ee rahe i hal STs. toa Varma* Stat AA ea . “ie Wie RS aa, Soe a0 te. x ait al Ec 5 a | i x ‘ hy teeyy, 1 shine oe ue, EY, uae me ih HS: ih: Peter teat » | 1 kad ae a he ye nee err by ? A i a oe, Poe PART II FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS CHAPTER THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS IN EGYPT I THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN AS THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION From the middle of the quaternary era, Man appears simul- taneously in Europe, Africa, and Asia at a number of sites, which grow more numerous with the discoveries of every year. But the first soil really propitious to a normal develop- ment of civilization and to advances in political and social life has for many thousands of years been found by man only in the south-east of the Mediterranean from the Nile to Mesopotamia. There the retreat of the pleiocene sea had left dry a limestone plateau extending from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf. In it subsidences and erosion cut the relatively deep valleys of the Nile, the Jordan-Orontes and the Euphrates, and the parallel gulfs of the Red Sea, the Dead Sea, and the Persian Gulf. Volcanic eruptions bursting up along the cracks of the earth’s crust raised up the Peninsula of Sinai and spread out the lava, basalts, granites, minerals, and gems of Nubia, Sinai, Arabia, and Elam. Despite the long, wide marine cleft between Arabia and Egypt, which only left a fragment, seventy miles wide—our Isthmus of Suez—of Africa in Asia, the whole region where Egypt, Arabia, Palestine and Syria, Mesopotamia and Assyria will develop possesses a certain geological and physical unity which is to influence the fortunes of its inhabitants. To the north the Mediterranean, a moving barrier, did not offer a continuous obstacle. Down to a relatively late epoch subsequent to 115 116 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS the appearance of man, the ridges of Gibraltar and Sicily afforded communication between North Africa and Europe. To the north-east the land bridges which linked Asia Minor to the Greek Peninsula were not yet broken. On the Asiatic side, on the contrary, the Euphrates Valley is encircled by mountains and deserts. In the direction of Africa the Nile Valley is hemmed in by inhospitable sands. Far more than to the vast African and Asiatic continents, Egypt and Meso- potamia belong to the Mediterranean basin. From Libya to Iran tablelands and valleys enjoyed climatic conditions infinitely superior to those imposed on Europe. North of the Mediterranean, ice rivers descended from the mountains, invaded the plains, and drove men to take refuge in caves. That happened four times, each in- vasion lasting thousands of years; but temperate periods intervened. However gifted were the men whose exquisite paintings and reliefs have been preserved in French and Spanish caves, their progress was grievously hampered by’ the glacial invasions. Only late did they learn any means of existence and provisions for life beyond pasturage and hunting. Only after thousands of years did they become cultivators, potters, and metallurgists. Their social, intel- lectual, and religious development owing to this suffered a long period of stagnation. In the history of humanity they only count from the first millennium before our era. The physical conditions of North Africa and the south- west of Asia were quite different. There were no glaciers in what will be the habitat of the peoples of the Ancient Kast, but valleys, where the earth deposit was accumulating during the quaternary epoch and the river systems were beginning to become regular, and tablelands watered by abundant rains, where plants and game sufficed for human food. The human race found there a soil whereon it might advance without knowing the centuries of arrested growth imposed by nature. Thus is to be explained the advances ahead of their quaternary contemporaries made by the men of the Ancient East. They first devised a complete social organiza- tion, their hands and brains created the majority of tools, the first masterpieces of art and thought. Finally, thanks to a climate favourable to the preservation of all substances, inscribed or pictorial monuments from the earliest times are THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE 117 the least mutilated among them. The memory of fleeting lives, which in other parts of the globe nothing could rescue from oblivion, in Egypt and Chaldea is enshrined for us in buildings, mummies, and inscriptions. That is why human history can and should be studied among the peoples of the Ancient East several thousand years earlier than anywhere else. Yet even in the favoured region of the Eastern Mediter- ranean, Nature distributed her gifts unevenly. As the quaternary period evolved, the climates changed and the pluvial rainfall diminished. On the tablelands of Libya, Arabia, and Syria, now less and less well watered, human life became precarious; but it kept its privileged conditions in the Nile and Euphrates Valleys. The first civilizations flourished principally among the inhabitants of Egypt and Chaldea. Of these two valleys, Egypt occupies the first rank both for the antiquity, the number, and the beauty of its monuments. In Egypt man not only appears from the remotest ages—a fact observable elsewhere—but—and this is unique—the evolution of his body, of his spirit, and of his social, political, intellectual, and artistic creations can be followed almost without interruption down to the present day. It is, there- fore, in Egypt that the study of the origins of historic civilization ought to begin. There its development and its radiation to other centres of Oriental culture will best be observed. II Tue First Human Groups In Ecypt The tablelands, to-day deserts, which enclose the Nile Valley were inhabited before the valley itself. At the dawn of the quaternary epoch North Africa was free from the giaciers which had held Europe in their grip. What we call the Sahara was well-watered country, covered with arbor- escent vegetation and swarming in game. Man appeared there very early. Round Algiers, and at Gafsa in the neigh- bourhood of Tunis, deposits of worked flints of eolithic! or pre-Chellean type, dated by the stratification, have been * de Morgan, XXXI, pp. 35 ff. 118 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS found. They are the tools and weapons of a rude population of nomad hunters. Their prey—buffaloes, antelopes, and ostriches—appears, painted by the hunters themselves upon the walls of caves from Algeria to the Egyptian Sudan. The distribution of the paintings indicates the area traversed by the hunters.! They reached the edges of the depression where the Nile Valley was carving itself out, but for centuries could not settle there. The pleiocene sea, which reached as far as the present Fayum at the beginning of the quaternary, gave place to fresh-water lakes strung out from the site of the future Thebes to that of the future Memphis. At an epoch roughly corresponding to the first interglacial in Europe these lakes were drained, leaving characteristic fossiliferous sediments and lake terraces on each side of the Nilotic fault. On these lake bottoms flora and fauna developed more quickly than on the Sahara plateaux. About the same time the river waters of Central Africa, bursting through the granite barriers of Nubia, sought an outlet to the Mediterranean. After trying a course to the left of the present Nile, they found a suitable way of escape through the ancient marine and lacustrine gulf.2 A river of formidable might thus flowed across swamps rich in plants and animals. By the second glacial epoch in Europe the Nile Valley offered to the hunters the attractions of its waters, its plants, and its wild life, all the more potent because the progressive and parallel desicca- tion of the Sahara made human life difficult upon the North African tablelands. Along the banks of the wadis, to-day dry, which drained to the Nile the waters of the Sahara and formed each one a way of entry, the hunters pitched temporary camps and established their workshops for arms and implements of chipped flint. There and on the lake terraces in the valley the palxolithic stations have been discovered, and these have yielded by the thousand hand-axes, celts, arrow-heads, har- poons, and hammer-stones of the type which will be called Chellean and Acheulean.’ Attracted by the water, hunting 1 Boule, Z’Anthr., XIII (1902), p. 109; Schweinfurth, Zeztschr. /. Ethnog., XXXIX (1907), p. 889; XLIV, p. 627. 2 Blenckenhorn, ‘‘ Geschichte des Nil-Stroms” (in Zettschr. d. Gesell. f. Erdkunde, 1902). 3 de Morgan, XXXI, p. 36. THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE = 119 and fishing, the nomads descended into the valley. Kept there by the easier life due to the animals, fish, and wild plants, they began to make permanent settlements. Under the river terraces their flints and the bones of the buffaloes and elephants which they ate have been unearthed. To this period of the first sedentary establishments in the valley those stations termed mesolithic by de Morgan’ should correspond. But nothing, or hardly anything, has come down to us from them. There lies a still unsolved problem in Egypt; the several stages in the development of the age of stone, chipped, flaked, polished, etc., are not met. We pass abruptly from paleolithic stations to neolithic stations, which are better termed chalcolithic, since copper and gold already appear in them.’ If the intermediate stages are lacking, nothing proves that they did not exist at all. It is more likely that the traces of them are and will remain inaccessible to excavators, and the reason is this: Man had already been settled in the valley for several thousand years when, about the time of the last glacial period in Europe, the Nile’s cycle of annual floods and alluvial depositions became definitely established. For man the result was such an improvement in the soil that agriculture and all that it entails became his principal occupation and finally attached the race to the land. With agriculture began an evolution in_ paleolithic industry ; then came the utilization of clay, crude or baked, the invention of pottery. But the ruins of the villages and cemeteries which would have preserved for us the traces of this intermediate age were gradually buried in silt; for the deposit, insignificant in any single year, assumes gigantic proportions when the unit of measurement is a thousand years. Where deep soundings have been made, for instance, at the mouth of the Delta, pottery and bricks, and at Damietta even a skull,* appeared at a depth of twenty or thirty metres in the silt. According to probable estimates, these potters were living there 16,000 years ago.* It is likely that they represent the population intermediate between the 1 de Morgan, XXXI, p. 73. ATOLL Dp wil, OO. ® Schweinfurth, quoted by Blenckenhorn, Zeztschr. d. Gesell. ¢. Erdkunde, (1902), p. 761. 4 Breasted, XXV (Nov., 1919), p. 307. 120 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS paleolithic men of the desert and the chalcolithic people of the following age. But, of course, methodical soundings will be needed to establish this hypothesis and these si eet on a surer footing. With the chalcolithic stations we return once more to firm ground. Since 1895, J. de Morgan, G. Legrain, E. Amélineau, Flinders Petrie, Quibell, and many others have found them distributed all along the Nile Valley,’ but always on the edge of the sands on the border-line between cultivated land and desert. When the inhabitants of the valley had learned by centuries of experience that the flood and the silt recurred every year, they removed their villages and cemeteries beyond the reach of the waters and the mud. This has allowed us to discover their graves at Negada, Abydos, and El-Amrah. These chalcolithic stations—their approximate date is, at latest, about 5000 s.c.?—disclose contracted skeletons sur- rounded with vases, sculptured palettes, weapons, tools, and offerings of food. Since the paleolithic epoch the advance appears enormous. Knives with symmetrical double fiak- ings, flint bracelets and arrow-heads are admirable, both as implements and as works of art, and are superior to anything neolithic man has produced in other countries.* Vases of hard rock, and a pottery presenting a wealth of forms and technical processes, illustrate the development of industry. Pins, chisels, and vases of copper, and gold jewels announce the definite discovery of metals.* Bones and animal skins, as well as the scenes engraved on the palettes, prove that the hunters pursued, as well as game, species susceptible of domestication—dogs, gazelles, sheep, cattle, and asses—so as to lighten human labour and create reserves of food. Grains of barley, millet, and wheat found in the stomachs of the corpses and in the kitchen-middens (kjekkenmeeddings) show that the fields were tilled and varieties of plants selected.” Moreover, hoes and ploughshares of flint occur among the artifacts. Are all these inventions due to the patient genius of the neolithic Egyptians? Or were they in part inspired from 1 de Morgan, XXXII; ¢f. Moret, XXVIII, PEgypte avant les pyramides, * de Morgan, XXXI, p. 100. 8 Jbid., pp. 88, 92. * feta. 2.00. “bid; Part 43; ciapi oe THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE = 121 cit $ aN Wty, ‘ aa is Utiayy,, an ef WALES 3) Uae er 3 (“Wad umilat A fy : Gizerrs(SHeliopolis } Sakkarahe\ = Memphis = eh Dahchur eye LES. c SA Mo: =n Fayum ~~ Je a oy, fede > DP wy va fs b> ° . fe ee 3 Sinat fs 4 o z \! o ooo SN 3 , V4 bo Bly e on c+ Lé2) “2p 5 % ce % “Coptos~¢ oer = Thebes ' 3 = : Oasis of Nekhen&Nekheb o Dakhel (Hierakonpolis' Edfu ec . six Wy yyy Cs Oasis of El Khargeh *Assouan ract Hr Nyy Minin, UMN Map I.—ArRcHAIC EGYPT. 122 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS abroad? That is a highly controversial question, and a discussion of it will be more in place in Chapter II. Let it suffice to say here that there is not the least need to invoke an invasion from Asia to explain the growth of the chalco- lithic culture of Egypt. No doubt men existed in Hither Asia and Europe, contemporaries of these first Egyptians, but it is open to doubt whether they had yet reached an equal or higher level of civilization. Nowhere else had natural conditions favoured the development of a human society to the same extent as in Egypt. Nowhere else do we find a chalcolithic industry comparable in its technical perfection. Moreover, apart from some stations of uncertain age in Palestine, no trace of man ATTN BaAs ae4 . Cr fo \ Wm mA Fic. 1.—BOAT SURMOUNTED BY AN ENSIGN. earlier than 4000 B.c. exists in Syria or Mesopotamia. By that date the Egyptians had their feet on the threshold of their history proper. It is, then, reasonable to attribute the precocious development of Egypt’s first inhabitants to their own genius and to the exceptional conditions presented by the Nile Valley. Nothing proves that it was due to the incursion of more civilized strangers. The very existence of such, or at least of their civilization, remains to be proved. On the other hand, everything goes to show that the connec- tions and intercourse between these first inhabitants of the Nile Valley and the population of Asia were already frequent. To that extent it may be admitted that important elements of material culture may have reached Egypt from Asia and Arabia. Such advances could not have been achieved without the shelter of some social and political organization, at least an elementary one. Few features of it can be detected, for THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE © 123 writing did not yet exist to leave behind explicit evidence thereof. Still, on clay vases, and more rarely on the walls of tombs, painted scenes already appear. There we see boats and buildings surmounted by heraldic effigies—a falcon, an elephant, a solar disc, crossed arrows, or mountains (Figs. 1-2). Many of these emblems remained in use down to the close of Pharaoniec civilization as the names of provinces or nomes (voyo.). It is, therefore, not overbold to assign to them a social meaning even in prehistoric times. These ensigns are evidently ‘‘ ethnic emblems,’’ as Victor Loret! has recognized; their presence indicates the existence of human groupings the rallying signs whereof we know. Here a preliminary remark seems requisite. Egypt is a very small country. From the First Cataract to the Delta the valley, with all its windings, is 490 miles long, but its breadth is trifling: at the widest point the distance between Nile and desert on each bank does not exceed 92 miles. On the other hand, the Delta spreads out in a fan 373 miles broad along its lower edge. The total arable surface in Egypt is scarcely as large as Sicily. The population, which multiplied rapidly along this strip of fertile soil, must, therefore, have formed dense and compact groups, the future Egyptian nomes. As in all agricultural countries exposed to sudden attacks from nomads, the sedentary peasants did not dwell in scattered huts. By night they gathered behind the solid walls of villages, where they left their families and treasures in safety when they went forth to their fields. Each village planted above its fortified gates an ensign—fetish, talisman, rallying sign—with which the barques that cruised upon the Nile were likewise decked. In these villages the hunters and 1 XXVII, 121; XXIX, 144. 124 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS tillers had come together for reasons of defence, mutual aid, and collective safety. Beyond doubt they felt the ascendancy of those among them who were distinguished by strength, intelligence, wealth, and also by magic knowledge: talismans and magicians’ or sorcerers’ wands are among the oldest objects found in prehistoric graves.’ It is probable that such men, rich and tried, formed councils of elders of the type of those which appear at the dawn of political institutions among primitives. Sir James Frazer describes the first organization known to races at the bottom of the human scale in the following terms: ‘* The aborigines of Australia . . . are ruled neither by chiefs nor kings. So far as their tribes can be said to have a political constitution, it is a democracy or, rather, an oligarchy of old and influential men, who meet in council and decide on all measures of importance, to the practical exclusion of the younger men. Their deliberative assembly answers to the Senate of later times; if we had to coin a word for such a government of elders we might call it a geronto- cracy.’’? It is impossible not to recollect that in the Egypt of the Pharaohs there existed at all periods Councils of Elders called Saru (the princes, the great ones),’? to which the religious texts from the Pyramids attribute an origin prior to any political organization, in the society of the gods who, according to Egyptian traditions, inhabited Egypt before men. The first organized body had been governed by a king (nsut) and by Saru.* Gerontocracy, therefore, begins very far back in Egyptian traditions; it dated back, very likely, to the time of the chalcolithic villages (cf. Davy, pp. 57, 73, above). Grouped thus in villages, perhaps forming clans, lived those who devoted themselves to the rough task of improving the oasis of Egypt. It took them centuries to derive from hard-earned experience the inventions and methods necessary for cultivation in a valley subject to periodic floods. If the river brings ‘‘ the water of life’’ to the soil, we must not forget that at the moment of the overflow it drowns and de Morgan, XXXI, Fig. 47, ivory. J. G. Frazer, Lectures on the Early History of the Kingshtp, p. 107. 1 2 8 A. Moret. C.R. Acad. des inscrips. (1916), p. 378. ¢ Pyramid of Pepi II, 1230, ed., Sethe, § 1041. THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE = 125 destroys everything; hence the need for raising roads and villages above it on causeways or artificial mounds. When the water subsided, it followed capricious détours or spread out in marshes. What was to be done then? The river must be banked, the fleeting waters’ presence prolonged by retain- ing them in reservoirs, crude elevating machines devised for diffusing the water on the land, irrespective of the level of the stream, and an interminable network of irrigation canals dug. Yet there were other essential tasks—to drive out the wild beasts from the valley; to choose the animals suitable for taming, to break in ox, sheep, and ass; to till the soil with the mattock and then with a flint plough, drawn at first by the hand of man, later by oxen; to select plant species ; to obtain barley, millet, wheat, and the vine; to develop flint and ceramic industries; to cut hard stones; to find out the secrets of casting copper and gold. To this prodigious labour we may assign a period of at least 1,500 years (before 3500 B.c.).. The result of these centuries of discipline is civiliza- tion visible for the first time on the earth. The population who had achieved it lived under a social system of which the tribal ensigns are the only marks to tell the tale. From this chalcolithic epoch the primitive graves have preserved some corpses till our days. The race was of moderate stature, of slender figure. The face is long, the skull narrow ; the eyes were black, the hair black, not woolly. There is not a trace of the negroid type; on the contrary, everything goes to show a kinship with that South European population which Sergi calls the Mediterranean race.’ III First Historica PERIOD From the end of the fourth millennium Egypt was march- ing towards the decisive transformation; the chalcolithic industries gave birth to a true civilization; the groupings of men in villages or clans were united to form first States or kingdoms, and then one single kingdom. About the same time writing assumed definite shape and combined phonetic signs with the ideographic signs, thus increasing a hundred- 1 Cf. de Morgan, XXXI, p. 126. 2 Breasted, XXV, p. 428. 126 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS fold the resources of the old picture writing. Thenceforth memories of events could be preserved in other ways than by oral tradition; acquired experience was handed down; history and political tradition were created. For the first time in the evolution of humanity we reach a historical period on which we are informed by a written tradition and contemporary monuments, and which is connected by an unbroken chain of witnesses to the modern epoch. The framework of this tradition has been established by Egyptian annalists to whom we owe the royal Turin Papyrus and the Ptolemaic compilers such as Manetho, some using royal families, some dynasties, as bases from the beginnings till the latest phase. We shall only trace the main outlines here, reserving to a later volume the history of Egyptian civiliza- tion,” and so we deal only with Egypt’s place in the develop- ment of the Ancient World of the Orient. On approaching the historical period the question of chronology inevitably arises. We shall describe in our book, The Nile and Egyptian Civilization, the materials with which we can reconstitute this chronology in Ancient Egypt; it will always be vague enough, especially in respect of the period of the beginnings. However, we have in our hands the means of purifying the fabulous estimates handed down by Manetho, whose text has been corrupted by the Christian chronographers who have preserved him to us.’ Exact and certain dates obtained by astronomical calculations allow us to desecry here and there some sure landmarks and to calcu- late the duration of the dynasties, sometimes with certitude, more often approximately. The result is a chronology ** shorter than that traditionally accepted down to the last few years.’”* An astronomical date allows the beginning of the XIIth Dynasty to be fixed at 2000 s.c. Now, the Turin Papyrus, an official Egyptian authority, assigns 955 years to the sum total of the reigns of the Ist to the VIIIth Dynasties ; leaving 360 years for Dynasties IX to XI, according to dating vouched for by the monuments, we reach a total figure of 1 XXII, §§ 150-154. 2 A. Moret, The Nile and Egyptian Civilization. 8 Ed. Meyer, XXIII. * de Morgan (XXXI, p. 100) remains faithful to the long chronology. THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE _ 127 id Fic. 3.—TuHE ENSIGNS OF THE FALCON AND OF THE EAST LEAD AN EGypTIAN CLAN TO THE HUNT. (Slate palette, Louvre and British Museum ) (J. Capart, Les Débuts de Part en Egypte, vol. I.) 128 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS 1,315 years to determine the period prior to Dynasty XII within a limit of error of a century or so. Upon this pre- sumption the beginning of the Ist Dynasty is fixed about 3315; or, more roughly, between 3400 and 3200 B.c.’ This Ist Dynasty, which marked the foundation of a centralized State, had been preceded by a long preparatory period in which the Egyptians had sought for an effective social organization to ensure the security and regularity of social labour in the valley. The tradition preserved by the Turin Papyrus and Manetho attributes the creation of political institutions to divine dynasties in which the high gods of Pharaonic Egypt, Ra and Enneades, figure; they are said to have reigned for hundreds of thousands of years before Menes. The gods were succeeded by kings dwelling in Lower Egypt, and then by a family of sovereigns of Upper and Lower Egypt, called the Followers of Horus. After them came Menes and the Ist Dynasty. Apart from the fabulous figures, real historical elements lie hidden beneath the veil of this pious allegory. The figured monuments of this epoch anterior to Menes show us plenty of beings acting as protectors of men. But they are not Ra, Osiris, or Horus, the great divine figures of the historical epoch. These patrons are a falcon, a vulture, a hare, a scorpion, a fish, a solar disc, two crossed arrows, and so on;* that is to say, the ensigns of the chalcolithic villages already illustrated on the vases. It is probable that these ensigns were not yet gods to whom men were linked by religious ties. They were at least fetishes, and exercised over the men of each clan a social influence which explicit monu- ments now allow us to define. The predynastic graves have preserved schist palettes which bear engraved scenes. On them we sce these same fetishes—the falcon, fish, scorpion, lion, jackal, bow, arrow— but no longer inert and lifeless as they were on the ensigns of the chalcolithic boats and villages. Now they have descended from their pedestals; they lead men to the chase and to the combat (Fig. 8). With the human hands where- with the primitive artists’ imagination has endowed them 1 XXII, § 163. * V. Loret in VIII, vol. X (1902); cf. Moret, XXIX, 154. THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE — 129 they wield weapons to slay the clan’s adversaries, cords to bind the prisoners, mattocks to destroy the fenced villages of the foe.’ From this epoch we can assert that the animal or emblem which serves as standard for the village, and probably gave its name to it (as it will later to the nome), plays the réle of protector of the human aggregate, which seems hereafter to present the aspect of a tribe or clan. In the middle of the huts rises a wattle and daub structure not altogether without architectural pretensions, the outline of which already foreshadows what is to be a naos in the Pharaonic period. It is the first draft of the temple, as the fetish is the first attempt at a provincial god. That is the new element—a very important one—in the social life of the Nile dwellers: beside or above the village elders appears the guardian fetish, who with the lapse of centuries will become the god of the nome, and later will enter the solar or Osirean pantheon. Is that the historical fact which lies hidden behind the fable of the divine dynasties? The Egyptians of the Pharaonic epoch would in that case have substituted the names of the high gods of the historic period for those very imperfect sketches of divinities who really ruled men at the beginning of time. In any case, the political and social system which corresponds to fetishism has nothing in common with that of a divine dynasty, which is a monarchy already matured. It is probable that predynastic Egypt between 4500 and 3500 g.c. had not advanced beyond the stage in which so many primitive societies are still left—the system of the clan protected by a fetish or totem. Hence it must be asked whether the relations between the Egyptians and their sacred patrons were those of clansmen and their totem—1t.e., the equalitarian and communistic régime of the totemic clan (cf. supra, p. 14). The question cannot be discussed at this point, in default of express documents dating from the epoch we have reached. It will meet us once more when we come to describe the survivals of older traditions in the first monarchical institutions of dynastic Egypt. We can at least refer to these remote ages the division of the valley into geographical provinces, in which the popula- 1 de Morgan, XXXI, Fig. 181. 9 180 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS tion was grouped about a village more important than the rest, where the market, the tribunal, the naos of the fetish, and the dwelling of the chief or chiefs were situated. The clans have become territorial groupings, of which the names —Falcon, Gazelle, Jackal, Lapwing, Terebinth, Snake’s Mountain, Sceptre, Sistrum, Bull, etc.—were preserved by the nomes, the clans’ heirs. The historian Eduard Meyer says: ‘* We find in Egypt no trace of those human groupings which we meet everywhere else at the beginnings of societies, and which remain in vogue among other Hamitic peoples. We find neither tribes nor names of tribes—besides, the Egyptians did not even have an (ethnic) name to denote their people as a whole—we find neither family alliances nor blood feuds. . . .””'. No doubt. Nevertheless, the grouping of villages around fetishes, which will later be the gods of nomes, presents every appearance of a continuation of the clans, wherein the people lived under the egis of fetishes and under the guidance of elders, those Saru whom tradition made the chiefs of Egypt in the days before kings. The clan, become a village, occupies a district called after it (cf. supra, p. 56). With this reservation, we shall say with Meyer: ‘‘ The sole division the Egyptian’s State knows is purely territorial. It is not the people who are divided into groups, but the land which is cut up into districts. . . .1_ So the nomes were the primitive cells from which sprang the greater States. They correspond to aggregations of tribes among people who are still on the threshold of civilization. ... Each of these principal cells of the social body had undergone an individual historical development in religion and customs and had pre- served this character in a very marked and lasting manner. They kept themselves alive throughout all the transforma- tions of Egyptian history, and whenever the State grew weak the kingdom relapsed into its division into nomes,’”2 On the prehistoric schist palettes scenes of conflicts between men bearing different ensigns, who are therefore rivals, often figure. There were therefore wars between the fetishes and the inhabitants of the nomes. Sometimes we observe groups of fetishes fighting against rival groups; so 1 XXII, § 176. 3 401d., 3177. THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE = 131 there had been at a very early date confederations of nomes or attempts at hegemony.’ Limited political and territorial groupings certainly preceded any other effort towards unifi- cation. They culminated in the formation of two kingdoms, one for each of the essential divisions of the country—North and South, Upper and Lower Egypt. Such is the tradition common to the Turin Papyrus and Manetho, which is con- firmed by the Palermo Stone and numerous allusions in the Pschent. Red Crown with White Crown with Urezus. Ureus. Crook. Whip. Royal Weapon (Khepesh), Fic. 4.—EGYpTiaAN REGALIA. historical and religious texts of the Pharaonic period. From these later authorities we learn that the city of Buto (Eg., Pe) in Lower Egypt was the political and religious capital of the North. Here the chiefs adopted the name biti, expressed in writing by the bee sign, which was to become the typical ideogram characteristic of the kings of the North, or Lower Egypt.” As ‘‘ speaking arms,’’ the kingdom of the North took the papyrus (waz), which grows luxuriantly in the Delta and formed the staple diet of its inhabitants. The king was 1 V. Loret quoted in VIII, vol. X, pp. 176 7. 4 Pyramid of Pepi I, i, 684: ‘‘ The dzt7u who are in Pe=the kings of the North who dwell at Buto. 132 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS distinguished from other men by a red cap very high at the back and decorated in front by a spiral. This was a talisman inhabited by a goddess, the serpent Wazet, who dwelt at Buto. This snake coiled itself round the king’s head and inspired beholders with terror. As for Upper Egypt, or the South, its capital lay at Nekheb (El-Kab, on the right bank of the Nile), where a great brick enclosure, dating, perhaps, from this period, survives to-day. This chief called himself Nswt, expressed in hieroglyphics by the sign of a liliaceous plant, which was to be the ideogram characterizing the kings of the South, or Upper Egypt. The realm of the South also adopted “ speak- ing arms ’’—the lily and the lotus (nekheb). Its king was crowned with a white mitre. It was defended by a vulture goddess, Nekheb, who, hovering above the king, protected him with her outspread wings. From this will arise the crown of the South and the guardian deity of Upper Egypt.! The two crowns combined will form the Pschent, the symbol of the two Egypts united in one. The extreme importance attached by the kings of the Pharaonic period to the crowns, and the divine life which they bestow even thousands of years later, compel us to admit that the red cap and the white mitre in primitive times possessed all the magic virtue which the primitives of to-day still ascribe to the royal insignia. Sir James Frazer quotes numerous texts showing that such insignia are reputed to work miracles; for the kings are bearers of talismans which ensure a Magic power over men and Nature.” We know nothing of the history of these early kingdoms. Yet tradition alleges that the kings of the North had a pre- eminence over the rest of Egypt at the beginning of time. No text allows us to delimit their zone of influence ; but the religion of later days indicates that such influence was pro- found. This is explained by the exceptional fertility of the Delta. So soon as it could be made fit for cultivation by dint of embanking and draining and irrigating, this stretch of earth, repeatedly renewed by the Nile silt, offered a wider area, a more productive soil, and a more favourable habitat * On the images and titles, see Moret, XXX, chaps. i, ii. * OP. cit., p. 180; vide supra, p. 107 for M. Davy’s interpretation of these facts. THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE = 1338 to the growth of a prolific race, than the narrow valley of Upper Egypt. The result was a precocious material pros- perity and intellectual development, attested by the fact that the great gods of the Delta later imposed their authority on the rest of Egypt. The sun, Ra, was first worshipped at Heliopolis ; Osiris (who personified the Nile and vegetation), Isis, and Horus are the gods of Busiris, Mendes, and Buto.’ The extension of their worship over the whole valley in very early times indicates a corresponding political influence from the Delta. This religious development also bears witness to the advance in the popular mentality: the fetishes become gods, magic evolves towards religion, the chiefs are trans- formed from sorcerers, as they had been, into priest-kings, while political power, once divided and diffuse in each clan, is concentrated to become kingship, at first regional, then extended (vide supra, pp. 77 f.). The king’s domain, at first local, expanded, and absorbed the whole Nile Valley. One great fact shows that the king’s mission was to watch over and further agriculture by assist- ing natural and supernatural laws regulating tillage of the fields. This new fact is the appearance of the Calendar— that is, of a method of measuring time and fixing the date for the various agricultural operations. The first Egyptians counted by lunar months, since the word month is expressed ideographically by the sign moon, but they did not succeed by that means in dividing time in strict harmony with the regular recurrence of the seasons and observations of the sun’s course. To obtain such agreement they tried to get as close to the solar year as possible. Taking twelve months of thirty days as a basis, they supplemented them by five inter- calary days (epagomenz), and thus created a calendar year of 8365 days, within a quarter of a day of the true solar year (3654 days). The most salient feature of this first of known calendars is its adaptation to agricultural works. In it the twelve months were divided into three seasons respectively, named the inundation (akhet), the sowing (perit), and the harvest (shemu). The first day of the year was fixed at July 19 (Julian=June 15, Gregorian), when two extra- ordinary events greeted the eyes of tillers—the beginning of the Nile flood and the appearance in the heavens at the hour 1 Maspero, XX, vol. I, chap. ii; Meyer, XXII, §§ 178, 193. 134 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS of sunrise of the star Sothis (Sirius). This “‘ heliacal rising ”’ of Sothis marked for them the starting-point of an astro- nomical era which we call the Sothic cycle. As a result of the discrepancy of a quarter of a day subsisting between the solar year (8654 days) and the calendar year (865 days), the coincidence between the sunrise and appearance of Sothis only really existed once in every 1,460 solar or 1,461 civil years. It is obvious that this Egyptian calendar could only have been inaugurated in a year in which the first day of the year actually fell on the day of the heliacal rising of Sothis— July 19 (Julian). In the course of Egyptian history that happened in 4241, 2781, and 1821 B.c. and a.p. 140. Now, even under the IVth Dynasty inscriptions show that the calendar and the supplementary days were in current use. The introduction of the calendar cannot therefore be later than 4241 B.c. ‘* That is the oldest certain date in the world’s history.’’* On the other hand, our astronomers have calculated that it is precisely in the latitude of Memphis that Sothis would rise at dawn on July 19, 4241. The calendar, therefore, was adapted for Lower Egypt. It is a product of the scientific culture of the Delta, which was imposed upon the upper valley. This is one more proof of the very ancient preponderance of Lower Egypt which has left its lasting mark on dynastic traditions. Moreover, the date provides an approximate criterion for fixing the supremacy of the North; it must have included the year 4241 B.c. The following period, according to the traditions con- tained in the Turin Papyrus, was the epoch of the kings called Followers of the god (falcon) Horus (Shemsu-Hor). The later texts describe these Shemsu-Hor as warriors armed with arrows, javelins, and boomerangs, who marched into battle bearing blazoned on their shields not two or three of the deified fetishes of the earliest times, but one alone of these gods—the falcon Horus (Fig. 8). That is a new step toward centralization ; the god Horus imposes his cult on all Egypt. On the other hand, the king henceforth passes for the living incarnation of this god Horus. He is the falcon Horus himself on earth, and he takes it as a name: the 1 Meyer, XXII, § 197. THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE = 185 falcon symbol will always precede the king’s personal name from this epoch (Fig. 8). There we have a decisive moment in the history of kingship: the chief-sorcerer of former days, becoming step by step priest-king, now rises to the rank of god-king (cf. Davy, pp. 6, 80, and 107 above). We lack precise information to enable us to define more exactly this decisive event in the evolution of social life in Egypt. We only know that if the followers of Horus occu- pied the whole land, they at least remained always divided among two kingdoms, that of Nekheb, which now boasted a temple of the falcon god Horus in the town of Nekhen (Hierakonpolis), and that of Buto. The dualism springing from the contrast between the narrow valley and the spacious Delta persists, and it will always persist, even at the time, now near at hand, of the official unity of Egypt. Which Horus was this who became a dynastic god? Was it the Falcon of Upper Egypt, Horus the Great (of Edfu), who personifies the winged solar disc in heaven, or Horus the Less, son of Osiris and Isis, the god of Lower Egypt, wor- shipped at Buto? No text settles that question ; the accounts of the wars waged by the followers of Horus, engraved on the walls of the Temple of Edfu, are of late date. They record, in the guise of mythical episodes in the strife between Osiris and Seth, events which may have been historical, but are rendered unrecognizable by theological speculations. Whatever be their origin, the Shemsu-Hor kings retained the royal insignia already borne by their predecessors. But in addition to the red cap and the white mitre, they hold in their hands a shepherd’s staff, bent over at the top to form a crook, and an ox-herd’s whip. These will become the royal sceptre and the magic whip (Fig. 4). They gird about their loins a loincloth of fine linen hitched up by an animal’s tail, the trophy of the chase, recalling that they were once chiefs of nomad hunters. The royal garb is already finally created in the ritual types which it will retain till the Roman period. Each of the two kingdoms sought to annex the other; it was the South which triumphed. In the shrine of Horus at Hierakonpolis the first historical inscribed monuments— slate palettes and mace-heads of white stone—commemorate the victories of the South over the North. On them are disclosed to our gaze two crowned chiefs—the first kings 136 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS whose lineaments are known to us in the history of Egypt, perhaps of the world. One, called the ‘‘ Scorpion,’’ wears only the white mitre of the South; he proclaims his triumph Figs}. King Scorpion, wearing white crown of the South, is wielding the mattock. The vanquished (rekhitu birds and people of the Bow) are hanged below the emblems of the victorious clans (the mountain, greyhound, thunder- bolt, and falcon). over the Egyptian people (Rekhitu), and the strangers called the ‘* Bows.’ His name is found as far away as the necro- polis of Tura, north of Memphis. He must, therefore, have conquered Lower Egypt, at least partially and temporarily, but he does not call himself its master. The other, Narmer, 1 Quibell, Hierakonpolis, Pl. XXVI, here Fig, 5, THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE = 1387 boasts of having massacred 6,000 inhabitants of the Delta, especially of the Buto district ; he carried off 12,000 prisoners and beat the Libyans. So he is depicted on the palette commemorating these conquests wearing the white crown of the South upright and the red crown of the North reversed. Cylinders bearing his name have been found in the Delta.’ The unity of Egypt has, then, been realized officially at least for a time by Narmer. The clans dispersed into distinct nomes, the separate kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt are succeeded by the unitary monarchy championed by the god Horus, to the profit of the kings of the South. IV THE THINITE MonarcHy It remained to convert the accomplished fact into a dynastic right and to create a national tradition. That was the work of the Ist Dynasty, of which Menes was the founder at Thinis about 3315 B.c. The detailed account of these events is reserved for our book in this series on Egyptian civilization ; but it is desirable here to outline the salient features of the political and social evolution achieved by the unification of Egypt. Beginning with the Ist Dynasty, the documentation assumes a historical character. The kings’ tombs have been discovered at Negadah,”? near Thebes, and at Abydos, the necropolis of the city of Thinis in Middle Egypt, which was the first capital. They contain stele bearing the kings’ names, and palettes dated by the kings’ inscriptions men- tioning events of political, religious, and military life. From this epoch there is a temple at Hierakonpolis with a gold image of the god Horus and stone statues of the kingly donors.? The furniture of the tombs and of the temple attests the existence of a school of working hard stone (for vases, the royal vessel) and metal, already in complete mastery over its material. Trade in copper, ivory, and amber had been established with foreign lands. Through wealth, art developed magnificently in all branches—architecture, en- 1 Quibell, Hierakonpolis, Pl, XXIX, here Figs. 6-7. 2 J. de Morgan, XXXII. 8 Quibell, Wierakonpolis, Pls. XLI-XLII. 138 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS FG. 6.—SLATE PALETTE OF NARMER (OBVERSE), Narmer (whose name is inscribed in the rectangular cartouche), wearing the white crown of the South, is knocking on the head an Egyptian of the Delta. The falcon Horus is leading to him 6,000 prisoners (each stem of the reed stands for 1,000) THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE , viey — NAIA, 2 ne RRR He = % | rN SS Se os Fic. 7.—SLAaTE PALETTE OF NARMER (REVERSE). 139 Narmer, wearing the red crown of the North, preceded by four clan ensigns, is on his way to a feast where captives are being butchered. Below, a hollow to receive the paint framed by the necks of two monsters of Asiatic type. At the bottom the bull-king is destroying a hostile fort and trampling on a vanquished foeman. 140 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS graving, sculpture, and pottery. The king was surrounded by a court of officials, subordinates, and clients. These, too, have left us their monuments, modest indeed, but instructive for the light they throw on the state of society. Henceforth Egypt possesses a king, a capital, a religion, and a govern- mental machine, together with the agricultural, industrial, and commercial resources of a great people; in a word, a manner of life which denotes a developed society. Yet at the accession of the Ist Dynasty the brain of the Egyptians had only recently evolved its theories of the absolute power of the kings and invented writing to express them. Ideas and words still possess a quite fresh vigour, and the pictographic symbols a magic power of expression. We must interpret them in their full sense if we try to analyse their terms. The official titles chosen by Menes and his successors give voice to the conception of a king then entertained. The first is the name of the falcon Horus, the god of the Shemsu-Hor; that means that the king is the falcon incarnate. In the classical period the texts dilate with enthusiasm on this identity of nature between the king and the falcon-god. A royal prince is called as a baby ‘‘ the falcon in his nest.”’ When he ascends the throne he is ‘‘ the falcon on his palace.” If the king die he is the ‘*‘ falcon winging his way to heaven ”’ to return to the bosom of the god whence he is sprung.! In truth this falcon is no longer the totemic animal, father of the isolated clan of the Falcons; it is the national god of the Egypt which the Shemsu-Hor have unified. By virtue of this the king identifies himself with it and makes the Falcon the symbol of his authority and his first official title. But there is nothing abstract about this symbol; it conserves all its original realism. And so the falcon appears borne upon a shield going before the king in the pictures of royal victories and feasts. He fights for the kings, seizes his foes, and brings them captive to him. To write the name of King Aha (Menes) in ideographic signs—two arms holding targe and javelin—the sculptors of Negadah depict the javelin and targe as clutched in the talons of the falcon (Fig. 8). However, there were other clans among the Shemsu-Hor with other fetishes to protect them. One of the predecessors 1 XXIX, 160. THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE 141 of Menes revered a scorpion as patron. The insect not only gave his name to this King Scorpion, but entered the battle- field as his champion and destroyed the enemies’ towns with a mattock. Another of his predecessors, Narmer, took as his name and represented on earth the fish Nar; it, too, Fic. 9.—THE NAME OF NARMER COME TO LIFE, comes to life to brandish a mace with both hands over the head of a defeated Asiatic (Fig. 9). Menes and his successors have absorbed all these clans and their chiefs, totems, gods, and all other appurtenances.’ That result was not achieved without conflicts and reciprocal concessions. The totem gods of each of the old kingdoms of Nekheb and Buto won the privilege of being chosen after the falcon as official names of the king. So the lily or rose of the South, the bee 1 Cf. Davy above, pp. 5-6 and 99. 142 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS of the North, the vulture of Nekheb, and the ureus of Buto will for ever denote the sovereigns of North and South, the masters of the two crowns. So Pharaoh bought his triumph by adopting, side by side with the Falcon, four of the old rival totems; in return they lent him their material and moral support. The patrons of the old capitals infused their life and authority into the veins of the king of unified Egypt. The same fate awaited other emblems of clans or regional groups—the bull, the man-headed sphinx, the crocodile, the lotus of Thebes, and the papyrus of the Delta. They seem once to have been the totems of clans conquered by the unifiers of the Egyptian land, and their memory was pre- served in the royal inscriptions. Look at the epithets con- ceded to Seti I about 1400 B.c. : ** Divine falcon with mottled feathers he sweeps through the sky like the majesty of Ra; jackal swift in pursuit he travels round this earth in an hour; mesmeric lion he springs over the unknown roads of foreign lands; mighty bull with sharp horns he tramples on the Asiatics and crushes the Hittites.’’? If we restore to these ceremonial titles the full sense which they certainly had at the beginning, we shall understand the tie which unites Pharaoh? to the old clan chief. The latter already was, by virtue of his practical experience, the re- spected councillor and the most dreaded man of the clan, the magician, then the priest of the fetish which had become a god. Pharaoh, the heir of his prestige, has climbed to the topmost stair; he is the god incarnate upon earth. With this moral authority enjoyed by the king, material power was combined—at first the power which physical strength in battle secures, then that which the riches gained by conquests or the play of custom bestows (Davy, above, Chap. VI). It is certain that the Thinite kings possessed great resources in lands and men. They created a royal domain, the pick of the land of the conquered clans, and peopled it with their innumerable prisoners of war. The treasures accumulated in their tombs, the mention of many officials in charge of agricultural and industrial activities (see our next book), show that the king was rich in land and slaves. He will 1 XXIX, 165 /. * PHARAOH means “‘ the great house,” an epithet analogous to ‘‘ Sublime Porte.” THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE 148 tend more and more to lay claim to the whole land as the living representative and heir of the clan’s gods. His grasp will, in fact, close on the whole land at the time of the Memphite Empire 300 years later. To sum up, Menes and his immediate successors had devoted all their efforts to the concentration into a single realm of the two kingdoms of the South and North, and into a single person of the political and religious authority and the wealth previously diffused and dispersed among the clans, the chiefs, and the first kings. In the course of this account we have given the name totem to the protector first of the royal clan and then of the dynasty. The moment has come to try to define what primitive Egypt owes to this institution of the totemic clan, which in other primitive societies plays such an essential réle. Totem seems the word best suited to express the part played by the Falcon Horus in relation to the first Pharaohs. Where the system of totemic clans exists, the totem (animal or otherwise) gives its name to the territory occupied by the clan; in Egypt a Falcon nome existed, and later on the whole of Egypt was called ‘‘ the eye of Horus,’’ a mystic name which, being interpreted, means ‘‘the creation of the Falcon.’? The men of the clan and its chief bear the totem’s name; so do the followers of Horus and the Pharaoh Horus in relation to the falcon totem. The presence of the totem in a shrine ensures to the clan security, prosperity, and food: so the Falcon who guards Egypt, makes her victorious and nourishes her with his gifts, was worshipped at Hierakon- polis. In battle the totem is borne at the head of the warriors; so the Falcon’s ensign goes before in the martial scenes depicted on palettes and mace-heads. The totem personally takes a hand in the conflict with the clan’s adversaries. Have we not seen the Falcon wielding targe and lance and leading prisoners taken in battle with a rope? From time to time the totem has intercourse with a woman of the clan, preferably the chief’s wife; according to a tradi- tion, only attested from a later period, the king of Egypt is the offspring of the union of the queen with the tutelary god of the dynasty, who in this office has taken the Falcon’s place. It looks, then, as if the primitive Egyptian king 144 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS stood in the same relation to the Falcon as the chief of a totemic clan to his totem. It would be interesting to know whether these relations between the king and the Falcon do not imply a yet older social state, wherein all members of the various clans had been themselves also in the same position in respect to their fetish, animal, vegetable, or other, as clansmen are in rela- tion to their totem. The majority of the historians, includ- ing Maspero and Meyer, refuse to admit the existence of totemic customs in Egypt. Ethnologists, such as A. van Gennep,’ considering that exogamy, the habitual rule of marriage governing totemic societies, is not to be found in Egypt, where, on the contrary, kings and commoners married their sisters and practised endogamy, renounce any sugges- tion of totemism in the Nile Valley, and explain the social role played by the guardian animals of the clans as zoolatry. A further argument, no less topical, is that all the indications of a totemic state of society refer to the king alone, and not to the entire people. The Shemsu-Hor were kings and not just men of a clan. We have no evidence that men all called themselves Falcons and all regarded the totem as their father, their protector, and their food-giver. The bond between them and the Falcon has been loosed; communication is no longer to be established save through the medium of the king. We need not take sides in the controversy as to the existence of totemism in Egypt; it is the business of the specialists to decide whether the arguments for or against are conclusive.” From the historical standpoint, however, we confess that the arguments against the existence of any totemism in Egypt do not seem decisive. It is a common event in the history of all peoples that in the period of their maturity the king alone enjoys the privileges which were originally the common property of a clan or people. On the facts stated, everything seems to be consistent with the possibility that the essential features of an earlier totemic state of society now only appear to us distorted and focussed in one single figure—that of the king. It is prudent to leave the question open and not discard the idea that the Egyptians had, perhaps, known the equalitarian system of 1 L’Etat actuel du probleme totémigue (1921), pp. 194 ff. * XXIX, 219. THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE 145 totemism before gerontocracy, local monarchy, and central- ized monarchy. In our book on Egyptian civilization we shall see that a trace of that totemic ideal whereby fetishes, chief, clansmen, and all Nature’s creations are treated with perfect equality as brothers seems to have been retained in religious customs in the notion of the Ka.' The analysis of the titles borne by the Pharaohs since Menes needs to be supplemented by a short description of the great events of kingly life. They are known from the carved palettes, from dated historical monuments of the kings of the Ist Dynasty, and from the royal annals of the Palermo Stone.” We shall gain from this study some insight into the duties incumbent upon the king, and we shall be better able to define the character of the primitive kingship. To ensure the worship of the gods, the defence of Egypt, and the prosperity of his people by regular cultivation of the soil, that was the office of the king, and he claimed to fulfil it by his vigilance, his intelligence, and his supernatural powers. The royal annals scrupulously record what the king did toward the attainment of this triple object and restrict the number of events of the reign worthy of commemoration to these subjects. The cult of the gods entailed the building of temples, the performance of rites, the presentation of offerings, and the celebration of festivals at which the king always played the foremost part. The Palermo Stone expressly mentions the years in which the king had ‘“‘ stretched the cord’ to measure out the area for this or that temple, it enumerates the birth festivals and the national feasts of the gods Anubis, Minu, Sokaris, and Sed, and relates the circumstances under which especially copious offerings had been provided for the altars in the temple. In addition to these almost daily obligations, the kings celebrated every two years a great national festival in honour of the dynastic god, the Falcon Horus. This was the feast of the ‘‘ Service of Horus,’’ which necessitated heavy expen- diture on the construction of great barques for a voyage of * XXIX, 199-219; cf. Davy, p. 9 supra. ? H. Schaefer, Zin Bruchstick altegyptischer Annalen. 10 146 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS the god and the king upon the Nile, probably to Hierakon- polis, the sanctuary of Horus, and in other directions. What of the defence of Egypt? The kings watched over her by campaigns directed against the nomads of Libya, Nubia, and Sinai, backward starvelings who knew not yet the labour of civilization, but wished to taste its fruits cheaply by plundering the fields and towns of the valley. We shall see in the next chapter how the Pharaohs had elaborated a scheme of defence and then of expansion which F3G.°10. The Vulture goddess (Nekheb) presents King Khasekhem with the emblem (sma taut) of the “union of the two lands, the year of a victory over the men of the North ” (Hierakonpolis, Pl. XXXVIT). will gradually lead them from a conception of a national kingdom to that of an international empire. But human arms were far from sufficing to protect Egypt, her gods, and her people; the aid of magic arms must be invoked. On his coronation day each Pharaoh, from Menes to the close of Egyptian civilization, paraded in great pomp round a fortified wall, probably the ‘* White Wall??? which Menes had built at the apex of the Delta (on the site where Memphis was subsequently to rise). This ceremony of “‘the procession round the wall” (pkhrer ha inbu) was repeated from time to time to renew 1 Herodotus, ii, 99; iii, 91. THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE 147 the efficacy of the protection which the king’s presence afforded. On the same occasions—1t.e., on the coronation day and at periodical intervals—the king celebrated ‘‘ the union of the two lands ”’ (sma taui). In his full royal robes he sat on a throne or platform placed over a stake with double point planted in the ground (the sign sma a sort of ** thunderbolt ”’ fallen from the sky) ; the stake was bound round with sheaves of the papyrus of the Delta and the lotus or lily of the South symbol of tauz (the two lands).' As surely as the king was enthroned above the two symbolical plants bound together, as surely as he vigilantly went the round of the White Wall, so Egypt would be blessed with union, peace, and prosperity (Fig. 10). Prosperity the king must win for his people also by virtue of the magic privilege of command over Nature which he inherited from his ancestors, the sorcerers and priests. Sir James Frazer has shown that in most primitive societies the kings are credited with power to make the sun shine, the rain fall, and the crops germinate, and so they are called **the kings of the weather, of fire, of water, and of crops.”’ With such power Pharaoh was credited; curious traditions preserved throughout the whole historic period, and special rites going back to Menes, give us certainty of this. The Kgyptian wizards, according to the testimony of folk tales, laid claim at all epochs to stay the courses of the stars and of the rivers, to produce at their will night or day, rain or fine weather. It is beyond doubt that Pharaoh, of whom it was said under the XVIIIth Dynasty that he was ‘“‘ the master of magic spells, he to whom Thoth himself had taught all his secrets,’’? was esteemed still more able than any magician to influence Nature at his pleasure. King of fire Pharaoh is because he is the sun, the glorious course of which he imitates upon earth. On his coronation the king ‘‘ rises ’’? (Kha) on his throne like the sun in heaven. We must take these words in their full signification and understand that in the eyes of his Thinite subjects Menes, in performing his ‘‘ rising as king of the South’? (Kha nswt) and his ‘* rising as king of the North ’’ (Kha bity) was really ensuring upon earth the appearance of the sun, the great producer of all existence. Like the sma-taui and the pkhrer, AAR Sochap li. 2 Sethe, Urkunden, iv, 19-20. 148 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS these two magic rites of “‘risings’’ were repeated periodically, so that their efficacy should never become exhausted.' As surely as the king ‘‘ rises’? every day upon his throne, the sun will rise every day to fertilize Nature. The king also controls another form of celestial fire—the thunderbolt which the Urzeus encircling his crown spits out and which the waz sceptre, sometimes twisted like the lightning in his hands, typifies.” Thanks to this magic weapon, and through the rumblings like thunder which he causes his foes to hear, the king terrifies those who would attack his people. King of the water, Pharaoh, copying Osiris, the god of the Nile and vegetation, personifies ‘‘ the first eddy of flood water *’;° he was called ‘‘ he who gives water to the earth,’ and even in the desert water rises to his voice so soon as he calls it.” At the moment when the Nile, almost dry, seems to be lost in the abysms of the nether-world, Pharaoh throws into the river the written order for the flood to begin,® and the inundation takes place instantly. Each year the royal officials examined the circumstances under which the flood took place and noted the height of the water in cubits and hand-breadths, observations which the Palermo Stone has preserved for us as far as the first dynasties are concerned. King of the harvests, Pharaoh inaugurates the great seasons of agricultural labour, turning the sod with a mattock, opening the irrigation canals with a pick, and cutting the first ears with a sickle. On one of the mace-heads from Hierakonpolis we see King Scorpion digging an irriga- tion runnel with his own hands.’ On the testimony of Hero- dotus," Menes had no higher title to glory than that of having protected the Delta from excessive floods by a great dyke. The kings placed in the forefront of their concerns the culti- vation of the soil, the harvests, the conservation of grain in solid granaries, and the multiplication of flocks and herds. Under the first dynasties the royal officials took the “‘ census of fields and cattle ’’ at regular dates, distributed the land for cultivation among teams of labourers, and ended by * XXX, chap. iii. 2 nde, Lode * Pyramids, ed. Sethe, § 507. * Gardiner, Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage, p. 55. ° Stele of Kuban, 1, 17; vide infra, p. 383, note 1. 6 Stele of Silsilis (Rameses II and III), XII (1873), p. 129. * XXIX, Pl. V; cf. our Fig. 5. A A GT 2 THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE 149 establishing such a strict and effective control that all private properties disappeared and the whole arable land of Egypt became the king’s domain.’ On the other hand, the king left to each family of labourers the portion of crops necessary for life, and in time of dearth he fed his people with the reserves in the granaries. In the imagination of the people the king possessed magic secrets so potent that the products of all Nature ‘‘ came forth at his voice ’’ (per-khru)? as soon as he uttered the master-word; so he was the great ‘* provider ”’ for his people; he ‘* presided over the provisions for all living beings”? (khenly kau ankhu nebu).° The counterpart to these magic powers in primitive societies is that in them the kings are subject to strict obliga- tions (taboos) and are held responsible for the harvests and the public health and prosperity. Was it the same in primitive Egypt? To borrow the words of the author of the Golden Bough, ** the king’s person is regarded as the dynamic centre of the universe : the least slip on his part might upset the balance of the whole. He must therefore take great precautions; his whole life is minutely regulated down to the smallest details.”® Hence arise the interdictions against doing this or that, against eating such or such a dish, which are all designed to surround the king with a safety-zone; they are taboos. In this connection we may recall a tradition pre- served by Diodorus (i, 70). ‘* The Pharaohs’ lives were regulated down to the least details; they must eat only veal and goose and drink only a limited quantity of wine.’’? In fact, in temples of late date we find lists giving for each nome, besides the names of the gods, the temples, and the priests, a note of the forbidden thing, the taboo (but), which is most often a particular dish, the consumption of which was forbidden in this region. It has been alleged that these prohibitions were only in force at a late period and were applied mainly to the priest-kings of Napata; their character would be sacerdotal rather than royal. Now that we are better acquainted with primitive institutions, we do not hesitate to see in these taboos the survival of very ancient 1 XXII, § 244. 2 XXX, chap. iv; XXIX, 34 /. * XXX, p. 231 and chaps. iv and v; cf. Davy, pp. 105 #. above. 150 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS customs, such as the prohibition against eating the local totems.’ On the other hand, certain curious traditions justify the supposition that the Pharaohs were held responsible for the regularity of the crops and the public weal. If we may trust Plutarch,’ the sacred animals in which the old totems of the original clans may be recognized were sometimes submitted to terrible tests: ‘‘ When an excessive and pestilential heat wave overtakes the country, producing epidemics or other exceptional calamities, the priests select some of the sacred animals and in the utmost secrecy drive them to a secluded spot. There they first seek to terrify them by threats; if the misfortune continue, they cut their throats and offer them in sacrifice, either to punish the evil spirit or as the greatest expiation they can offer.’’ As the Pharaohs had taken upon their shoulders in the primitive society the protective func- tion of the sacred animals, it follows that they must share their responsibility. That is practically what is asserted by a tradition, related by Ammianus Marcellinus*® in reference to a similar custom among the barbarian Germans, asserts. ‘* According to an ancient rite, the king is deposed if the fortune of war has fluctuated during his reign, or if the earth has refused an abundance of crops; so the Egyptians habitually treat their chiefs in similar circumstances.’’? Let us compare these texts: the Biblical tradition imputing to the Pharaohs of Joseph and Moses the blame for the seven years of famine and the ten plagues of Egypt;* the stele of King Zeser, made in the Ptolemaic epoch, on which a Pharaoh of the I[Ird Dynasty is represented in accordance with popular beliefs as searching the black books of magic for spells to conjure away pestilence and drought; the legends reported by Manetho about Kings Amenophis and Bocchoris, adjudged responsible for the health of the people at the time of an epidemic of plague—and we shall be convinced that the Egyptians blamed their kings for the misdeeds of Nature.° Other cases exist in which the physical and magical strength of kings was thought insufficient to support the great and important part they played in regard to their XXIX, 176 f. 2 De Iside et Osiride, 78. ’ XXXVIII. * Gen. xli; Exod. x, 27, 5 XXIX, 182 /. THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE 151 subjects. Disease or old age might render a king impotent. Now, the weal of his people and Nature depends upon the king’s vigour. ‘* Nothing,’’ writes Sir James Frazer, ‘* will prevent the man-god from growing old and dying. ... The. danger is terrible, for if the course of Nature is dependent on the man-god’s life, what catastrophes will not happen when he die?’’' There was only one way to avert the peril, accord- ing to the mind of primitive peoples—‘*‘ to kill the man-god as soon as the first symptoms of weakness became manifest, and to transfer his soul into a more robust body ; for instance, into the body of a vigorous successor.’”? Hence arises the custom of the ritual murder of the aged sovereign. As soon as the symptoms of old age become apparent in a king or at a predetermined date, after a reign of twelve, twenty, or thirty years, the sovereign is slain at a solemn ceremony and replaced by a young successor. In the majority of cases the kings eventually succeeded in inducing the people to accept a mitigation of these customs by the substitution of human or animal victims in their place. But such substitutions were only tolerated if the rites gave the aged kings a renewal of youth and health. Had the first Pharaohs to bow to such customs? They were practised in their pristine severity in the land of Meroé on the Upper Nile* down to the reign of Ergamenes, the contemporary of Ptolemy II Philadelphos. At the present day tribes of the Upper Nile, such as the Shilluk, still kill their age-worn kings ceremonially.* The custom was there- fore known in the Nile regions. Now, the majority of the commemorative tablets dating from the age of the Thinite kings relate to a festival, Sed, celebrated at regular intervals and kept up till the Roman epoch. The name of this festival is obscure, the chief episodes (which we will describe in our next volume) are unintelligible, unless it be admitted that they refer to a transformation of the living king into an Osiris-god, dead and reanimated. The king ‘‘ imitates ’’ the death of Osiris, and as surely as this god is reborn in virtue of magic rites, so surely does the king ‘‘ renew his births ”’ (wham mestu) and receive from the gods “‘ life for thousands of years.’’ This opinion, which I have defended, is still hotly 1 The Golden Bough, The Magic Art, p. 9. 2 XXIX, 184 /. 8 Diodorus, III, 6; Strabo, XVIII, 2, 3. 4 XXIX, 185. 152 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS debated. Yet Edward Meyer agrees that “ after this festival the king, as it were, began a second reign; at the beginning kingship seems only to have been given for a limited time. . . . The Greek authors inform us that this limitation existed also in the case of the bull Apis whom the priests had to slay when he had passed the twenty-fifth year after his enthronement.’’ Sir Flinders Petrie! unreservedly admits the analogy between the Sed festival and the ritual murder of the king. Whatever obscurities shroud the subject, it seems to be indisputable that this festival at which the king renews life and kingship has been the device invented to avoid the obligation of accepting death or deposition after a reign of limited duration. : Even after death the king’s office towards his people is not over; perhaps he becomes even more important than during his life on earth. The king who is a god could not die; the Pyramid texts of the VIth Dynasty (about 2500 B.c.), which are inspired by very ancient traditions, say that the ‘* dying of the king ”’ is not “‘ dying a whole death.”? Conse- quently, after his passing, the king enters upon a super- natural life in which he is mediator between the dead men and the gods; he remains the protector, the intercessor, and the magician who saves the departed as he has saved the living. Hence the people’s eagerness and alacrity in building splendid tombs to protect the royal body from any hurt and to secure him fitting and eternal means of subsistence. The royal tombs of Negadah and Abydos would alone suffice to prove what immense importance the Egyptians under the Ist Dynasty already attached to the defunct king’s advocacy among the gods. But what are we to say of the colossal pyramids of Gizeh, built about 2850 B.c., 500 years after Menes? Such enterprises, which absorbed all the energy and wealth of a country to do honour to the mortal remains of a Pharaoh, prove that the people expected of the dead king the same miracles as from the living king: after guiding and protecting men on earth, Pharaoh became their guide in the life beyond the grave, and gave them the hope that after his example they, too, might escape final death. If the tomb of a Menes or a Kheops attain the dimensions of a fortress, it is because it guards the body of him who, alive or dead, concen- trates in himself the whole destiny of humanity. * Researches in Sinat, and Memphis, III. THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE = 1538 Such in its main outlines was the image of kingship in the earliest times to which history at present allows us to penetrate. The king is not only ‘‘ a happy warrior,”’ a brave protector of his people on the battlefield, and amasser of lands who has become the richest chief in the land. He assumes also the figure of a magician who founds his authority on a series of operations of imitative magic. Having assimilated and digested the persons and powers of gods and fetishes, the revered guardians of clans and kingdoms, he takes possession of the two lands, he rises as the sun, he gives men water and harvests, he ensures their BAGe tt. An episode from the Sed festival of King Narmer (Hierakonpoilis, Pie Vi, o.); security by his strength, intelligence, and courage, of course, but also by the moral ascendancy conferred upon him in the eyes of his people by the constant repetition of master-rites invented for the benefit of the gods, of which he alone holds the secrets (seshtau). His health, so vital for his country’s weal, is maintained by the magic rejuvenation effected by the Sed festivals, which convert him into an ever-living Osiris. Even after his decease he ‘‘ renews his births,’’ he reigns as Osiris or Ra in the other world, where he has the power to conduct men into the presence of the gods by virtue of what is called *‘ the secret magic of the Court” (heka seshta n khen).! Thus was created for Menes and all the Pharaohs a dynastic right founded upon their perfect identity with the gods, the first kings of mortals, confirmed by tradi- tion and sustained by the magic rites which gave the king the 1 Sethe, Urkunden, I, 48. 154 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS garb, the crown, the weapons, the physical mien, and all the material and moral powers of the gods. The dynastic right thus formed became for the Egyptians a national tradition which was perpetuated for thousands of years down to the Christian era. How is such persistence to be explained? The Egyptians, who had made the first known experiment in a social organization, lived in a land where, without a universally accepted discipline to which all bowed, and without a common goodwill on the part of all its inhabitants, the marvellous resources of the soil and the river were unusable. What would become of the fellah in the Delta if the people of Upper Egypt kept back the Nile waters in case of drought, or let it flow through too quickly in case of a great flood? How could dykes, canals, and reservoirs be built and maintained if men did not combine their efforts? How could the full yield of the natural re- sources be obtained if tribal rivalries hindered the exacting tillage of the fields? What would be the use of carefully cultivating wheat, barley, and dates, and breeding stock by thousands, what the use of creating a state of comfort and affluence by handicrafts and forges if the nomads of the desert descended upon the valley in periodical raids? After experiencing such disillusionments and enduring these scourges for thousands of years, the Egyptian peasants had learnt the necessity of a strong and unified organization, the head of which must have the authority necessary to enable him to take the direction of the tasks of agriculture and industry, to maintain an equal justice for all, and to afford security against neighbours and plunderers. All that had they demanded from their fetishes; as soon as they had been convinced that these local gods were based upon one single type living amongst them upon earth—the Pharaoh—they adopted this guide and protector with an unquestioning faith for centuries. The adaptation of barbarous custom to a political State, the extension of the king’s responsibilities, and the enlarge- ment of his power over men and lands, that was the achieve- ment of the Pharaohs of the Thinite dynasties. Without breaking with the old traditions, they made them innocuous and transmitted them with added rights to their successors, thus preserving what might help to retain for them the super- stitious respect of the populace. THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE = 155 Vv THe HyrorHesis oF AN ASIATIC INVASION OF EGYPT Is the development of civilization in Egypt and the creation of the first State explicable in terms of the natural gifts and pertinacious labour of the first Egyptians alone? Or must we admit that a new race entered Egypt at that moment and gave its people the decisive impulse along the path of progress? The hypothesis of an Asiatic invasion preoccupied deeply the minds of the archeologists who discovered and catalogued the tombs of Abydos and Negadah. According to them, the ** Followers of Horus ’’ were a conquering race who easily triumphed over the neolithic Egyptians because they were acquainted with metallurgy and were armed with more perfect weapons.’ After conquering the Nile Valley they taught the natives the use of gold, copper, and bronze, the art of building in brick and stone, and introduced writing, that vehicle of all progress and organization. Thanks to them, Egypt advanced from a clan government to a central- ized State. In a word, they were, on this view, the dynastic race. But whence did they come? Arguments have been adduced in favour of Chaldea as the home of the new- comers—the use of brick, of the cylinder for stamping names on the clay, the similarity of certain weapons, such as the stone mace-head, certain types of building with crenellated walls (Negadah and Tello), and, finally, the presence on the ivory handle of a flint knife, and on some prehistoric palettes, of persons in long woollen robes of Sumerian type, and of animals—rampant lions, coiled snakes, and long-necked monsters (Fig. 7)—heraldically opposed, according to a very ancient Asiatic style.” The Egyptian civilization of the first dynasties would, then, be the result of a blending of two stocks—the one African, to whom are due the weapons, pottery, and palettes, older than the period of Negadah, the other of Asiatic origin, responsible for the Thinite monu- ments.° But what route did the invasion follow? Here great stress is laid on religious traditions, according to which the land of Punt on the southern shore of the Red Sea is said ' de Morgan, XXXI, pp. 88, 101, 102, 114. 2 Langdon, XIII, vol. vii (1921). ® See the summary of this thesis in XXVII, 188 /. 156 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS to have furnished the Egyptians with their national gods, such as Horus and Hathor. The Followers of Horus came, then, from Asia through Yemen and Punt along the route from Qoseir to Koptos;' arrived at the central district, Hierakonpolis (Abydos), they built there the great Thinite tombs, and thence conquered the rest of the valley. This theory of an Asiatic invasion as the inspiration of the ‘‘historic’’ civilization in Egypt no longer satisfies Egyptologists. Their main objection may be summed up thus: to bring into a country a higher culture the invaders must themselves have possessed a superior organization; a centre of more advanced culture must have been manifest for centuries, and that within striking distance. Now, neither in the neighbourhood of Egypt nor anywhere else had an Oriental people reached an equal degree of civilization about the middle of the fourth millenium. The Sumerians, who naturally occur to one’s mind, appear abruptly in Southern Mesopotamia in the course of the fourth millenium. Their annals allow us to trace their history still further back; but we know nothing about their evolution from primitive savagery. At the moment when we first catch sight of them they have left the Stone Age behind; they know copper, pottery, and brick architecture; they have an ideographic script and rudimentary institutions. But neither their lan- guage nor their script exhibits the faintest relationship to that of Egypt; their industry is otherwise inferior in tech- nique, diversity, and, above all, artistic feeling. Have they been in contact with Egypt? There is no reason to deny it. The resemblances noted between pottery, weapons, buildings, and decorative motives may bear witness to commercial inter- course by land or sea. That would suffice to explain the use of copper implements and vases, similarly ornamented pottery, cylinders to mark names, and brick buildings with crenellated walls common to Elam, Chaldea, and Egypt.? But an invasion of Egypt by Sumerians by way of Arabia or the Red Sea is an uncalled-for and hazardous speculation. As to the traditions about the origins of the Egyptian gods, such as Horus and Hathor, they only concern the zone of the land of Punt, which probably did not extend beyond the African coast of the Red Sea. To sum up, the theory that 1 Hall, XIX, p. 94. * XXXII, §§ 200, 229; cf. pp. 209 f. infra. THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL LIFE = 157 the dynastic civilization of Egypt is of Asiatic origin comes to shipwreck on one vital fact ; up to the present Egypt seems to have had the priority over all other countries in the domain of culture and invention. In this discussion that lacks decisive arguments the examination of the corpses found in the Thinite cemeteries, and the comparison of the languages spoken in Egypt and Western Asia, may furnish an important contribution. As to race, the researches of specialists into the Thinite Fic. 12.—EGyYPTIAN OF THE NORTH. Fic. 18.—EGYPTIAN OF THE SOUTH (Louvre Palette.) IVORY FROM HIERAKONPOLIS. (Cf. de Morgan, XXXI, Fig. 43.) skulls show that the Egyptian population was more mixed than at the chalcolithic epoch. Three well-marked types are distinguishable. First, a southern type with small head and delicate features, akin to the Gallas of Somaliland and the inhabitants of Southern Arabia; second, a Semito-Libyan type in the north, with large head and hooked nose, figured on the palette on which Narmer exterminates ‘‘ the people of the north’’; third, another northern type, brachycephalic with straight short nose, of which the statues of the Memphite epoch a few centuries later will give perfect specimens among the high officials and courtiers; this type is Mediterranean or Euro- 158 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS pean in appearance. So the population of dynastic Egypt included African, Semitic, and Mediterranean elements.! Philology gives a similar response. If the embodiment of language, the pictographic script, be consulted, nothing Asiatic is found there; the animals, plants, and objects which form the ideographic or phonetic signs are specifically Nilotic. But from the grammatical standpoint the language offers a synthesis of composite elements. Fundamental analogies with the Semitic languages are noticeable—personal pro- nouns, system of conjugation, feminine endings in t and in ut (plural), duals in 7, and a preponderance of consonants to form biliteral or triliteral roots. On the other hand, Maxence de Rochemonteix and Rheinisch’ have discovered elements borrowed from Berber or Negro dialects. The Egyptian language would therefore contain something African from the north, something African from the south, and, above all, something Semitic. So stands the question provisionally: the dynastic race of Egypt remains Mediterranean even while embodying African elements; it contains Semitic elements without being a colony of Asia. In the crucible of the Nile Valley diverse races have been fused; from it arises a people homo- geneous like their fatherland, disciplined by religion, indus- trious and methodical by their environment, a people who by enforced solidarity had had to create a morality and a collec- tive conscience, and who emerge from barbarism with a radiance of faith. There we see human intelligence, which rises for the first time, as far as our present knowledge goes, on one region of our world and brings the dawn of a civiliza- tion into the surrounding darkness. * Elliot-Smith, The Ancient Egyptians. See a good summary by Hall in XIX, pp. 85-97. * Cf. Ad. Erman, £gyptische Grammatik (2nd ed.), §§ 1-4. CHAPTER II THE EGYPTIAN KINGDOM AND ITS NEIGHBOURS UNDER THE OLD EMPIRE We must now follow the development of this first State in relation to the human environment it found around it in the East Mediterranean world of the third millenium B.c. We shall sketch in their main outlines the actions and reactions which took place between the Egyptians and other Orientals. They are defined at first by the Egyptian documents alone, and then revealed by Chaldean, Hittite, Assyrian, Creto- ZEgean, and Palestinian monuments as and when such become available. We shall try to depict the patient efforts of various human groups to form themselves in turn into States, and the wider ambition of the more gifted to create an Empire which should organize the Oriental world into a single society. These efforts and ambitions were often frus- trated, either by incapacity or organic weakness, or by the intrusion of human hordes still uncivilized in quest of better lands, eager to enjoy this Oriental civilization which, like a lighthouse in the night of barbarism, attracted to it all the nomads. In fact, each of the great peoples of the Ancient East—Egyptians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Medes and Persians —_spent themselves on this task. The spasmodic attempts at empire foundered beneath the periodic onslaughts and suc- cessive waves of migrating peoples until Hellenic culture and the peace of Rome were imposed, for a few centuries, on the whole of the Mediterranean world. I Tur ALLEGED ISOLATION OF EGYPT In reference to Egypt’s relations with neighbouring peoples, it is well to examine at the start an opinion often expressed by ancient and modern historians. According to them, Egypt owed the singularity of its customs, religion, art, and script to the fact that it developed in this Nile Valley 159 160 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS as if in a closed vessel shut off from the rest of humanity by seas, deserts, and cataracts. Let us concede that such defences favoured Egypt’s development by protecting her soil from invasions. The ways of access, on all sides limited and narrow, were ill-adapted for migrations of peoples and armies. Forced to traverse wide arid stretches, invaders ran the risk of being without water or provisions for weary days, or, if they came by the Mediterranean, they were exposed to the danger of being cut off from their base after a naval defeat : such was to be the fate on more than one occasion of the Peoples of the Sea and the Assyrians, not to mention modern invaders. Nevertheless, the isolation of Egypt is only apparent; as the field of historical observation is widened we discover that the “singularity ’’ of the Egyp- tians means rather ‘‘ antiquity.”’ In our subsequent book we shall show that various surprising customs among the Egyptians find their equivalent in other primitive societies, and are only survivals of a very ancient state of society of which Egypt alone among historical peoples has kept the recollection. The civilization of Egypt could not be pre- sented as an abnormal and exceptional type; the laws of ordinary human development force us to admit very ancient and permanent relations between her and her neighbours. Consider first the geographical situation. Every navigable river is a ‘‘moving road.’? Now, the Nile, between two immense tablelands where from century to century the sands have sucked up the waters and made life precarious for men, beasts, and plants, offers a waterway abundantly supplied with provisions. At one end it plunges into the heart of the African continent, at the other it opens out to the Mediter- ranean, the route to the isles, Asia Minor, and an illimitable hinterland. Moreover, Egypt almost borders on another much-frequented sea—the Red Sea; the latter, more hos- pitable than the desert, unites rather than divides Yemen and Abyssinia, where civilization developed very early. Finally, the Isthmus of Suez, which recent researches show to have been from the remotest ages much what it is to-day, forms a bridge between the Delta and Syria. The geo- graphical situation of Egypt is such that, although she is an oasis encircled with a girdle of sand, she forms the only convenient corridor for travelling from the centres of civiliza- EGYPTIAN KINGDOM 161 tion in the Ancient World to the heart of Black Africa; at the same time she unites the coast of North Africa, the Mediterranean Little Africa, to Arabia and Asia Minor. And so the historical race of Egypt is the product of heterogeneous ingredients; this country has always kept a mixed population in which we have above distinguished Sudanese, Libyan, Semitic, and Mediterranean elements. If we now examine the economic conditions imposed on the Egyptians by Nature, they confirm the necessity of borrowing from neighbouring lands, which their geographical conditions already implied. The valley offered its first occu- pants a luxuriant flora, but one the poverty of which in edible varieties surprises naturalists. Before enrichment through agriculture, this flora offered only a very small number of species growing wild; as vegetable food the first occupants had only some fruits (chiefly the dum palm), the papyrus, and lotus, the roots and stalks of which they ate, and, finally, some herbs. The three cereals (barley, millet, and wheat), which subsequently made Egypt the world’s granary, Candolle and Schweinfurth tell us, grow wild in North Palestine, Western Persia, and the Mediterranean Basin.’ The conclusion is that the primitive Egyptians probably cultivated and improved some of their indigenous plant species in their narrow gardens; but agriculture on a larger scale, using cereals, would be an importation from abroad.” The indigenous Egyptian fauna was, on the other hand, rich in animals, but these had the disadvantage of being dangerous or useless to man; crocodiles, hippopotami, snakes, scorpions, panthers, lions, foxes, jackals, elephants, giraffes, and birds of prey such as falcons and vultures were obstacles to the labours of civilized men, and unsuitable for domestication. Two species among the quadrupeds might be suitable for breeding—the ass, a native of the Nubian plateau, which was the Egyptian’s beast of burden par 1 Beer and wheaten starch bear similar names in Egyptian and Baby- lonian, XXII, §§ 200, 229; cf. Maspero, XX, vol. I, 27. 2 Breasted disputes this view. He supposes that the tablelands of num- mulitic limestone enclosing the Nile valley may once have lent themselves to the germination of wild wheat just as well as the Palestinian plateaux of a similar formation: XXV (Oct., 1919), p. 316. 11 162 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS excellence, and the long-horned ox, which had existed from an early age in Nubia.’ The antelope was just tamed, and in the farmyards we early meet the pigeon, the goose, and the crane. But from Asia, according to most zoologists, Fic. 14.—EGypTIANS OF THE NORTH REPELLING A NAVAL RAID (PRE-DyNASTIC EPocH). (After G. Bénédite, Ze Couteau de Gebel-el-Aragq.) came goats and pigs, perhaps even sheep, as articles of trade or barter between nomads and agriculturists, not to mention rarer species such as deer. The Nile’s waters offered a large variety of fishes, not, however, very tasty, and later on often the object of taboos; its reedy banks sheltered quails, lap- wings, swallows, and a multitude of birds, especially web- footed species ; but hunting and fishing among the wild beasts * In the Nile Valley a fragment of a skull of Bos primigenius has been discovered in the pleistocene deposits of the Fayum.—/did., p. 418. EGYPTIAN KINGDOM 163 and monsters lurking in the Nile jungle were perilous exer- cises IN comparison with beats or stalking in the desert, sports so charmingly pictured at a later date on the walls of Egyptian tombs. In mineral wealth underground Egypt was once more lacking. She was, indeed, well provided all along the valley with silt, plastic clay, fine or coarse limestone and compact sandstone, and in places with igneous rocks—basalts, granites, and serpentines. But she had neither copper, iron, gold, silver, nor tin. The Egyptians procured gold from sands or auriferous minerals in the rivers and mountains of Nubia and Ethiopia, where it was plentiful.t Copper they found in Sinai, but in exiguous quantities,” and in the form of carbonates difficult to smelt; they had to turn chiefly to Cyprus for copper, to Anatolia for iron (which was little used by them at any epoch), and to unknown intermediaries for tin and silver. In the same way forests are wanting in Egypt; even in Nubia they were sparse. At a later date ebony was imported from the Upper Nile, but the common essences had to be brought from Asia Minor, especially Lebanon,’ where conifers abound. The ‘‘ sacred trees,’’ the sycamore and persea, are natives of Yemen, as are the myrrh and _ incense-trees. The typical or indigenous Egyptian timbers, date palms, tamarisks, and acacias, furnished a hard, knotted, brittle, or spongy wood inconvenient to work; neither building material nor artistic furniture nor seaworthy vessels could be made from them. Now, we have seen the population of Egypt in post- neolithic days was acquainted with stock-breeding, agri- culture, navigation, and the use, if not the extraction, of metals; by the time of the Thinite dynasties they had brought stone and copper-working, pottery, agricultural and industrial production, and architecture to a high level of perfection. In view of Egypt’s poverty in natural resources in respect of flora, fauna, ore, and forests, this remarkable + Schweinfurth, I, vol. IV, 268. * de Morgan, XXXI, p. 114, perhaps exaggerates the poverty of the copper mines in Sinai. 8 In periods of revolution when commercial life was disturbed, one of the causes of misery in Egypt was the impossibility of importing timber from Lebanon; cf. Gardiner, Admonitions, p. 32. 164 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS development of agriculture, stock-breeding, and industry presupposes the introduction of animal and vegetable species and minerals from the producing countries—Asia Minor, Palestine, Arabia, and Abyssinia. This hypothesis is supported by the researches of an eminent naturalist and ethnologist, Georg Schweinfurth. For many years he has studied on the spot the plants, animals, and peoples of Arabia and Egypt. In what Schweinfurth calls the *‘ ancient triangle of civilization ’’ (Kultur dreiecke) —Babylonia, Yemen, Egypt—he observes the cultivation of three cereals (barley, millet, and wheat) and the breeding of three domestic species (cattle, goats, and sheep). Both groups are found in the wild state only in Western Asia. It is thence that they have been propagated to other parts of the Oriental world. The chronological order of their diffusion, and consequently of civilization, would be (1) Babylonia, (2) Yemen, and (8) Egypt.’ We could not dispute the value of the arguments advanced by Schweinfurth. It remains none the less true that, in the present state of our knowledge, the cultivation and breeding of plant and animal species by men is demonstrated by plant and animal remains and imple- ments found “in situ’? in Egypt earlier than anywhere else. A thousand years before Babylon—several thousand years before Yemen—Egypt discloses tillers, pastoralists, and craftsmen at work. How did this commercial penetration of the Nile Valley by Egypt’s neighbours come about? Here we are once more confronted by the theory of an invasion coming from Asia or Arabia, of a military conquest by a better armed, better equipped people, who would have conferred upon the defeated Egyptians the blessings of their higher civilization. We have replied that no proof can be brought forward. Prior to 3500 B.c. it does not seem that any society existed outside Egypt sufficiently well organized to pursue a policy of conquest. The converse seems more probable; with greater essential verisimilitude we might imagine an occu- pation by the Egyptians of Palestine, whence they brought 1 An interesting summary of Schweinfurth’s ideas will be found in an article by E. Hahn, ‘‘ Babylonien, Jemen, A®%gypten,” in Priissische Jahrbicher, CLXXXVII, i, pp. 49 7#f., on the occasion of the great scientist’s eightieth birthday. KGYPTIAN KINGDOM 165 back the animals and plants lacking at home. But evidence is lacking or inadequate. And, in any case, why cling to this idea of a conquest one way or the other? North Africa, especially Egypt, is connected with Hither Asia and the South Mediterranean regions by soil and by race. Its animals and plants, taken as a whole, belong as much to Western Asia as to Africa,' and its inhabitants had commercial rela- tions by ship (Fig. 14) and by caravan with Arabs, Pales- tinians, and Mediterraneans from very ancient times. In our eyes such relations suffice to explain how in the neolithic and Thinite periods the Egyptians were able to procure from less civilized peoples, endowed with certain natural riches that they lacked, the grains and animals which were going to develop so luxuriantly in the Nile Valley. There was an exchange of economic elements just as the races were crossed and linguistic borrowings took place. Thus the period of the acclimatization in Egypt of wheat, vegetables, the vine, flax, and small and large cattle seems to imply continuous inter- course between Egypt, Yemen, Palestine, and the Mediter- ranean. That was, perhaps, the epoch when Egypt lived least isolated, because she was not yet self-sufficing; then commercial relations with neighbours, even culturally in- ferior, was necessary and fruitful for her people. Moreover, it will not be long before the situation is reversed. Here was Egypt, cleared, populated by peasants, enriched by domestic animals, gaining ground everywhere upon the desert, where irrigation canals diffused the fertiliz- ing water. This soil, well tilled, yielded an unparalleled return; the foreign products improved on it and became at home, till they actually excelled in quantity and quality the same products in their native lands, or, again, through the well-known virtue of the Nilotic environment they were transformed and acquired after a while a special character, henceforth invariable, peculiar to the Nile, and having what is called the ‘‘ fixity of the Egyptian type.’’* To paraphrase Herodotus’ words, Egypt is as a whole a gift of the Nile aug- mented by that of neighbours. Her fertile silt had, perhaps, to wait for the foreign grain. But then she was made anew 1 Maspero, XX, vol. I, 33. 2 Consult in this connection a remarkable chapter by Schweinfurth in Baedeker’s Egyft on ‘* The Origin and Present State of the Population.” 166 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS and passed from the condition of a partially tributary country to the first rank as a centre of agricultural and artistic production and an exporting country as a result of her political organization. That industrial superiority which we detect by the old and new Stone Ages in the incomparable beauty of flint knives with ripple flaking, of flint bracelets and of hard stone vases, is reaffirmed in the Ancient World from the third millennium, and has been maintained for nearly 4,000 years till the appearance of Hellenic industry about the fifth century B.c. All that which we may already call the foreign policy of Egypt will be governed by this priority in industrial and agricultural creation and this economic supremacy. Her population of tillers and artizans is glutted with wealth and seeks an outlet for her products; in return she remains dependent on her neighbours for some primary products. Egypt’s influence upon her neighbours is, perhaps, trace- able from the earliest days of human life. If we accept Sergi’s theory, which seems warranted, the paleolithic and neolithic men of Southern and Western Europe would belong to the same Mediterranean race as the first Egyptians. The ‘* bridges *’ between Africa and Europe by Gibraltar, Sicily, and the Archipelago remained accessible above the waves till quite late in the neolithic age. By them certainly crossed the great African mammals who ranged the prairies and forests of quaternary Europe. Men and their products may have taken the same road. It would not, then, be by chance that the tools and weapons of the neolithic Europeans bear striking resemblance both in material and technique to those of the Egyptians ; it would not be accidental that the builders of the lake villages of Switzerland and Savoy cultivated for their food the three typical species of plant—barley, millet, and wheat—which the Egyptians had been the first to select.’ About 4500 B.c. the Egyptians began to work copper and fashion metal tools, while the rest of mankind still used stone; and then the technical supremacy of the Nilotes certainly procured them an irresistible ascendancy. Now, it is at this moment that Egypt’s ‘‘ neighbours ”’ appear on the first Egyptian monuments and that we can begin to study the mutual relations of the peoples of the Ancient East. 1 Breasted, XXV (Nov., 1919), p. 426; de Morgan, XXXI, p. 169. EGYPTIAN KINGDOM 167 Here we reach the firm ground of historical realities. It becomes possible to describe the Egyptians and their neigh- bours as they are portrayed by themselves on pictorial monu- ments, and not merely by defining races with the help of craniometry and philology alone. II THe EGYPTIANS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS: RAcES AND TYPES The peoples whom the Egyptian monuments of the his- torical period depict are reducible to four types—Egyptians, Libyans, Semites, and Negroes. The first two belong to the Hamitic race; they are regarded as closely akin to the Semites, while they are fundamentally different from the African negroes. In the valley where the ‘ black-earth ”’ Qemt lies deep, dwelt the Men (remtu)—the Egyptians. Statues and mummies reveal them oval faced with prominent cheek- bones, deep-set eyes, short, straight, or slightly aquiline nose, and fleshy lips. They are generally tall, broad shouldered, with a straight, well-set neck, not flabby about the belly or the buttocks. The arm and leg muscles are not very highly developed externally. Their skin, which is white, becomes reddish-brown under the rays of the sun. Their hair black, not curly, is generally short, and protected by a cap or wig. The beard, rather scanty, is most usually shaved off. The ordinary costume is a loincloth for men and a tight- fitting robe supported by shoulder-straps for women. On the left bank of the Nile from the Mediterranean to Assouan, on both banks in the Sudan, and in the western oases dwelt the Libu=—Libyans.! They were nomads on the desert tablelands and sedentary in the oases and Nubia. Their race offers many examples of individuals with a fair skin, blue eyes, and fair hair, betraying a mixture of Hamitic elements with a people coming from across the Mediter- ranean. The Libyans are tall and strong, more muscular in appearance than the Egyptians; the plaited hair falls in a tress over one shoulder. Sometimes a little lock stands up 1 The name Lidu does not appear till the XIX Dynasty; vide infra, p. 167. 168 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS on their foreheads. They wear a pointed beard turned up slightly at the tip. Their dress is a loincloth, sometimes a woollen robe, gaudy and patterned. Men and women are tattooed and are loaded with bracelets and torques ; a leather sack protects the genital parts of males.? Beyond the Libyans we find the Tehenu in Marmarica, and in the region of the Syrtes live the Mashauasha (the Maxyens of the Greeks). South of the Nile, from the First to the Third Cataract, Fic. 15.—EcypTian Types (Op KINGDOM), stretched Nubia; its name was Kush in Egyptian. Tall of stature, with curly or straight hair, the Nubians (Satu), who include several tribes such as the Uauat, the Iertet, and the Imam,’ seem to belong to the same race as the Libyans. They are sharply differentiated from the Negroes (Nehesiu) with their flat noses, thick lips, and woolly hair, and from all the black-skinned peoples; the latter only appear late in the part of the Nile Valley colonized by the Egyptians.° On the right bank of the Nile in the southern part the Egyptians met the Mazoi, who seem to be the modern Bisharis. Towards the Somali coasts on the Red Sea shore * XXII, §§ 165-7. > CH. pp. 180 #f. below. * Junker, XIII, vol. VII, p. 12]. EGYPTIAN KINGDOM 169 were located the people of the land of Punt. They had the same complexion and physical type as the Egyptians, save for a little beard with the end turned up as if twisted. The artists adorned the chin of the Egyptian gods with the same beard. On the east bank of the middle course of the river the mountains and steppes of the Arabian Desert were the domain of the Iuntiu (whose name was once read as Anu). They correspond to the Troglodytes whom Strabo (XVII, 786) mentions in these quarters. They are Semitic Beduins living on pillage and the caravan trade. Along the isthmus and in the Peninsula of Sinai appear the Heriu-sha—** those who are upon the sands ’’—the Amu, the Mentiu, and the Sentiu, who are truly Asiatics, at once nomadic and sedentary. We shall describe the peculiarities of their types further on. In contrast to her African neighbours, the Egypt of the Thinites and Memphites appears before us as a State com- manding a political, military, industrial, and agricultural organization in the midst of peoples who are still for the most part in a state of nomadism without a true civilization. And so, compared to them, she will retain her eminent position throughout her whole history. The Nubians lived uneasily in the district of the cataracts, narrow and denuded, a mere water passage between fertile Egypt and the luxuriant regions of the Upper Nile, whence came wild-beast skins, ivory, rare essences and perfumes, and ostrich feathers. The Nubians acted as intermediaries in this petty commerce, and plied the trade of boatmen on the Nile or caravan guides across the desert. They often descended towards Egypt and the Delta, where they were engaged as agricultural labourers, but they were chiefly employed as mercenaries, guards, and policemen, posts of authority for which their martial and arrogant humour peculiarly fitted them. The Egyptians had soon to defend themselves against the excess of attraction exercised by the richer lower valley upon the less fortunate population of the Upper Nile. Later the danger came from the Negroes of the Sudan: rich in beasts and minerals, initiated into the secrets of metallurgy, they trickled through Nubia to Elephantine from time to time, launching their wandering 170 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS and warlike tribes upon pillaging forays against the Egyp- tian towns. The Libyans on the river’s west bank, the Troglodytes on its east, convoyed the caravans bringing to Egypt the gold, skins, spices, and perfumes of Punt and Yemen, or the products of the Libyan oases and the flocks of Cyrenaica. To these nomads, pastoralists, and hunters, whose hungry cattle devoured the oases and the thin herbage of the desert, Egypt was a land to fall back upon, the market where they renewed their provisions. They came to barter their curdled milk, their cheeses, and their meat for wheat, and to seek manufactured articles to ensure a return cargo for caravans coming from Arabia or the Sudanese and Libyan countries. Against the background of the fertile loams of the valley these Libyans and Troglodytes assume the mien of starveling pillagers, always on the lookout for a chance to raid the Egyptian fellah, peaceful and absorbed in the tasks of farm- ing. They were never a source of real danger to the Egyptian, for they had as yet no swift mount capable of bearing loads ; the ass, their only draught animal, cannot travel very fast nor carry heavy loads; the camel, which will give mobility and power to the desert tribes in the days of Islam, though not unknown,’ was but little used.? Confronted with these nomads, Egypt was ever watchful and on guard and kept up police operations, for which she employed the Libyans them- selves. Several tribes, like that of the Mashauasha, entered her service as mercenaries. In the same way she recruited excellent troops among the Mazoi. The Pharaoh found it expedient thus to insure himself against thefts by paying, in the guise of wages, a premium to these incorrigible free- booters. It was only in the last days of the Theban Empire that the Libyans, grouped in a sort of federation, and set in motion by migration of peoples, became a serious menace to Egypt which was not to be conjured away by extemporized expedients.” Apart from these exceptional periods, the nomads came to attack Egypt only in isolated bands. Against such a jealous guard had always to be maintained, 1 Schweinfurth (Zeztschr. f. Ethnol, 1912, p. 633) has drawn attention to * graffiti of the VIth Dynasty at Assouan representing a camel and its driver. * Cf. Lefébure, Le Chameau en Egypt. * Cf. pp. 336 ff. below. EGYPTIAN KINGDOM 171 but the barbarians might be induced to accept a compromise by employment as mercenaries or traflickers, functions in which their talents found scope for expression. In regard to the Asiatics, Egypt was quite differently situated. Beyond the isthmus and the desert region, which sets a sandy barrier on the frontiers of Egypt for a distance of seventy-five miles, the Mediterranean coast of Asia opened its agricultural tablelands, its forests, and its natural har- bours, already devoted to maritime trade. Thither, too, came the products of the hinterland, a vast world of which the outposts alone were known to the Egyptians. There the States of Sumer, Akkad, and Elam were growing up by the fourth millennium s.c. From these peoples, who had reached varying degrees of civilization, the Egypt of the Pharaohs had no longer to borrow plants to cultivate or animals to rear (nevertheless, the horse came from Asia as late as the sixteenth century), but she imported primary products—copper, gold, iron, precious stones, building timbers, and woollen stuffs. Egypt for her part exported to Asia manufactures—furniture, weapons, and jewels—in great demand owing to the artistic and technical superiority of the factories of the Delta (below, p. 219). This trade crossed Syria and the desert regions on ass-back by caravans, and also went by sea. It is supposed, perhaps erroneously, that the ships were chiefly Asiatic or, if Egyptian, were at least manned by foreign crews. How far navigation extended in the Mediterranean we cannot say for certain, but it is undeniable that commercial intercourse with the AYgean and the coast of Palestine was already established; in the neo- lithic tombs of Abydos brown or red clay vases adorned with geometric patterns of incised lines, incrusted with white paste, or covered with punctured ornament, are of At‘gean provenance.! Direct or indirect relations between the Delta and Cyprus (the copper land) and North Syria therefore existed by the beginning of the historical epoch. All such peoples of the isles and the sea were called by the Egyptians Hau-nebu—i.e., the folk who are behind Egypt.’ Asia Minor did not only enjoy a long-standing and unin- 1 XXII, 228; cf. de Morgan, XXXI, Figs. 126-127. 2 The Egyptians faced south in taking their bearings. 172 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS terrupted commercial intercourse with Egypt; it was destined to play a great political réle in relation to her. Throughout the history of the Orient, Asia’s position in respect to Egypt was like that of Germany to the Roman Empire—that of a great reservoir of peoples disparate in origin, reflecting the shock and recoil of the incessant migrations taking place farther north on the plains which extend from the present Russia to Tibet. Thence rolled in periodic tides of invasion, the last billows of which lapped Palestine and sometimes even the Egyptian frontier. The Pharaohs’ empire was therefore constantly threatened on its Asiatic flank and liable to receive the recoil shock of all the migrations and collisions of peoples in Asia. The reader will gather from these general considerations that, far from living in isolation, far from remaining cut off from the surrounding world, Egypt found herself the eyno- sure of envious eyes ever on the watch. On the one hand she possessed the attraction that a rich State ensuring peace, security, and food in return for service and manual labour exercises upon nomadic and hungry peoples; on the other her desert frontiers could only delay hordes of people in movement. No doubt Egypt long inspired her scattered and inchoate neighbours with respect for the prestige and strength of a centralized and policed State pertinaciously pursuing her task of internal development and prosperity. For long centuries she could exploit the resources in man- power and raw materials offered by her neighbours. But against pillaging by nomads and the overflow of migrant peoples she had, for her own safety, to prepare a plan, first of defence and then of conquest. As the centuries roll by we see Egypt taking defensive measures on her frontiers, concentrating little garrisons there and forbidding access, for instance, to Elephantine, to the Nubians and Negroes. Then she widened her zone of watchfulness, established marches, and entrenched herself behind a girdle of forts. Finally she took the offensive; on her Asiatic front, that most seriously menaced, she organized economic protectorates, and when that did not suffice to protect her from attacks and even pro- longed invasions, she decided on a military occupation of the turbulent lands. That involved a foreign policy experi- EGYPTIAN KINGDOM 173 menting in world empire after the experiment of a centralized State, with the alternations of successes and reverses, the jealousies, and the resistance which such a policy provoked. The history of this military expansion, of this moral germina- tion, and of the economic development resulting therefrom is what we must now sketch in broad outline. In it Egypt, Chaldeza, and others, too, will in turn play the foremost part. III Tare EXTERNAL RELATIONS OF THINITE EGYPT From the accession of the Thinite dynasties to the end of the IlIrd Dynasty (8815 to 2850 B.c. approximately) the relations between Egypt and her neighbours, as far as the documents allow us to judge, had been sometimes peaceful, sometimes warlike, according as the tribes of the Nile borderland displayed respect for frontiers or tried to encroach on the cultivated land. The blame for the con- flicts does not seem to lie at the Egyptians’ door. It may reasonably be supposed that, absorbed in the great task of ‘““the union of the two lands”? and of putting the whole valley under cultivation, the kings limited their efforts to repelling attacks and punishing nomads’ incursions by severe punitive expeditions and methodical raids, which still in- volved no occupation of the adjacent countries. Thus under Narmer the Libyans of the Marmaric coasts (Tehenu), who had allied themselves with the Egyptians of the Delta against the Egyptians of the south, were defeated, like their allies, by the King of Hierakonpolis. They had to pay tribute, and on the ivory plaques of Menes we behold them defiling before the king; for their hanging plaits of hair, the top-knots on their heads, and their pointed beards make them recognizable.* We saw that quite early there was an important caravan traffic between the Libyan tribes and the inhabitants of the oases on the one hand and the Nile Valley on the other. Besides cattle and various preparations of milk and cheese, the Egyptians used to buy from them a highly prized 1 Quibell, Hierakonpolis, Pls. XV, XXVI, XXIX; Petrie, Royal Tombs, Ist Dynasty, vol. I, 4. 174 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS ** essence of Libya,’’! for we find it mentioned in all the lists of offerings which went to make up the repasts of the kings, the gods, and the deified dead. The Nubians, too, figure among the conquered on Menes’ tablets.” Khasekhem of the IInd Dynasty names them among the captives whom he carried home,* but no monu- ment justifies us in asserting that the kings of the first three dynasties conducted an offensive campaign in Nubia. On the eastern front, on the contrary, the first Thinite kings had overstepped their frontiers, not to repulse incur- sions by nomads, but, inspired by a definite plan of conquest, to lay hands on the copper mines of Sinai. We can well understand the cardinal importance to a nascent civilization of the mineral which secured to its owners copper tools and weapons at a time when all her neighbours, except the Sumerians, still used only stone tools and weapons. The rocky walls of the Wady Maghara concealed an abundance of more or less productive minerals—the turquoise stones containing 3 to 4 per cent. of copper oxide, a hydrosilicate of copper with a high metal content, and granites impreg- nated with carbonates and hydrosilicates of the same element. The importance of these deposits has, perhaps, been exag- gerated; the tendency to-day possibly errs on the opposite side.“ Berthelot admits that they may have played an important part in human evolution.*> It is probably in these mountain gorges round a fire kindled by nomads on ground strewn with the powdered mineral that man saw, for the first time in the Mediterranean region, copper, reduced by the heat of the hearth, separate out from the slack and trickle all red and gleaming among the ashes. Sinai was one of the places in the world where metallurgy was invented! On the Wady Maghara at Serabit-el-Khadim we can still see the mining galleries cut in the rock and pick up the stone picks and mallets used by the miners, the copper chisels for scraping the walls, and the crucibles employed for smelting the mineral on the spot, while the scorie still forms huge ? Maspero, ‘‘ La table d’offrandes,”’ in IX (1897), p. 22. * Petrie, Royal Tombs, II, 3, 30a; de Morgan, XXXII, vol. Il, 1674 Garstang, XII, vol. XLII, 61. 3 Quibell, Hzerakonpolis, 36-41, 48. * de Morgan, XXXI, p. 114. ® Compte-rendu de Acad. des sciences (Aug., 1896). EGYPTIAN KINGDOM 175 heaps.’ The historical value of these remains is considerably increased by the fact that they are dated by bas-reliefs earved upon the rocks. The first known is the work of the Falcon-King Smerkhet, one of Menes’ successors; he is depicted in the full royal garb, wearing the white crown or the red, or, again, grasping a suppliant Beduin by the hair with one hand and raising a mace to slay him with the other.” After Smerkhet the majority of the Pharaohs till the exhaustion of the mines about the XVIIIth Dynasty sent Fic. 16.—SMERKHET IN SINAI. expeditions to Sinai and carved inscriptions on the precious metalliferous walls. It is important to note that the exploitation of the mines of Sinai was already an official undertaking of the Egyptian State, which retained a monopoly thereof. The inscriptions enumerate the officials in charge of the industry, some tech- nicians, some soldiers or sailors guarding the works or the security of the transport. Only a State could undertake great operations of this nature, which private industry could not have conducted successfully. The Thinite monarchy proved its utility by organizing the exploitation of the mines which was to transform the material life and the industrial 1 Petrie, Simat; cf. Breasted, XXV (Dec., 1919), pp. 564-570. 7 R. Weill, Recueil des inscriptions égyptiennes de Sinai, p. 97; Petrie, Sinai, Figs. 45-47. 176 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS and political relations of its subjects. The Egyptian State therefore jealously guarded for itself and the community these reservoirs of metal which made possible the extra- ordinary expansion of its military power and industrial activity. Thus from the beginning of the world’s history the Pharaohs invoked the right of conquest which force alone justifies. The covetousness of the Heriu-sha, the first occu- pants of the country, and of the Amu, their immediate neighbours, was aroused when they learnt that the Egyptians were drawing from Sinai supplies of the red metal from which they made arms, tools, vases, and ornaments. One of Smerkhet’s predecessors, the falcon Den (Usaphais) had himself depicted ‘‘ crushing the Orientals.’’' In the future it was a commonplace in the records and bas-reliefs of the Pharaohs to recount their feats of arms against the wretched nomad tribes who would like to hold the miners to ransom or to receive their share of the metal of prestige. Later on the Egyptians had to defend the mines against the Asiatics and advance the domain of their arms. So from economic greed was born military conquest... The oldest known autocracy seized the mineral regions of Sinai which it needed, and 5,300 years ago began the long career of aggressions and of so-called economic wars which are the counterparts of civilization. North of Sinai the Pharaohs held under their sway the routes of access to Asia across the Isthmus of Suez and Sinai. In this region they encountered sedentary Amu, the nomad Heriu-sha (those who are on the sands), and Troglodytes (Iuntiu), and other Semitic tribes, the Mentiu and the Sentiu. These miserable people ambuscaded the caravans which brought from Asia pinewood in huge joists to floor and roof the royal tombs at Abydos, the minerals lacking in Egypt, and certain agricultural products, and which returned from the Nile laden with the manufactured articles of wood, stone, bone, and ivory, in which the unrivalled skill of the Egyptian craftsmen was embodied. To ensure the security of these trade routes the Thinite Pharaohs on more than one occasion had to send brief expeditions against the tribes to keep them in order for a time. 1 Spiegelburg, XII, vol. XXXV, p. 38. EGYPTIAN KINGDOM 177 With the islands of the A“gean trade was conducted over ** the circle (of water) which girdles the Hau-nebu,”’ as the Egyptians termed the Mediterranean. From Crete they brought back Creto-Atgean vases with incised geometrical decorations, white filled on a black ground, or with spiral and flower patterns in white on a red ground, or, again, brown covered with punctured triangles.' Still, it is doubt- ful whether these commodities and others, such as amber, arrived direct from Europe; they were more probably tran- shipped at those Levantine ports which participated actively in trade long before the Pheenicians. The port of Byblos (Kben) in particular must long have been an important trading centre, since the old name for sea-going vessels in Egyptian is kbent—.e., ** boat of Byblos.’”? IV THE PLAN oF DEFENCE OF MEMPHITE Ecypt At the beginning of the [Vth Dynasty (about 2850 B.c.) the Pharaonic monarchy had succeeded in making its people, who now cultivated the soil rationally, tamed and domes- ticated animals, and knew the secrets of the extraction and working of metals, into a highly centralized State. And so the deliberate policy which had yielded such good results inland came to be applied as far as possible to Egypt’s relations with her neighbours. The kings of the I]Ird, IVth, Vth, and VIth or Memphite dynasties*® set themselves a dis- tinctly far-sighted policy to pursue. They were no longer content to react to the aggression of nomad tribes; they elaborated a plan of defence which quickly turned into an offensive, in virtue of the historic law that in dealing with nomads it is not enough to repel their attacks, but the war must be carried into the heart of the territories where the foe lurks. On the side of Libya the Pharaohs organized a ‘* march,”’’ which was named the ‘‘ Gate of the West’’ (a-imentt). 1 Excavations at Knossos in the Cretan, middle neolithic level; cf. Dussaud, XXXIII, pp. 36 7.; Meyer, XXII, § 228. 2 Sethe, XII, vol. xlv, 7. ° For the internal history, see The Nile and Egyptian Civilization in this series. 12 178 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS Under Snefru (about 2840 B.c.) its control was entrusted to a high official Meten.1 This frontier was well guarded as long as the firm hands of the [Vth Dynasty kings* were on the helm, but under the Vth Dynasty (2680-2540 B.c.) the Libyans, taking advantage of a certain enfeeblement of the royal power, attempted an invasion the importance of which can be gauged by the vigorous effort needed to repel it. In the funerary temple of Sahura a bas-relief commemorates the Egyptians’ victory (about 2670) and the capture of enormous booty—128,400 oxen, 223,400 asses and goats, and sheep in proportion (of course, these figures must be taken with a grain of salt). The Libyan chiefs, long-haired, with a lock hanging down in front, tattooed on the body, girt about with fabrics of variegated wool, and decked with poly- chrome necklaces, are being led into captivity, and implor- ing the Pharaoh’s aman with outstretched hands.* The suppression of this attack must have been thorough, and its effect was lasting, for the Libyans remained tranquil for centuries and supplied the Pharaohs with mercenaries from the VIth Dynasty to the end of the Middle Kingdom (XIIIth Dynasty). A military pact, therefore, put an end to hos- tilities on the western frontier and won respect for the ‘* Gate of the West.’’ The same prudent policy was applied on the southern frontiers. Incursions of Nubians, pressed forward by Negroes, determined Zoser at the end of the IlIrd Dynasty (about 2890 B.c.) to occupy a march above the First Cataract, later called Twelve League Land (Dodekaschoine), which extended from Elephantine to Hierasykaminos.* A little later Snefru® set out from this base to make searching raids into the Nubians’ country, whence he brought back 7,000 prisoners and 20,000 head of cattle. After a spell of peace under the [Vth Dynasty, King Unas at the end of the Vth Dynasty had to recommence military expeditions, and he set up a *‘ Gate of the South ”’ (a-shema)—i.e., a march.° 1 Sethe, Urk., i, 2; cf. Brugsch, Dict. géographique, p. 1288. 2 The builders of the great pyramids, Kheops, Khephren, Mycerinos, etc. 3 Borchardt, Grabdenkmal des Kénigs Sahure, ii, p. 18. “ Sethe, Dodekaschoenos, and XII, vol. XLI, p. 58. 5 Palermo Stone, Schafer’s edition, p. 30. ¢ The names go back to the Old Kingdom according to a VIth Dynasty inscription which I annotated in C. R. Acad. des Inscrips. (1918), p. 105. EGYPTIAN KINGDOM 179 Its fortified citadel was Elephantine, where a brick wall seven and a half miles long (dating from the XIIth Dynasty), which still survives, cut the valley and the routes giving access to Egypt from the desert. Nevertheless, these measures did not succeed in blocking the flood of Nubians who overflowed from the Sudan, sub- merged the Egyptian population, mingled with it, and then filtered into the Nile Valley. The blacks and negroids were roaming in quest of plunder or of work as agricultural labourers, policemen, or soldiers. The VIth Dynasty kings sought to discipline the whims of these rovers and to divert into regular channels this abundant man-power which was not without its dangers: they admitted the Negroes and Nubians as “ pacified ’’ (nehesiuhetpu),' and drew recruits for the army and for the gangs working the royal demesnes from among them. Not only did they raise troops from the tribes of the Uauat, the Iertet, and the Mazoi, but the chiefs had to supply men for gold washing and to provide wood, sranite, gums, resins, and other commodities, probably by way of tribute. To keep them in obedience it ultimately appeared necessary to occupy their territories. Pepi I carried explorations far up the Nile. The recent excavations by the American Universities in Nubia prove that the Nile was colonized up to the level of Kerma (Third Cataract), Napata, and Meroe. The most useful agents of Pharaoh in this head of Upper Egypt (tep-shema)? were the princes of Elephantine. Their tombs, cut in the Hill of Assouan, have preserved the narra- tives of their exploits in the Nubian lands. Herkhuf was several times sent by Merenra and Pepi II (about 2490 B.c.) to the land of Imam in the vicinity of the Second Cataract. On the second occasion he set out with a caravan of donkeys loaded with packs of cheap trade goods turned out by Egyptian small industry—necklaces, bangles, stuffs, and weapons. Received by the nomads with open arms, he boasted to them of the king’s power, gained their affection with presents, reconciled the hostile tribes who were fighting among themselves or with the Libyans, and persuaded them 1 Decree of Pepi J at Dashur; cf. Moret, ‘‘ Chartres Vimmunité,” Part Ill, Journal Astatigue (1917). * XXII, § 265. 180 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS to worship “all the Prince’s gods,’’t which was equivalent to a treaty of submission. Then, after an absence of seven months, he returned with 300 asses loaded with precious woods such as ebony, aromatic roots, gums, elephants’ tusks, ostrich feathers, beast-skins, and, finally, gold.” After one of these journeys Herkhuf brought back a dwarf of the Danga tribe. Such pigmies were highly prized at Court; they were employed to perform certain rites in the divine or funerary worships—dances peculiar to their tribe, to which a religious significance and a magic effect were attributed. And so Pepi II, hearing of Herkhuf’s return with the dwarf, sent him a letter of congratulation, which at the same time breathes impatient eagerness. ‘‘ When the Danga 1s with thee in the boat see that he have experienced men at his side lest he fall into the water; when he rests at night see that ea- perienced men repose beside him and that they look to him ten times. For My Majesty would rather see this dwarf than all the treasures that are brought from the land of Punt.”’ Despite all these campaigns, Pharaoh’s ascendancy was not yet really consolidated. Another lord of Elephantine— Pepinekht—was twice sent by Pepi II against the tribes of the Iertet and the Uauat, ‘* at the head of numerous soldiers selected from among the bravest.’? He brought back great booty in men and herds. In revenge, in the course of a fresh campaign in the land of the Uauat, Mekhu was slain and his body left in the hands of the enemy until his son Sebni, taking the head of another expedition, went to seek his corpse in order to inhume it in Egypt.* Thereafter texts are lacking which might inform us about the interventions of Memphite Pharaohs in Nubia. But what we know of Menenra and the Pepis allows us to infer that their successors inherited the tactics which are at all times imposed upon the colonizers of Central Africa—a defensive and offensive policy against marauding and quarrelsome tribes who always rise again after a few years’ respite and, across the vast Soudan, are untouchable. On the Asiatic side the first Pharaohs had embarked upon 1 Inscription of Herkhuf, Urz., i, 126. The phrase might also be trans- lated ‘‘ worship all the gods for the Prince.”’ * For Herkhuf’s texts, see Breasted, XVII, vol. I, §§ 352 7f., and Sethe, Urk., i, 120 ff. 8 Urk., i, 185 ff.; Breasted, XVII, §§ 365 7. EGYPTIAN KINGDOM 181 a policy of equal watchfulness. Just as at the beginning of the IVth Dynasty they created marches on the west and south, so they built an entrenched camp to protect the four- teenth nome of Lower Egypt, or the Point of the East. The route from the north, which passes through Zalu to reach the coast of Palestine, was commanded by the forts of the Roads of Horus. The southern route, which crosses the Wady Tumilat, was dominated by fortified posts; their names— Gate of Imhetep and Quarter of Horus Nebmaat'—allow us to refer the organization of this base camp or this eastern march to King Zoser (by whom Imhetep was employed as architect about 2895 B.c.) and to King Snefru (Nebmaat, about 2840). Their watch extended as far as Sinai, which was embraced within this zone of attraction. There the Egyptians built shrines to Septu, the lord of the East, and to Hathor, and there we see King Snefru participating in the worship, included among “‘ all the gods.’”? That proves that Sinai was thenceforth occupied by the Egyptians. Here, as in Nubia, where Herkhuf had introduced the Egyptian gods, the latter were installed side by side with the local gods, and Pharaoh himself was worshipped at Sinai as a god. To establish this political cult in a foreign land was equivalent to setting up a protectorate. The frontier thus consolidated, nevertheless, did not prevent some attacks by Asiatics or Semitic nomads. Evi- dence of such is to be found in the pictures of victories left in Sinai by Zoser and his successors, Sanekht and Snefru. Under the reign of Snefru, the Palermo Stone makes a curt reference to “the arrival (in Egypt) of forty ships loaded with cedars.’’? That is a very important piece of informa- tion, since cedars can only come from the district round Lebanon; they were loaded at Byblos (Fig. 17). This event presupposes regular commercial relations, controlled by the State, between Egypt and the regions beyond Sinai. Did the cargo of these vessels represent a tribute imposed by the Egyptians? The theory is not improbable, but it awaits confirmation. 1 Inscription of Unt, i, 21; Sethe, Urk., i, pp. 102-3; Breasted, XVII, i, § 812. 3 2 Lepsius, Denkmdler, ii, 187; Weill, Recueil du Sinai, pp. 137 ff. 8 Schaefer, l.c., p. 30. 182 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS During the great age of power and prosperity that marked the IVth Dynasty, order reigned on the eastern front, but hostilities were renewed under the Vth Dynasty at the same time as closer relations seem to have been established between the Semitic peoples and the Egyptians. From the beginning of the Vth Dynasty the Pharaohs immortalized their names by erecting temples to the sun; these were sanctuaries of quite a new type with an obelisk in the centre,’ and the sun, Ra, hitherto far from prominent in the Egyptian Fic. 17.—EGypTIAN SHIP (OLD KINGDOM). pantheon, whose cult probably came from Asia, was exalted to the rank of chief god. The Heliopolitan priesthood suc- ceeded in imposing this cult upon the royal family. The Pharaoh, hitherto regarded as the earthly incarnation of the old national god, the falcon Horus, henceforth declares him- self the ‘‘son of Ra,’’? and at his coronation adopts, in addition to his Horus-name, a ‘“‘ solar’? name composed of a laudatory epithet of the god Ra. The temples dedicated to the sun attest the kings’ devotion to this new patron, who thereafter dominates Egyptian religion. Does this revolu- tion, the importance and meaning of which is not always grasped, mark a return of Semitic influence? Is the supremacy of Ra a victory for Shamash? Is the obelisk just 1 Moret, XXIX, pp. 302 7 2 XXII, $250. EGYPTIAN KINGDOM 183 a bethel? Is the solar doctrine due to a school of Semitic theologians?! We are still too imperfectly documented to be able to answer such questions, but the inability to eluci- date them does not entitle us to burk them. Whether the doctrines were directly borrowed, or whether a philosophy already in germ at Heliopolis were fecundated by contact with Asia, the theory of a Semitic influence at the time of the Vth Dynasty is strengthened rather than weakened by the facts that conflicts between Egyptians and Asiatics broke out afresh at the same epoch. For the first time an Egyptian warrior’s tomb has pre- served to us scenes from an expedition against a city, Nedia. The latter seems to be situated in Syria, for its inhabitants, with their heavy profiles, their long beards, braided hair, and long robes hanging down right over the low-set calves, exhibit all the features which will still serve at a later date to characterize the Semites. The town is represented by an oval enceinte flanked by towers, and this arrangement is so typical of Asiatic towns that Egyptian texts use this sign as the determinative for the cities of the countries conquered in Asia. Inside it the native population is panic-stricken and lamenting, while Egyptian soldiers place ladders against the walls and attack it with blows of the battering-ram. Then the women and children who survive the sack are being led off into captivity.” It is, unfortunately, impossible to assign this much-defaced painting to its exact date within the age of the Vth Dynasty. To compensate for this relief in the sun temple reared by Sahura tells us that this king conducted a campaign in Syria (about 2670 B.c.). We watch the em- barkation of troops on transports, and triumphal scenes on their return: in great ships, equipped with sails and oars and heavily rigged, the Egyptians stand to acclaim Sahura, while the Asiatic prisoners,’ clearly recognizable in physical type and costume, stretch out their hands to implore aman. Other reliefs show the king in his form as a griffin trampling Asiatics underfoot; before our eyes are portrayed the spoils of Asia—inter alia, bears from Lebanon.* All these pictures, 1 For the affirmative answer see W. M. Miller, Egyptian Mythology. 2 Petrie, Deshasheh, Pl. 4; cf. IV, vol. XXXII, p. 46. ’ Borchardt, Sahura, I1, Pl. 15. 4 Jbid., pp. 16 and 21, Pls. 3 and 8. 184 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS although incomplete, can only be interpreted in the sense of an actual military intervention in Palestine and the coasts of Syria (about 2670 B.c.).1 Now, if the Egyptians waged war in Asia Minor to found there a dominion, however precarious, is it not necessary to admit that commercial relations must have been further intensified, that exchange of ideas followed that of com- modities, and that, there as elsewhere, merchantmen and transports served as vehicles for religious doctrines? Hence it would also be possible that the philosophical speculations and the sometimes austere morality of Semitic theologians should have their repercussions even on the Osirian doctrine, which was developing at the same time in Egypt’ parallel to the cult of Ra. If these hypotheses be confirmed they will confer only added significance upon these first Egyptian establishments in Syria. To sum up, then, during the period of monarchical organization under Dynasties III to V the Egyptian Pharaohs did not pursue what we should call an aggressive foreign policy ; they consolidated their footing in the Nile Valley, occupied posts in Nubia and Sinai, and organized frontier marches, but except for the mines of Sinai, a reserve of metal on which the State laid hands, they conducted no expedition of conquest. The Pharaohs succeeded in enforcing respect for the Nile Valley by the neighbouring nomads. They were able to discipline and lead into the paths of civilization the more intelligent or manageable of the Libyans and Troglo- dytes who henceforth provided Egypt with labourers and mercenaries. This foreign policy was guided solely by the ambition to establish a unified and solid kingdom, secure against any attack by neighbours who had lagged behind at a rudimentary level of civilization, and for whom Egypt was an irresistible bait whetting their appetites. Yet in contact with the foreigners the Pharaohs’ dynasty was proudly conscious of its duties, its responsibility, and its 1 Quite recently M. Montet has found at Byblos vase fragments bearing the cartouches of several Pharaohs of the VIth Dynasty (exhibited in the Louvre, 1922). * So Breasted, Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 26. EGYPTIAN KINGDOM 185 superiority ; the Egyptian people, too, awoke to conscious- ness of itself as an organized people in the midst of bar- barians. These sentiments, in which a nascent patriotism is revealed, are splendidly expressed in a hymn among the Pyramid Texts (VIth Dynasty). The rhythmic strophes are addressed to the creator of the world, Tum, and to Pharaoh- Horus. They extol the beauty and fertility of Egypt, called by the mystic name the Eye of Horus—t.e., the creation of Pharaoh-Horus—and boast of and admire her security. Hail to thee, Tum. ... Hail to thee, Creation of Horus whom He’ hath sheltered with His enfolding arms. He hath not suffered thee to obey the Westerners, He hath not suffered thee to obey the Easterners, He hath not suffered thee to obey the Southerners, He hath not suffered thee to obey the Northerners, He hath not suffered thee to obey the men of Earth’s centre, But thou obeyest Horus. ’Tis He who hath adorned thee, >Tis He who hath built thee, *Tis He who hath founded thee, And so thou doest for Him all that He telleth thee, wheresoe’er He goeth. Thou bringest Him the waters of marshes rich in game that are in thee, Thou bringest Him the waters of marshes rich in game that shall be in thee; Thou bringest Him all wood that is in thee, Thou bringest Him all wood that shall be in thee; Thou bringest Him all food that is in thee, Thou bringest Him all food that shall be in thee; Thou bringest Him every offering that is in thee, Thou bringest Him every offering that shall be in thee; Thou bringest Him everything that is in thee, Thou bringest Him everything that shall be in thee; And thou takest them to Him in every place which His heart desireth. The gates (of Egypt) stand (fast) for thee like the god Tunmutef ; And they open not for the Westerners, They open not for the Easterners, They open not for the Southerners, They open not for the Northerners, They open not for the men of Earth’s centre, But they open for Horus. >Tis He who maketh them, >*Tis He who raiseth them, 1 He comprises both the god Horus and the Pharaoh, his image upon earth. 186 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS *Tis He who defendeth them against all the ill that Seth’ might work thee, For He hath founded thee in thy name Foundation, For He downeth Seth for thee in thy name Zown.? However reassuring the hymn may be, we hear in it the echo of a menace coming from the land of Seth, Asia. There civilized States were in existence, religious relations had developed in the train of commercial intercourse. It was the political situation in Palestine which, for reasons not explicit in the texts, forced the VIth Dynasty Pharaohs to send thither men-of-war in the wake of their merchant galleys, and armies in the footsteps of their traders. It is time there, too, to interrogate the traditions and monuments; perchance we shall find there the reasons for Sahura’s interference in Palestine. 1 Seth, the foe of Osiris and Horus, is also the god of the Asiatics later called Sutekhu (Baal). 2 Pyramid of Pepi II, edited by Sethe, Sgr., 587. In the last line there is an almost untranslatable pun between fown and the word denoting the subordination of Seth to Egypt. CHAPTER III THE SEMITIC WORLD TO 2000 B.C. Tue influence of other Oriental civilizations visible in Memphite Egypt implies the existence in Western Asia of people who had reached a stage of civilization comparable to that attained by the Egyptians. What do we know of their habitat, their origin, and their evolution? I THE SEMITES AND THEIR HABITAT Across the Red Sea and the isthmus the nature of the African continent is repeated : an immense table-land, shaped like a parallelogram, extends, arid and sandy, over four-fifths of the area. The name Arabia, which we restrict to-day to the lower part only of this parallelogram, ought to denote the entire zone as far as the Mediterranean and the Euphrates. In reality there lies there a homogeneous region, a veritable prolongation of Africa. Asia only begins with the uplands of Anatolia and Iran. The Asiatic Sahara is only watered and fertile at its edges. There the table-land of sand is transformed by the sea and mountainous excrescences, which completely change its climatic conditions. Four seas frame Greater Arabia— the Mediterranean on the north-west, the Red Sea on the west, the Indian Ocean on the south, and the Persian Gulf on the east. Such proximity to seas modifies for the better the climate of the coastal regions and gives them moisture propitious to vegetation and to agriculture. And so Yemen (Arabia Felix) may, perhaps, have been an early centre of civilization. On the other hand, on its northern verge the desert runs into a zone which underwent severe alpine folding in the tertiary epoch. There we find the true Asia, the skeleton whereof is composed of high table-lands arranged in chains 187 188 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS with successive crests and troughs. Their altitude is such that Anatolia and Iran possess perpetual snows and in places enjoy a heavy rainfall which feeds great rivers. Now, the mountains and rivers of Asia have exerted a double influence upon the Arabian plateau. Along the Mediterranean the folds of the Taurus emphasize the coast, and are prolonged through a double chain, Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and then through the terraces of Palestine right down to the Isthmus of Egypt. Parallel to the coasts a furrow is carved between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and, prolonged through the deep depression of the Dead Sea, comes out at the eastern arm of the Red Sea, which we call the Gulf of Akaba. This is a sheltered road which duplicates that along the coast. In it are gathered the salt waters of the Dead Sea and the fresh waters of the Lakes of Genezareth and Merom. Through it pass the Rivers Jordan and Orontes and the natural routes which have led animals and men from Asia Minor to Arabia. On the other hand, on the eastern confines of the Arabian Desert the table-lands of Anatolia, Armenia, and Iran pour forth great streams strong enough not to be absorbed in the sands, rich enough in water and silt not to be overcome by the parched soil, but to cover it with a fertile slime torn from the mountains of Asia. Thus the Tigris, the Euphrates, and their affluents have made the north-east margin of Arabia what the Nile made Egypt— an immense oasis, Mesopotamia. But these rivers are also roads, so happily placed that the Euphrates forms a direct way from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. On break- ing out from the plateau of Anatolia the Euphrates traces a curve, at the nearest point only sixty miles distant from the Afran, a tributary of the Orontes. After nearing the Medi- terranean so as almost to find its outlet into it, the Euphrates is turned back towards the east by a slight fold of land, and pursues its course, swelled by tributaries, in a widened channel to the Sea of Oman. Thus from Egypt to the Persian Gulf Nature has laid out waterways which lead from the isthmus to the Taurus, and, after a short and easy porterage, from the Taurus to the seas of the East. Astride these rivers and routes cities and kingdoms have been planted. On a map we get the im- pression of a gigantic crescent with its horns on the deltas 189 THE SEMITIC WORLD ‘LSVY INFIONY AHL AO INDOSAAD AWLAIY IHL—' I] dVW VidVvav \ YINIHS gs x 139930 WSIS, @ Nivy » aa, & eae , - & < aL L Be ae ee sea A hee ah ge 7 _auorhgeg +=": L ‘Ve, Niece re Ps ; ws 12) See ~ (e) & ee 1LLVHO um Se aete 190 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS of the Nile and of the Euphrates. This ‘‘ Fertile Crescent ’”* will be the domain of civilizations, rivals of Egypt. Between the extremities of the crescent and over three-quarters of Arabia the desert, more or less arid, extends like an inland sea, tracked by the nomads, who go from one brink to the other and from one civilization to the other. On the immense plateau which we call Greater Arabia, and the centre of which is the sea of sands, developed at the circumference the Semitic race, nearly akin to the Hamitic race which colonized North Africa. The ethnic elements and the language of the Semites present a remarkable homo- geneity among all the peoples from Arabia to Palestine and Mesopotamia—peoples whom we shall call Arabs, Israelites, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Amorites, Chaldzeans, and Assyrians. But this multiplicity of designations proves that the Semitic race did not find a natural region where it could develop, preserving its unity. While the narrow valley of the Nile forced the Egyptians to concentrate, Nature in Western Asia dispersed men all along the periphery of the central desert and distributed them into distinct compartments : on the west—first, the coastal zone, and, second, the region of the table-lands of Palestine (the Shephelah) and the Jordan-Orontes depression (Hollow Syria or Ccele Syria); on the north the neck between the Orontes and the Euphrates ; on the east—first, the upper and lower valley of the Tigris- Euphrates (Mesopotamia), and, second, the terraces of Iran (Assyria and Elam). From the earliest moments when we begin to see men of Semitic race appearing on the stage of history they are already scattered, despite their undeniable basic unity. If we wish to define precisely the origin and relative antiquity of their several branches, we are confronted with great diffi- culties. Scientific explorations have as yet been but few in this vast domain; save at some isolated sites in Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Elam, no excavations comparable to those of Egypt have been conducted. And so neither in Palestine nor in Chaldza nor in Arabia have paleolithic stations come to light to indicate the existence of the earliest men. Neo- lithic deposits, witnessing to their progress, have only been 1 This happy term is often used by J. H. Breasted. THE SEMITIC WORLD 191 located in a minimal number. It is therefore impossible to follow in Western Asia man’s gradual initiation into civilized life, which Egypt has allowed us to sketch in broad outline. It by no means follows that man did not exist in these regions at a very early epoch. Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Chaldza have suffered no more than Egypt from glacial invasions. Their inhabitants were therefore not retarded in development like their contemporaries in Europe and Northern Asia. There is every reason for the belief that they found in Palestine and on the terraces of Elam overlooking Mesopotamia (as yet uninhabitable pending the warping of the valley) conditions of life favourable to civilization. But we know nothing about them before the end of the fourth millennium before Christ. It is on the Egyptian monuments that we first make their acquaintance. A palette of the Thinite King Den (about 3175 B.c.) depicts that Pharaoh in the act of brandishing a mace over a kneeling ‘*‘ Oriental ’’ (iabtu) ; the victim’s body is slender and slight, his head long and narrow (dolichoce- phalic) with a straight or slightly aquiline nose; he wears long hair with a lock on the forehead, a pointed beard turn- ing up at the tip, and a loincloth like the Egyptians’. We meet the same type again on the bas-reliefs which celebrate the Pharaohs’ triumphs in the Sinai district (Fig. 16) from Smerkhet (about 3315) to Kheops of the IVth Dynasty (about 9815 B.c.). The inscriptions call its representatives ‘* moun- taineers ’’ (Khastiu), or, more precisely, the Iuntiu (Troglo- dytes), Mentiu and Sentiu.2 The boomerang sign often accompanies these names and marks a favourite weapon of their owners. In this type and under these names we recog- nize the modern Beduins, the Arabs of pure Semitic stock whose haunts are the oases and the Arabian deserts (whether in the peninsula or on the right bank of the Nile), the moun- tains of Sinai, or the barren zone between Egypt and Palestine. The epithet ‘those who are on the sands” (Heriu-sha) befits such and was given them by the Egyptians at the Memphite epoch. 1 XII, XXXV (1897), p. 8; cf. the Asiatic on our Fig. 9. 2 Cf. the illustration given by Maspero, XX, vol. I, p. 351. 192 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS On the Mediterranean coast in the Shephelah and Ccele Syria were peoples of more mixed race, probably sprung from a cross between Semites and Mediterraneans, whose elements held the coastal belt of Palestine and Syria. They are taller men, with broader shoulders, dolichocephalic, with aquiline noses, black, sometimes blue, eyes under bushy brows and heavy jaws, and wearing their hair long, some- times falling divided over their shoulders, and long square beards, but no moustaches. Their costume is less elementary than the nomads’; above the loincloth they wear a robe or shirt of wool diversified with coloured patterns, and they are shod with sandles or leather boots (Fig. 22). Their weapons are the boomerang and the bow. To this type belong the Canaanites!. and the Amorites, who had early founded sedentary colonies on the western edge of the Fertile Crescent. Thence they spread as far as Chaldea, perhaps at a very early period, in any case by the time of the foun- dation of Babylon (about 2700 B.c.). This is the chief mass of the population whose history has come down to us. Their type is easily recognizable on the Gebel-el-Arak knife-handle (Fig. 20) and on an ivory of the Thinite King Qa (published in this series in de Morgan’s Prehistoric Man, p. 100). This monument, assignable to the thirty-first century (about 3125 B.c.), calls the Semite Setti—‘‘ the Asiatic ’’—from Setet—*‘ Asia ’’—words accompanied by a javelin and arrows beside the Beduins’ boomerang. The word Amu, which from the Old Kingdom designates the neighbours of the Heriu-sha,? is applied also to the Canaanites (cf. Fig. 22 on p. 244, below). North of Syria on the Lower Orontes and the land-neck between the rivers a third type of Semite is marked by a broad skull (brachycephalic) and a retreating forehead which emphasizes a heavily hooked nose such as is seen among the modern Jews and Armenians. Egyptian monuments of later date and the Assyrian bas-reliefs (Shalmaneser’s obelisk) give us faithful pictures of it; the Egyptian scribes confused them with the Amu and the Settiu. Among these diverse tribes the linguistic unity is remark- 1 The name Canaanite does not appear before the middle of the second millennium (Meyer, XXI, § 354). 2 Cf. Sethe, Urk., I, pp. 103, 134. THE SEMITIC WORLD 193 able. It is the Semitic language, of which the typical ele- ments are found in the dialects spoken by the Arabs of Arabia, and comparatively derivative forms, modified by foreign contamination, in the Babylonian-Assyrian, Aramaic, and Hebrew dialects. Despite this common basis in race and language, the Semitic peoples are far from presenting that historic unity and continuity so striking in Egypt. Nature had distributed them among geographical compartments where the conditions of development were uneven, and so they only reached “ his- torical ’’ existence one after the other. The Beduin nomads had driven their flocks from Egypt to Iran and had guided caravans upon the inland sea of sand for thousands of years before coming to rest. They appeared first in Lower Meso- potamia (Shinar) accompanied by the Canaanites in a sedentary state, side by side with a non-Semitic people, the Sumerians. There, from the fourth millennium, they built numerous cities. Their folk colonized Upper Mesopotamia and the adjacent slopes to the east. This was the homeland of the Assyrians, who manifest their presence about the third millennium. These two groups of Chaldeans and Assyrians grew strong either by their own prolific potentialities or through the absorption of foreign elements and fresh Semitic migrations in the days of Sargon the Elder (about 2800) and Hammurabi (about 2100 B.c.). At this epoch the group of Amorite tribes was formed in Coele Syria and the oases round Damascus. They appear in political life first as the prey of the conquering kings of Chaldza at the beginning of the third millennium, and then as regular States about whom the Egyptians and Assyrians disputed with new groups, the Hittites and the Mitannians, who emerge in the north country in the second millennium. In Palestine the Shephelah was populated and adorned with towns by the time of Memphite Egypt at the beginning of the third millennium. But it had no national history till after the arrival of the Hebrews and Aramezans in the Jordan region and the oases east of the Dead Sea (about 1400 B.c.). On the Mediterranean coast the ports were thronged with shipping by the epoch of the Thinite Pharaohs (end of the fourth millennium), but they are only known from the Egyp- tian and Chaldean monuments; their own history only 13 194 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS begins with the Phcenicans in the north and the Philistines in the south (from about 1200 B.c.). As to Arabia proper, we know nothing of its existence apart from brief references in Egyptian and Babylonian texts. It is only about the year 1000 B.c. that the four States of the Mineans, Hadrumitians, Qatabanians, and Sabeo-Himyarites emerge from the gloom on the fertile coasts of Yemen. Thereafter we know scarcely anything except a Nabatean invasion in the direction of Petra (3800 B.C.) till the moment of the great Arab conquests in the days of Islam. Attempts have been made to explain these successive appearances of different Semitic groups as the effects of great migrations periodically repeated. The starting-point of the hypothesis is that Arabia, the country where the Semitic race and language are preserved in the greatest purity, was actually the cradle of all the Semites. In the oases and favoured regions of the coasts the population would have multiplied till at periodic intervals, roughly once every thousand years, the Semitic race had to overflow, like a great reservoir full to the brim, in great streams of emigra- tion. The Chaldeans would have set out first about 3500 B.c., then the Amorites of the dynasties of Babylon about 2500, next the Hebrews and Aramzans towards 1500, and there- after the Nabateans and the Arabs of Islam.* By such successive waves from Arabia the advocates of this theory would explain the stringing out of various civilizations in history which appear all along the Fertile Crescent. This theory, based exclusively on the fundamental unity of the Semitic race and language, does not explain the real and early diversity of the tribes and their dialects. It lays itself open to severe criticism by pretending to derive from a partly desert country, of which we know nothing before the first millennium, peoples who reveal themselves already organized and civilized during the fourth. In a word, its most solid foundation is the ignorance under which we have long laboured as to the historical origin of the Chaldeans, Canaanites, and Palestinians. Such argumentation ab 1gnor- 1 See the summary of Winckler’s theory (Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens) given in Clay, The Empire of the Amorites, p. 28, XXXIII. THE SEMITIC WORLD 195 antia is being daily undermined by the archeological excava- tions which are becoming more numerous since the Ancient Kast has been opened up to European investigation. So the historian Albert Clay’ has no difficulty in convincing us that these successive waves of Arabian emigration provide only a superficial and ill-founded explanation. Undoubtedly in a region which is essentially a thoroughfare, and the centre of which is a sea of sand, there have always been nomads and currents of migrating hordes. But the Egyptian and Baby- lonian documents, scrutinized with such patience and _in- genuity by Clay, have furnished linguistic, historical, and religious proofs of the existence at a remote date of the peoples termed Amorites in Canaan. It is open to us to ask whether they did not at certain epochs contribute to the Chaldzans’ culture rather than receive enlightenment from these earlier known neighbours. Even to-day the Fertile Crescent is studded with tells where the earth covers the remains of very ancient civilizations. When the excavator’s pick has uncovered them it is probable that we shall discover in Palestine and Canaan the remains of cities or kingdoms contemporary with Babylon and Assur. It is there in the fertile uplands and luxuriant oases of Ccele Syria, Damascus, and Mesopotamia, rather than in Arabia, that the “ cradle of the Semites ’’? has some chance of being a reality. All around the fertile or arid plains held by the Semites existed other peoples belonging to different races, come from’ distant hinterlands, attracted by the water, the sun, the vegetation, the access to the sea that the fortunate regions of the Fertile Crescent had to offer. Such are the peoples of the Taurus, Hittites, and Mitannians on the north, the tribes of Lake Van on the north-east, and the Parthians, Kassites, Sumerians, and Elamites on the east.?, They will appear before us in history one after the other, and will be followed by many more. For the most part we only catch glimpses of them in their relations with the Semites, and we shall describe them as and when they emerge on the frontiers of Mesopotamia. 1 XXXIII, chap. ii, ‘‘ The Home of the Semites.” 2 Cf. Ed. Meyer, XXII, § 363. 196 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS II THe NoMApDIC SEMITES AND THEIR PRIMITIVE INSTITUTIONS The first human settlements in Western Asia are known to us in Lower Mesopotamia. Still, it is probable that, as was the case with Egypt, the great river valley was only habitable many centuries after the oases and steppes of the Arabian Desert. Eduard Meyer has shown that the religious, political, and intellectual civilization of the Semites indicates that they were originally a folk of the desert 3} numerous Semitic tribes have never advanced beyond this stage of evolution. We must therefore seek the starting-point of social life in Western Asia in the simple forms of an organiza- tion of nomads.” Pastoral life on the table-lands of Palestine and in the interior of the Fertile Crescent has preceded settle- ment in the valleys suitable for agricultural labours. The picture we may make of the first Asiatic nomads will closely resemble that which we have drawn of the hunters of the Libyan Desert before their descent into the valley of the Nile. They lived on game which they brought down with their arrows, hunting-poles, and boomerangs, and, at an already more advanced stage of culture, they bred herds of goats, sheep, and cattle, which they drove before them from pasture to pasture. Asses served as beasts of burden, and the capacity of their draught animals was later increased ten- fold by the horse and the camel. This sort of life necessitates a continual mobility, whether in pursuit of game or in quest of fresh pastures; for a few weeks’ sojourn suffices for the flocks to crop the sparse vegetation and strip the lank shrubs of the steppes. Property in land, agriculture, and lasting settlements in permanent villages are unknown; brief halts under the shelter of movable tents are the only respites from pilgrimage. The nomads live in families ; the father enjoys the prerogatives of an absolute head. An assembly of families constitutes a tribe, but the latter normally con- sists of the direct or collateral branches of a single family, increasingly prolific and developed, whose members bear the 1 XXI, § 536. 2 Cf. Isidore Lévy, ‘‘ Les Horites”? in Revue des Etudes juives (1906). THE SEMITIC WORLD 197 same name as that of their common ancestor—the progenitor of the family turned tribe. All the members of a tribe recognize each other as brothers by blood, but this relationship, the condition of entry into the tribe, can be acquired by the rites of ‘* blood- brotherhood ’’ and by adoption. Under the authority of the head of the family the tribe’s members live on a footing of complete equality. However, there exists a council of elders (cf. the Saru in the towns of Egypt, p. 124), which assists the father in the defence of the material and moral interests of the family group. The rights of each individual, and the relations of the tribe with neighbouring tribes, are governed by traditional precepts handed down from genera- tion to generation. Respect for plighted faith and particular covenants, the ‘*‘ blood feud ’’ to avenge crimes outside or inside the family, and the duty of hospitality to individuals who seek refuge, are binding upon all the tribe’s members collectively. Finally, religion constitutes the most solid bond. The Semites people the terrible or desolate aspects of the desert with spirits, demons, and spectres, but they worship beneficent gods who inhabit the moon, the sun, the mountains, the springs, the trees, and sometimes the animals useful to man. Above all, each human group acknowledges itself as tributary to a divine power which sometimes gives it its name ; so Edom and Gad south of Syria, and Ashur and Amurru in the case of the Assyrians and Amorites, are at once the names of the deity, the tribe, and the city where it settled. In this divine force the tribe will recognize its lord, its supreme king. He fights for the tribe, governs it by inspiring the father, and incarnates himself in an object or emblem which becomes a rallying standard.! The transition from nomadic to sedentary life comes about through the pitching of tents round a spring, at a ford important for commercial intercourse, or in one of the fertile sites in Ccele Syria or Mesopotamia after the river system had become regular and allowed settlement by men. Gradually the tents are replaced by huts of wattle or of mud, sometimes by dwellings excavated in the hillside or in natural caves. Finally, the advantages of a regular, varied, 1 Ernest Renan, Histotre du Peuple d’Israel, i, p. 75; Ed. Meyer, XXI, §§ 333-351. 198 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS and certain diet induce the nomads to cultivate plants, to train more numerous beasts for agricultural work, and to set up workshops for weaving wool, manufacturing implements of stone, clay, and copper, and for all the primitive indus- tries. Thereafter the clusters of tents become villages, the villages form federations, real and personal property wins recognition, and the need of a State organization makes itself felt. Then the tribe elects a chief or king. It is in this stage of social organization that we find the sedentary popu- lations in Syria about 2000 B.c. as the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Hittite texts disclose them. In more favoured regions the development of settled tribes had been quicker; in Mesopotamia we see them masters of a mature culture already in the fourth millennium, and the activity of these settlers creates the civilization of Western Asia. But nomadic tribes, numerous and shifting, never cease to subsist on the bosom of this sea of sands, on the shores of which the great cities of Chaldea, Syria, and Damascus will grow up like ports. The reasons for their existence are the attractions of the free adventurous life and the profitable loot of sedentary States, which seem to amass wealth and luxury just for the benefit of bold nomads. Later, when the States learn the art of self-defence, the barter of the products of flocks and herds—meat, wool, and dairy produce—for the manufactures of urban artisans and the crops of peasants helps to keep them to the steppes. The shepherds of the deserts command the caravan routes which traverse their sands. They therefore exploit the merchants of Chaldexa and Syria, to whom the nomads act as guides and lend beasts of burden, and on whom they live, sometimes by insuring security of transit in return for good pay, sometimes by giving themselves up to the fruitful plunder of the con- voys. Throughout the whole history of the peoples of the Orient these nomads have lived on the confines of the sedentary nations, an element of unrest and _ perpetual insecurity, but also a vital spring of refreshment and new youth for the urban populations. Now, if they persist in this elemental life to our own day, outliving great empires, this very persistence proves that they are a necessary element under the conditions offered by Nature to the Oriental peoples. THE SEMITIC WORLD 199 Ill ELAMITES, SEDENTARY SEMITES, AND SUMERIANS IN SHINAR The civilization of the sedentary Semites which appears in Chaldea about the middle of the fourth millennium before our era is already in the phase of city life, and presents the institutions, arts, and trades (including metallurgy) of a mature society. On the other hand, east of the valley on the uplands of Iran in the district of Elam it has been possible to penetrate to the chalcolithic period in the history of human development. At Susa, J. de Morgan’ has dis- covered beneath an accumulation of ruins twenty-five metres deep a fine geometrically decorated pottery, with implements of polished stone, and then vases cut out of hard rocks, and copper tools and weapons. At Mussian, a locality Just over 100 miles west of Susa, arms and implements of flint and obsidian are associated with coarse and fine pottery and plentiful copper objects. Ceramics and metallurgy present curious analogies both in decoration and in process of manu- facture with those of prehistoric Egypt.’ But even when writing makes its appearance, no similarity can be detected between the language and script of the Elamites and those of their neighbours in Mesopotamia or Egypt. Judging by their portraits on later monuments, the Elamites were moun- taineers, tall and muscular, wearing the hair long and the beard square-cut. Their language is neither Aryan nor Semitic. It is a branch of the family which we call Anzanite. Such tongues belong to a non-Semitic race very early settled in the highlands from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf. Finding on the southern edge of Iran a rich and healthy country with valleys conveniently situated for agriculture and hills adapted for pasture, with stone quarries, mines, and forests,? they created a vigorous civilization the proximity of which was always menacing for Mesopotamia. In the valley itself we know as yet no neolithic remains. It is likely that in Chaldea, as in Egypt, the oldest alluvial deposits to-day cover the first human settlements. It is to 1 de Morgan, XXXI, p. 102. 2 XXXI, p. 104. ® Clay, XIV (Oct., 1921), p. 255; cf. Archeologia, LXX. 200 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS be hoped that soundings in the river-silt which has been spread in the course of centuries on the banks of the Euphrates will reach deposits of neolithic artifacts and primitive pottery. Taylor and Thompson have, indeed, found flint implements at Eridu, but it is hard to date them accurately and to separate them from the bronze industry, which is brought to light everywhere in the deepest strata in Mesopotamia.* The earliest inhabitants of Chaldza were not all Semites ; they belonged to two distinct races. In the south lived a dolichocephalic people with a broad fleshy face, always clean- shaven, and with a big nose prolonging the line of the fore- head without any intervening depression, with the eyes set widely apart and rather slanting, and a vigorous, thick-set frame, but short in stature. Such are the Sumerians, also descended from the table-lands of Iran at the remotest epoch ; for they seem to be the first colonists of Mesopotamia. We are at a loss with what race to connect them. They are neither Aryans nor Semites, and yet very different from the Elamites.* They have been compared, now with the Turanians of to-day, now with the Dravidians of India. The most probable theory derives them from Turkestan. The Pumpelly expedition unearthed near Merv pottery and statuettes characteristic of the Sumerians’ civilization. Driven to emigrate by the progressive desiccation of the Turanian highlands, they would have sought a fertile and well-watered region farther west; after crossing Iran they came out upon the uplands overlooking Mesopotamia.* They seem to have made attempts at settlement in the north- western region, where Cappadocia and Assyria will arise later on. But the major part of their tribes settled in Chaldea. There they found the material means to the development of a civilization which appears abruptly before our eyes in full prosperity about the end of the fourth millennium. At this moment the Sumerians were a people of farmers and merchants, acquainted with the cultivation of grains and the rotation of the crops, able to domesticate animals, working copper and gold, and building houses, temples, and palaces of brick. They spoke a language of agglutinating type and 1 Clay, i.¢., p. 254. 2 Cf. Meyer, XXI, § 362; Hall, XIX, p. 175. 3 King, XXXV, appendix i. THE SEMITIC WORLD 201 had invented a pictographic script, later conventionalized (through the use of brick and the stylus as writing materials) into cuneiform (wedge-shaped) signs. North of Chaldza about the same time the Semites appear, coming from the west, whether that word be taken to mean far Arabia or the Amorite country close by in the Fertile Crescent. It is questionable whether they preceded or followed the Sumerians in Mesopotamia. It is generally conceded that the priority belongs to the Sumerians, for in the present state of our knowledge it is the Sumerian cities, Ur, Uruk, Nippur, that appear at the dawn of history. But Fic. 18.—SUMERIANS (FROM THE STELE OF THE VULTURES) this land has been scarcely touched by excavation. More thorough explorations may perhaps cause us to revise this judgment if they prove that Canaan and the Amorite regions were populated and exploited at a very early date, as some historians suppose, and that the nomadic Semites soon transplanted their tents from the valley of the Orontes to that of the Euphrates. There they certainly reappear very early at Mari on the middle reaches of the river, and at Kish in Northern Chaldea.* However, it is proved that the original civilization of the Sumerians excelled that of the Semites; the latter borrowed from their southern neighbours that cuneiform script which, till the invention of the Phceenician alphabet (about 1200 B.c.), +hClay, be. 202 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS served to transcribe the diverse tongues of nearly all the peoples of Western Asia. The Sumerians, on the other hand, are supposed to have been indebted to the Semites— for their gods in particular, which appear even in the first monuments with beards, long hair, and variegated robes of wool; in the light of these characters which differentiate the Sumerian gods sharply from their votaries, clean-shaven, with short hair and clad in linen, it has been recognized that an intellectual and social element of the highest importance, supplied by the Semites, has been imposed on the Sumerians. The arguments for and against the priority of the Sumerians therefore balance each other; it is a problem to which we must expect the key from a more methodical scientific exploration of Mesopotamia as a whole. To sum up, then: from the earliest historical period (t6% in the fourth millennium s.c.) three mature civilizations flourished in Western Asia—those of the Elamites, the Sumerians, and the Semites. In their vicinity, or behind them, sooner than we can descry them, reserves of people were being pressed forward on the Iranian plateau, in Ana- tolia, and in the region of Canaan. IV From Kinepoms To Empires oF SEMITES A detailed account of the historical events in Chaldexa is given in M. Delaporte’s work, Mesopotamia, in this series. We have here only to pick out the main lines and, if possible, to plot the curve of the historic destinies of the Sumerians and the Semites. Tradition reports that in Chaldea, as in Egypt, a divine ** history ’? had preceded human history; the Creation of the World and the Flood are the chief episodes therein. After the Deluge royal dynasties, enumerated on cuneiform tablets unearthed at Nippur, begin.?, No exact date can be fixed prior to 2474 B.c. (the accession of the IIIrd Dynasty of Ur). * Ed. Meyer, ‘‘ Semiten und Sumerier ” (Abhandl. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin, 1906), and XXI, § 362. * Clay, XIV, l.c., pp. 242 #.; Langdon, XIII (1921), pp. 133 #f.; cf. Delaporte, Mesopotamia, pp. 20 f. These tablets give for Chaldea the equivalent of the Turin Papyrus for Egyptian history. THE SEMITIC WORLD 203 But the dynastic lists, giving the totals of regnal years, sometimes (as near the beginning) fabulous, more often reasonable, allow us to reconstruct the outline of the royal families and the names of the leading sovereigns to a period which may go back to the beginning of the fifth millennium. Beginning with the reign of Mesilim (of the IIIrd Dynasty of Kish about 3680 B.c.), some rare monuments allow us to check the veracity of the lists. Chaldxa, called in Semitic Shinar, consists of the lands between the Tigris and the Euphrates in the last stages of their seaward course. It is an oasis on the edge of the Arabian Desert, not more than sixty-two miles long and twelve and a half miles wide. It is thus much inferior in size to Egypt, which is itself no extensive region. From the first we find a great number of cities, both in the northern part—Akkad (Semitic)—and in _ the southern—Sumer. Among these towns were eleven cities of royalty, capitals of successive dynasties: three in Sumer—Uruk, Ur, and Adab; four in Akkad—Kish, Akshak (Opis), Agade, and Isin ; one on the Middle Euphrates—Mari; one on the uplands whence the Tigris flows—Gutium; and two in Elam—Awan and Hamazi.! Other great towns vied with these—Nippur (the sanctuary of the national god Enlil) and Lagash (Tello) in Sumer, and many towns the names of which we know without being able to locate their sites. It is a sign of high and ancient civilization that so many towns should have commanded military, administrative, and financial resources sufficient to make them capitals in turn. In Chaidea, as in Egypt, the city is the old nomad tribe now fixed on the soil which it tills. It has built a temple for its god, a palace for its king, a citadel and walls to protect its peasants, who return every night from the fields, and the merchants and artisans who now open shops and booths. Of the tribal life that preceded urban settlement we know nothing, save those general traditions about nomads which we have summarized above. Hidden from us, too, are the hard centuries of apprenticeship during which the nomads submitted to the conditions of agricultural life in Mesopo- tamia, tried to regulate the rivers by dykes and canals, and learnt the necessity of substituting irrigation directed by 1 Clay, l.c., p. 243. 204. FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS man for the disorderly flood. Here, as in Egypt, Nature imposed upon the Sumerians and Semites the thrifty disci- pline of agricultural labour. It obliged them to co-ordinate their efforts with those of their neighbours, man with man, city with city. At the same time they had to protect them- selves against the attacks of the nomads left in the desert Map III.—SHInar or CHALDAA. and of the mountaineers of Elam and Iran. At the end of the fourth millennium the garden of Mesopotamia, with its wheat-fields, its orchards, its palm-groves, its vines, its pastures crowded with herds, its rich industries, and the treasures accumulated in its temples and its warehouses, appeared as a land of promise between the sands of the desert and the rugged mountains of Iran. Throughout its history it attracted the famine-stricken, the plunderers, and the ambitious. The task of ensuring collective security and the duty of preserving the fruits of all this labour in town and field compelled the chiefs to plan the combination of cities into kingdoms, then the foundation of an empire which THE SEMITIC WORLD 205 should impose its force upon its neighbours and radiate civilization, commerce, and religion over all the Fertile Crescent. By the earliest times Sumerians and Semites had out- grown the phase of isolated cities. Perhaps the first two dynasties—those of Kish (in Akkad) and Uruk (in Sumer)— were parallel and contemporary, like the royal houses of Buto and Nekhen in prehistoric Egypt.1. But dating from the next dynasty (Ist Dynasty of Ur), Sumer and Akkad were subject to the same authority; the eleven cities of royalty which we have enumerated were accepted as sovereign by all Shinar. Political unity superimposed upon urban division therefore existed here at the end of the fourth millennium B.c. However, the old traditions of indepen- dence that each city retained as a memory of the days when its inhabitants were free nomads had given a very peculiar character to this unity. Till the rise of Babylon (2225 B.c.) no city in Shinar had been able to claim the title of capital ; the supremacy passed thrice to the Sumerians, four times to the Semites, twice to Elam, once to an eccentric city, Mari, and once to the barbarian mountaineers of Gutium. Let us add that some cities, not classed as dynastic, such as Lagash, sometimes lorded it over all the rest. Is not this a sign that, if political unity were recognized as necessary, there was yet such an equilibrium of forces between the cities that for centuries none could perfect that unity to its own profit during the first historical period ? Nevertheless, a principle of authority and unity existed in Chaldea. We shall not be surprised to learn that it was in the hands of a god. In the non-dynastic town of Nippur in Sumer resided the god Enlil, the highest religious authority in Shinar.* Whatever dynasty be in the ascendant, it is Enlil who chooses the king, consecrates him as his vicar on earth (patesi or ishakku), wages wars, concludes alliances and treaties, and inspires laws, and that not only for the Sumerians, but also for Semites and Elamites when the hegemony passes into their hands. It is probable that 1 Langdon, J.c., p. 183. * Cf. Clay, XV, l.c., p. 260, and L. Legrain, Le temps des rots d’Ur (1912), p. 6. 206 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS Nippur and Enlil existed from very early times and that their prestige dates from an era anterior to the first dynasties of Kish and Uruk. In this primordial god the three races, Sumerian, Semitic, and Elamite, found their unity and hallowed their alliance. At the time of the IVth Dynasty of Kish several cities in Shinar commanded the wealth which incites to a policy of expansion and the military strength which permits of its execution. The king of a Sumerian city, Eanatum, patesi of Lagash, founded his power by crushing the King of Umma in a battle described on the Stele of Vultures now in the Louvre. He received from Enlil the investiture as King of Sumer, Akkad and Elam (about 3050 B.c.). One of his successors at Lagash, Urukagina, continued his enterprise, but he made bold to choose a new god of empire, Ningirsu, whom he opposed to Enlil. This sacrilege was punished. Lugalzaggisi, patesi of Umma, avenged his city and his god, overthrew Urukagina, and, thanks to Enlil, conquered “‘ all the lands from the rising to the setting sun, from the Lower Sea (Persian Gulf) to the Upper Sea (Mediterranean).’’' For the first time a king of Shinar made his way up the Euphrates to the bend which approaches the Mediterranean, and descended the horn of the crescent which leads to the coast of Syria (about 2900 B.c.). This way once opened, a dynasty of Semites, sprung from the city of Agade, succeeded in enlarging it. About 2850 B.c. Sargon of Agade established an empire which embraced all that was civilized in Asia Minor. Enlil gave him Sumer and Akkad, and then *‘ the high land of Mari (Middle Euphrates), Iarmuti (on the coast of Syria), the land of Ibla (?Amanus) with its cedar forests and its silver mines (the Taurus mines).’’* This quotation enumerates all the aims which Sargon had in view: access to the Mediterranean indis- pensable as an outlet for the agricultural and industrial wealth of Shinar to new markets, the quest of great pines alone able to supply the building timber needed for palaces and ships, the search for precious metals, the control of mines that should furnish Chaldzan industry with the indis- 1 Thureau-Dangin, Kénigsinschriften, p. 152. 2 Clay, XXXIII, p. 95. THE SEMITIC WORLD 207 pensable raw materials and priceless revenues for the imperial coffers. Similar motives had inspired the first expeditions ot the Pharaohs in Egypt—the copper mines of Sinai, the cedars of Lebanon, and mastery of the sea routes. In the foundation of the empires of the Orient, material and economic interests counted far more than the personal ambition of the sovereigns. Sargon earned the prestige of a hero, and popular tradition made him the great Semitic conqueror whose deeds and achievements served as oracles and are related in the collections of Omina (found at Nineveh and dating from the seventh century). It is in these suspect sources that we find the remark that Sargon had ‘* crossed the Sea of the West (Mediterranean) and made his arms to triumph for three years in the West, whither he sent his statue.’? Another version substitutes ‘‘ Sea of the East’? (Persian Gulf) and demonstrates the legendary character of the expedition on the Mediterranean. Still, it is likely enough that Sargon conquered Syria and Palestine, at least for a few years;' a tablet recently discovered at Tel-el-Amarna confirms the belief that Sargon penetrated as far as a country protected by forests and mountains (Amanus or Lebanon) and con- quered the region of Amurru.? This empire was defended and consolidated by Sargon’s heirs. His grandson, Manishtusu, equipped a fleet which crossed the Persian Gulf and surprised Elam by an unex- pected landing. His great-grandson, Naram-Sin (approxi- mately 2768-2712 B.c.), suppressed revolts among the moun- taineers of Lulubu (Stele of Naram-Sin in the Louvre). His name reappears on a stele north of Diarbekir in the heart of Anatolia. His glory reached the island of Cyprus, where he was invoked as a god. His soldiers made expeditions to the lands of Magan (which boasted seventeen kings and 90,000 warriors) and of Melukha,*® both on the Persian Gulf. The 1 Hall, XIX, pp. 187-8. 2 Clay, XXXIII, p. 96. * See XIII, vol. vii, pp. 142 7. Langdon locates Magan in the region called Gerra by classical authors (modern El-Hasa), and Melukha in the direction of the Oman coast. He proves that Albrecht’s thesis (XIII, vi, pp. 89 7#.) that Magan was Egypt, ruled by King Manum (=Menes), and Melukha Ethiopia is untenable both from the standpoint of a literal inter- pretation of the texts and from that of the relative chronology of the two countries. 208 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS extraordinary development of architecture and arts proves that in all directions the dynasty of Agade had given an exceptional enlargement to its capital and the ancient realm of Shinar. Its sovereigns deserved the name ‘‘ Kings of the Four Regions of the World’? which Enlil had given them since the creation of the empire. It is, then, certain that a Semitic empire embracing the whole Fertile Crescent, Palestine included, and extending beyond its frontiers on every hand, existed in the days of Fic. 19.—Bas-RELIEF OF NARAM-SIN (IN EGYPTIANIZING STYLE, TO BE COMPARED WITH THE SUMERIAN STYLE OF Fic. 18). Sargon and Nardm-Sin in the first third of the third millen- nium. But we are still in ignorance as to nearly all the peoples who constituted the human element in this empire. From the texts we learn their names and sometimes their situations. As to their material remains, the scattered excavations have as yet brought to light hardly anything older than 2000 B.c. Neolithic stations have, however, been found at Gezer on the Palestinian plateau. There, as at Megiddo, the earliest known population lived in natural caves or rock-shelters, like the Troglodytes of the Arabian Desert, called by the Egyptians Iuntiu. But by this period the THE SEMITIC WORLD 209 coastal ports later called Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos were centres of activity,' and inland megalithic monuments, dolmens, and menhirs (Kastern Palestine and the region of Moab) are found as well as city walls of great stones, which disclose the existence of other peoples, perhaps the Horites of Biblical tradition.? It is probable that the ports sheltered a Mediterranean population, and the acropoles were occupied by Semites. The mixture of the two stocks produced the Canaanite popu- lation, whose type differs, as we have seen, from that of the Beduins of pure Semitic race. The presence of a sedentary population cultivating wheat, vines and fruit-trees, breeding cattle, skilled in weaving flax and wool, acquainted with the ceramic and metallurgical industries, grouped in fortified citadels, possessing chiefs, and already divided by political rivalries and civil wars, is attested by the results of excava- tion, the cuneiform texts, and the slightly later evidence of the Egyptian inscriptions of the VIth Dynasty. The occupa- tion of the Amorite and Canaanite lands by Sargon and Naradm-Sin came to make closer the contact between these still backward peoples and the already old civilization of the Chaldzan Semites. For the next five centuries the Amorites and Canaanites were learning the arts of war and peace in a good school, and preparing reserves of energy for the future direction of the Semitic Empire. The access to the Mediterranean sought by Sargon and Naradm-Sin brought them into immediate relations with the Egyptians, who already frequented the port of Byblos and other havens on the Syrian coast. Commercial relations between Egypt and Chaldea had certainly existed for many centuries. This subject raises a host of problems: the Sumerian pottery with its geometric decoration and potters’ marks identical with that of Negadah and Abydos, the statuettes of naked goddesses, the use of mace-heads of the * Handcock, The Latest Light on Bible Lands (1918), chap. vi; Clay, XXXII, chap. iv; cf. the opinion of R. Dussaud: ‘‘ It may be recalled that the Tyrians of Herodotus’ time fixed the foundation of the temple of Melqart about 2700 B.c. The origin of the Phcenicians is a highly con- troversial problem, but their penetration into Syria about the beginning of the third millennium is beyond doubt ” (Scientia, 1918, p. 84). * Meyer, XXI § 356. 14 210 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS same type recurring at Lagash and Hierakonpolis, the em- ployment of cylinders serving as engraved seals in Sumerian, Elamite, and Egyptian countries, the ‘** prismatic ’’ facades, or those with buttresses forming vertical projections and recesses in Sumerian and Egyptian brick edifices; all these elements open up a vista of convergent probabilities to prove that there had been intereommunication, whether by the Red Sea or by caravan, between Sumer and Egypt in very remote antiquity. These probabilities have become certain- ties since Egyptian monuments have been found like the palette of Narmer (Fig. 7), on which the long necks of two fantastic animals intertwine as on the earliest Sumerian seals, or like the Gebel-el-Arak knife-handle on which a Sumerian divinity stands between two rampant lions (Fig. 20).* Since Sargon had arrived on the Mediterranean, closer commercial relations united the two countries, but Egypt had far surpassed Chaldza in the domain of institutions and arts. And so her influence came to be exercised upon the subjects of Sargon and Naram-Sin. We have proof thereof in the monuments of Sargon? and of Nardm-Sin,*® in which the sculpture in low relief testifies to such an advance over the Sumerian monuments (compare Figs. 18 and 19) that the sudden emergence of these masterpieces can only be interpreted as due to imitation of the Egyptian bas-reliefs ; evidence therefor is the care in the composition, the atti- tude of the figures, the sureness of the design, the sacrifice of detail in the interests of the total effect, and the delicacy of the modelling, conquests achieved at this epoch by the Memphite artists. Egyptian influence reappears also in some important innovations. Beginning with Naram-Sin, the kings of Shinar date their monuments by a new formula—the year after some historic event, such as a victory or the foundation of a monument. A like custom had been adopted in Egypt by Menes and the Thinite kings, and continued in vogue down * Langdon has enumerated all the arguments on this thesis in his very interesting article ‘‘ The Early Chronology of Sumer and Egypt and the Similarities in their Culture,’ XIII, vol. VIII, p. 133. * V. Scheil, Délégation en Perse, X, 5-8. * The Louvre Stele reproduced by ' angdon and Nardm-Sin’s bas-relief published by Scheil and Maspero in IV, vol. XV, p. 62 (our Fig. 19). THE SEMITIC WORLD 211 to the Vth Dynasty, only to give place to the reckoning by the years of the Pharaoh’s reign. As Langdon remarks, Naram-Sin’s successors retained the formula of ‘‘ the year after ’’ without perfecting it. Such traditional respect would, perhaps, be most easily explicable in the case of a borrowing from a neighbour country, which would in this case be Fic. 20.—THE GEBEL-EL-ARAK KNIFE-HANDLE. (Louvre.) (After G. Bénédite.) Egypt. Beginning also with Sargon and Naram-Sin, “ the vicars of Enlil,’’ who hitherto were content to be the first priests of the god of empire, had themselves worshipped as gods during their lifetimes.’ We recognize in this deification of the sovereign not so much man’s vanity as a conception of empire. The kings of Shinar, becoming kings of diverse peoples either fundamentally unrelated to one another or * Thureau-Dangin, IV, vol. XIX, p. 185. 212 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS separated for thousands of years, desired to achieve religious unity, the foundation of political unity, by setting up the cult of the sovereign among their subjects. The Pharaohs acted in the same way ; since the beginnings of the Egyptian monarchy they had been regarded as gods living upon earth. When the kingdom expanded, the worship of the sovereign was exacted from Nubians, Libyans, and Asiatics. The idea made its way through the world, and Sargon, Cyrus, Alexander, and Augustus will become ‘* gods of the empire ”’ in imitation of the Pharaohs. V EASTERN POLITICS IN THE TIME OF HAMMURABI The empire of Sargon and Naram-Sin was ephemeral, but what we can now call world politics outlived it. It marks the end of the relative isolation in which Egyptians and Chaldzans had lived down to about 2800 B.c. ; commerce and politics have now become collective interests to the East Mediterranean world. Every great social and political event in Mesopotamia or on the Nile has, directly or indirectly, its repercussion on the other side of the isthmus. We shall therefore pursue our studies, taking the two regions together. In Chaldea first a reaction of Sumerians broke out against the Semites. It explains the replacement of the dynasty of Akkad by the IVth Dynasty of Uruk (2648-2623 B.c.). The latter was succeeded by a foreign dynasty hailing from Gutium or Guti, a city and people of barbarian mountaineers situated on the foothills east of the Tigris. The advent of these barbarians, who held the land for 124 years (2622-2498 B.c.), meant that a migrating horde of peoples was hovering to the north-east of Mesopotamia, and pushing before it unstable masses who poured down from the highlands to the valleys. The repercussion of this battering shock made itself felt among the Amorites. These for their part had already been drifting into the land of Akkad. They gave to a hitherto unknown city, Babylon, the strategic value of a bridgehead. From the land of Amurru the impulse was im- parted to the other horn of the crescent, Canaan and Pales- tine. The agitation there became so violent that a Pharaoh THE SEMITIC WORLD 213 of the VIth Dynasty, Pepi I, had to mobilize his armies about 2500 B.c. to repel an invasion threatening Egypt. By a happy chance the biographical inscription of General Uni, who commanded the Egyptian troops, has come down to us, and reveals with piquant details this chapter in the history of Palestine. ‘**A campaign was conducted by His Majesty (Pepi I) against the Asiatic Masters-of-the-Sands (Amu H eriu-sha). His Majesty collected an army of many dozens of thousands of men in the South in its entirety from Elephantine to Aphroditepolis, and in the North on both sides (of Egypt) and also among the Libyans of the land of Iertet, of the land of Zam, of the land of Uauat, of Imam, of Kau, and of the land of Temeh. And His Majesty sent me to put me at the head of this army. ... (Then I filled this office so well) that not a man was put (by mistake) in his neighbour’s place, that not a man took loaves or boots from those who were on the way, that not a man stole victuals in any town, that not a man stole a goat from the peoples. I led them by the Isle of the North, the Gate of I-[m]-hetep and the Quarter of Horus Nebmaat (King Snefru).’? These geographical terms denote the strong places, the ‘“‘ marches,”? which the Pharaohs had fortified by the IlIrd Dynasty in the isthmus to keep off raids by the Asiatics. Crossing the frontier, the army crushed its adversaries, who must have been quite close at hand—in fact, in Palestine. The description which follows enlightens us both as to the mode of warfare at this period and the organization of the Semitic peoples with whom the Kgyptians clashed—precious information which no Asiatic document of this date supplies. ‘“‘This army came in peace; it routed the land of the Heriu-sha. This army came in peace; it crushed the land of the Heriu-sha. This army came in peace; it dismantled their strongholds. This army came in peace; it cut their figs and their raisins. This army came in peace; it launched fire among all their troops. This army came in peace; it slaughtered their regiments by many dozens of thousands. This army came in peace; it brought back very numerous prisoners.” But one campaign was not enough. Uni had ‘five times over (probably for five years) to lead his troops to crush the land of the Heriu-sha as often as 214 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS they conspired together.’’ At last Pepi discovered that the centre of the disturbance lay farther north than Palestine, beyond a mountainous promontory called by the Egyptians the Nose (i.e., Cape) of the Gazelle, which is probably the promontory of Carmel. To reach the Canaan- ites at such a distance from his base, Uni judiciously chose to take the sea route, either because Palestine was still held by the enemy, or to spare the army the exhausting march from the isthmus to Carmel.’ Just as the kings of Chaldea had equipped a fleet to land in Elam (p. 207), so Uni ‘‘crossed the sea by ship with this army when a rising occurred among the mountaineers (of Asia) in the district of the Nose of the Gazelle. I put to shore at the back of the heights of the mountains north of the land of the Heriu-sha, and when the army had been brought to the heights I came, I captured them all, I slew every rebel among them.’”* The text says no more, but it tells us enough to assure us that this land was now occupied by numerous peoples com- manding regular troops and fortified strongholds and given to agriculture. Accordingly, Palestine was no longer in the hands of nomads, or, rather, the latter had long planted sedentary colonies there and had found very favourable conditions of life. How could this little agricultural country have become a menace to Egypt? Certainly not through any inexplicable ambition on the part of the petty Canaanite chiefs, far too weak to match themselves with a Pharaoh; but rather as the result of an irresistible pressure exerted upon them by emigrating hordes gravitating towards Egypt. The point where this pressure was exerted seems to have lain north of Carmel, near this Cape Gazelle, where Uni conducted his decisive campaign. When the turbulent masses were crushed they abandoned their march upon the south, and tranquillity returned for Egypt. But whence came all this tumult in the corridor that leads from the Euphrates to Egypt? It is highly probable that it was due to the recoil shock of the invasion of Chaldzea by the men of Gutium. The expedition of Uni under Pepi I may be dated about 2500 s.c. ; the barbarians had been in occupation of Chaldea for a century, and had had time to spread 1 Meyer, XXII, § 266. 2 Breasted, XVII, I, §§ 311 7#.; Sethe, Urkunden A.R., I, pp. 101-4. THE SEMITIC WORLD 215 through the whole region of the crescent agents of disorder and pillage who scoffed even at the frontiers of Egypt. The barbarians of Gutium were only driven out or assimilated after a domination of 120 years. The (Vth) Dynasty of Uruk (2497-2475 B.c.) regained power ‘‘ by favour of a national reaction against the invaders. The best-known monuments of this epoch are those of a patesi of Lagash (Tello) Gudea, whose inscribed statues have pre- served admirable specimens of Sumerian art. Upon them Gudea enumerates his building operations and tells us that he imported timbers from the land of Ibla (Amanus), marble from the land mountain of Tidanu in the Amorite country, and copper from the environs of Ki-mash (Damascus); the mountains near the Persian Gulf, Melukha and Khaku, also furnished him with gold and wood. From these details we can judge of the wide scope of the commercial relations between different parts of the great empire of Sargon and Naradm-Sin. Perhaps the survival of some political authority must be admitted. Under the next dynasty (IIIrd Dynasty of Ur, 2474-2358 B.c.) Dungi, during his long reign of fifty- eight years, waged war in Palestine and round Damascus, attacked Elam and captured its capital, Susa.* So he styled himself ‘‘ king of the four regions of the world,’’ and received divine honours.” He therefore recreated the empire with all its traditions. Once again the populations of Asia are convulsed, without our being able to discern whether it is from the shock of migrations farther east or through the rivalry of ambitions of empire. Bur-Sin, Dungi’s successor, obtained (about 2390 B.c.) the submission of Zariku, King of Assur (the first known to us). Gimil-Sin built a ‘** wall ’’ from the Tigris to the Euphrates to protect the northern frontier of Chaldza. It was all in vain; he and Ibi-Sin (2380-2358) were assailed on the south and on the east. First the Elamites invaded Mesopotamia and swept on into Palestine. One of their kings, Kutur, took the title of suzerain of the Amorites.? But the vanquished replied by a counter-attack. Finally an Amorite dynasty came into power at Isin, while a rival * Clay, XXXIII, pp. 96-7. * Scheil, IV, vol. XVIII, p. 64. ® Clay, i.c., p.-97. 216 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS Klamite dynasty arose at Larsa (2357-2095 sB.c.). This ambiguous situation was ended, as in the days of Sargon, by the victory of the Semitic Amorites, who founded the first dynasty of Babylon (2225-1926 s.c.) with Sumu-Abum. The triumph of the Amorites had far-reaching results. The secular rivalry between Sumer and Akkad was ended. Under this fresh flood of Semitic stocks the Sumerians were annihilated ; as a people they disappear from history. Lower Mesopotamia will henceforth be called by the name Akkad alone, or will be designated ‘‘ Babylonia,’’ after its new capital. Under the sixth king of the new dynasty, Hammu- rabi (2123-2081), the work is finished. The old rival cities are eclipsed by Babylon, which becomes the first city in the Near East for the number of its citizens, the beauty of its temples and palaces. A religious revolution marks the deep significance of the political change: Enlil, the old Sumerian god of Nippur, ceases to be a god of empire; his traditional prerogatives pass to Marduk, the god of Babylon. This empire recovered the frontiers of that of Sargon. The Amorites brought with them dominion over Canaan and the Damascus region, they conquered Akkad, Sumer, and Elam at the point of the sword. But material occupation of the country was not sufficient; it was necessary to estab- lish administrative unity based upon a close supervision on the part of the royal officials, and a code of laws applicable to each of the disparate parts of the empire. This was the work of Hammurabi, who is disclosed to us as a great con- queror and a great administrator. For the first time in the history of Mesopotamia the concerns, the ideas, and the plans of a sovereign are known to us from direct documents written at his dictation. These are fifty-five letters, inscribed on brick, addressed to a provincial governor and dealing with most varied subjects—maintenance of canals, a reform in the calendar, repression of theft, inquiries into the use of temple revenues, campaign directions to the troops and the fleet.” At the head of the administration there was, in truth, a chief who imparted a common impulse to all the regions. 1 L. Legrain (Le temps des rois d’Ur, p. 6) also considers that the sub- stitution of Marduk for Enlil ‘‘is a substantial innovation which allows the strength of the new empire to be gauged.”’ * Now in the British Museum; published by King, The Letters of Ham- murabi; cf. ¥. Charles Jean, the Les Lettres de Hammurapi (19138). THE SEMITIC WORLD 217 The impression given by the letters is produced also by the famous Code of Hammurabi, the first and only monument of its kind which the history of the Ancient East has pre- served to us.* It shows us a king and officials inspired by @ profound sense of their duties, anxious to justify the authority conferred upon Babylon by a vigilant attention, an expert mastery of the most complicated cases, and a sincere love of justice and legality. Babylonia had become a composite human society. The fusion of elements civilized long ago with the Amorite newcomers, not so schooled in the complex needs of an organized State, provoked there a host of conflicts or raised endless problems as to the legal status of the various social classes, rights in real and personal property and agricultural or commercial agreements. The ancient laws, to which each race was accustomed, had to be adapted to the new circumstances and co-ordinated into an imperial code. A like problem has had to be faced at all periods after the establishment in a land of ancient culture of new populations side by side with the former occupants. It will be enough to cite the Lex Gundobada, which, in a strikingly analogous case, was to regulate the respective positions of the conquered Gallo-Romans and the invading Burgundians. Let us, however, note that the Law of Hammurabi did not provide for a special treatment of each of the peoples of the empire. It addressed itself to a unified society, as if all the heterogeneous elements had been radically submerged by the Semitic flood. In that the code was truly an instru- ment of pacification and concord. Hammurabi, faithful to the traditions of Sargon, further lays claim to divine inspira- tion: on the summit of the diorite stele on which the laws are engraved, the Sun-god, seated, is dictating to Hammu- rabi, standing in a deferential attitude, the text of the divine laws which the king will transmit to his subjects. In the prologue to the code the king says that he had been called by the gods Anu and Bel “to make justice prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the perverse, and to prevent * The block of diorite (now in the Louvre) which bears the text of the Code was discovered at Susa (Elam) by J. de Morgan in 1901, and deciphered and translated by Father V. Scheil. Popular editions have been published by Leroux (1904). 218 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS the strong from oppressing the weak.’’ Thereby is the divine right of the monarchy asserted; as in Egypt, so in Baby- lonia the royal law was the word of God. Was Hammurabi’s empire at the beginning of the twenty- first century in relation with Egypt? No document from the Babylonian or Egyptian chancellories has come down to us to warrant an affirmative answer. But it is inconceivable that the prosperity of Babylonia should not have found expression in a great current of trade directed towards the foreign centres of industry and commerce; that is to say, in the first place to the Egyptian Delta. The north coast of Syria at this period was certainly under the hegemony of the Amorites; on the south coast the influence of Egypt had not been maintained after the campaign of Pepi I, since the Memphite dynasties had come to shipwreck after the long reign of Pepi II in social and political turmoil. Memphis had been replaced by Heracleopolis as capital (IXth and Xth Dynasties, 2360-2160 B.c.), and South Egypt, under the leadership of the princes of Thebes, was already separating herself from the king and preparing a dynastic revolution. In this state of extreme weakness the kings of Heracleopolis had still to face threats of invasion on the side of Asia. They did not come from regular armies, but from pillagers, stray nomads, or tribes on the march who, to quote the phrase of a recently published Egyptian text, ‘** tried to come down into Egypt to beg for water after their wont and to give drink to their flocks.’’* According to another literary pamphlet, attributed to the father of King Merikara (of the [Xth Heracleopolitan Dynasty), Palestine was greatly disturbed, perhaps by the recoil of the displacement of tribes which had followed the Amorite invasion of Babylonia. ‘* Behold’’ (says the king to his son) ‘*‘ the wretched Asiatic (Amu); difficult is the land where he is, by reason of its waters, its numerous trees, and its mountains, which make the roads burdensome. As for him (the Asiatic), he can never abide in one place, his legs are ever in motion, and he is always fighting since the days of Horus. He conquers nothing, but neither is he con- quered. . .. Since I have existed I have caused the Delta 1 St. Petersburg Papyrus, translated by Gardiner in XIII, vol. I, p. 105. THE SEMITIC WORLD 219 to crush the Asiatics, I have carried off captive the in- habitants (of their land), I have raided their flocks. The Amu is an abomination to Egypt. Still do not disquiet thyself on his account ...he may indeed plunder an isolated encampment, but he will never attack a populous town.’’ The conclusion is that it is necessary to consolidate the old forts and to build new ones to guard the isthmus routes and to protect the Delta, ‘* for no ill is ever wrought against a well-fortified city.’”? This document, which casts such a piquant light upon the Asiatic populations bordering upon the isthmus, betrays a justifiable anxiety. In fact, other texts which describe the troubled state of the Delta under the Heracleopolitan kings frankly confess that ‘‘ the Asiatics (Settiu) have invaded the fastnesses of the Delta, that they occupy the land and the workshops, and know now all the secrets of the Egyptian trades and industries.’’? Despite the reservations which Adolf Erman regards as necessary in respect of the im- portance which is to be attached to these recitals, it is undeniable that the Asiatics penetrated into the Delta at this epoch. Attracted, perhaps, by the bait of easy and remunerative gains, the tribes of nomadic Semites from the isthmus and Palestine made their way into a disorganized country and stayed there till the day when the Theban Pharaohs had restored the Egyptian monarchy and cleansed her frontiers. It does not look as if this temporary occupa- tion had had the character of an armed expedition. The Biblical tradition describing Abraham and his family quitting the town of Ur of the Chaldees, proceeding up the Euphrates by short stages, then descending by the Orontes and Jordan as far as Shechem, pushing on to Egypt to escape the famine, and then finally returning to Hebron, apparently accurately traces these tribal movements in the days of a King Amraphel, who is, perhaps, Hammurabi.* Such was the state of the Orient round about 2000 B.c. The Egyptian monarchy had just suffered an eclipse of power and influence. The Semitic empire, by the natural play of * St. Petersburg Papyrus, 116; Gardiner, XIII, vol. I, pp. 2 7. 2 Gardiner, Admonttions, 4, 5-9. $ Gen. xii f.; cf. Handcock, The Latest Light on Bible Lands, chap. ii. 220 FROM CLANS TO KINGDOMS compensating forces, seemed all the more solid and formid- able to its neighbours. Other invasions are coming to im- peril the very existence of Babylonia, while Egypt, on the other hand, will regain fresh strength with a restored monarchy. The question of the mutual position of the two great Oriental monarchies will then arise; hitherto they have communicated by means of caravans and merchant ships, but they have not yet met as open rivals for the empire of the East. PART III THE FIRST EMPIRES OF THE ORIENT CHAPTER I THE IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS AND THE BARBARIAN EMPIRE OF THE HYKSOS TuE social, political, and religious crisis which had reduced the Egypt of the Heracleopolitan dynasties to an alarming degree of anarchy, weakness, and poverty (from 2360 to 2160 B.c.), was one of those maladies of adolescence from which a youthful body rises with augmented vigour. About 2160 B.c. authority was once more established in the central region of the South Kingdom in the hands of the princes of Thebes, Antef and Mentuhetep, who founded the XIth Dynasty (2160-2000 B.c.). Their successors, Amenemhat and Senusert of the XIIth Dynasty (2000-1788 B.c.) inherited an Egypt that had regained unity, peace, and prosperity. This is the period of the Middle Kingdom, or Theban Empire (XIth to XIIIth Dynasties, roughly 2160 to 1660 B.c.), one of the most splendid epochs in Egyptian history. We shall relate in our book on the Nile and Egyptian Civilization how these kings rank among the most intelligent and the most sensible of their duties; they were able to heal the sores left by the social revolution. The old monarchy, sanctified by its halo of magic, its supernatural powers, and its childish superstitions, is transformed into an organism in which the practices of sorcery and theocratic theories are of less im- portance than the conceptions of State socialism. Already the king, without renouncing his title as an autocratic god, fulfils his functions as the man par eacellence; he aims at being an active shepherd of his people, just and inspired by goodwill. Under his leadership the Egyptian people awakes to political and social life, it becomes conscious of its per- sonality. This fosters that blossoming of a most remarkable 221 222 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST philosophical and popular literature which gives us an insight into the meditations of sages on the revolutions in progress, and the imagination of the artists and the people excited by the new days. Confronting foreigners an Egyptian experiences the feeling of social, political, and intellectual superiority ; pride in being a subject of Pharaoh makes way for the idea of the Egyptian fatherland. The kings of the XIIth Dynasty had at their disposal the forces of a great centralized State—well-filled coffers, an army reorganized into national regiments and Libyan and Nubian mercenaries. Agriculture is more active than ever, since the peasants are no longer serfs and have received the status of tenants. The crafts are free, since the royal administration, the temples, and the nobles no longer appro- priate the industries to their own use. Hence the labour of peasants and workmen yields a magnificent return, to which the monuments, the works of art, and the jewellery of this epoch bear witness. For the Pharaohs the consequence was the resumption on a broader basis of the policy of external expansion, at once to provide the people with raw materials and to create an outlet to foreign markets for the products of the fields and factories. The land, rich and strong, pro- ceeds to expand in Africa and become a ‘‘ Greater Egypt.” I THE GREATEST Ecypt In the Nile valley the Pharaohs of the XIIth Dynasty had no great difficulty in regaining and developing the pre- dominant position which those of the Old Kingdom had already enjoyed. There they had to deal with the Libyans and the Nubians. The relations with the Libyans during the Heracleopolitan period are obscure. It is, however, known that the sovereigns of Heracleopolis had employed Libyan mercenaries against their rivals the princes of Thebes, and the latter, especially Mentuhetep, counted the Libyans among the enemies whom they had crushed. That is enough to allow us to infer that Libya was then politically dependent on the kingdom of Lower Egypt, as her geographical situation requires. Under IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 223 the XIIth Dynasty the relations of the Libyans with Egypt were passed over in silence; no doubt the energetic Theban sovereigns, who gave to the reunited realm a fresh access of glory and power, were in a position to keep their western frontier in order. Nubia, more turbulent, pursued its agitated history. In the troubled times of the Heracleopolitans it, like the Theban region, seems to have freed itself from the obedience to the Pharaohs to place itself under the rule of emancipated officials who arrogated to themselves the title of king. And so it remained until the Thebans of the XIth Dynasty reduced it once more to allegiance. The monarchs of the XIIth Dynasty had to restore the system of safeguards devised by their predecessors and relaxed during the period of troubles. Amenemhat I and Senusert I went south as far as the Second Cataract and fortified the entries to the lateral valleys, especially that of the Kuban, which led to the gold mines of Nubia. Then Senusert III (1887-1850 s.c.) barred the river above the Second Cataract by the fortresses of Semneh and Kummeh, themselves protected by outworks in the Island of Uronarti—‘‘ that which repels the Troglodytes (Iuntiu).’** Egyptian garrisons were installed much farther up stream at the Third Cataract, where a cemetery belonging to Egyptian governors of the Sudan has been exhumed.’ It seems that at this juncture the Egyptians found new peoples in Nubia; at least, we see the name of the inhabitants of Kash Kush (Ethiopia)* appearing beside those previously known, to designate the warlike occupants of the land. Thereafter the Egyptians, supported by their fortresses, were able to exercise a restraint upon these barely civilized hordes and to administer the country as an Egyptian colony. Preoccupied with preventing the invasion of the valley by the Negro tribes not yet subdued, Senusert III set up stele in the eighth and sixteenth years of his reign ‘‘ to forbid any Nubian (Nehesi) crossing the frontier save for purposes of trade.’** Even so they were not allowed to come in their own boats, but for greater security were obliged to make use * Gardiner has published a papyrus which gives a list of twelve Egyptian fortresses in Nubia (XIII, vol. III, p. 184). 2 XIII. * XII, vol. XLV, p. 184. * Lepsius, Denkmailer, II, 151. 224 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST Medirverranean Lamietha DY 8 basi A OY Tila A mu Tehenu ; ehelogohs Ser pPhls ® it }- 7p \ Asher Heriu-sha cette Mashauasha AphpPditeoeli ye wg Mentiu e Serabitel Hhadem Fayu 7 sa aphara freraclegp © Magna Liephantine eAssouan fst \Coloract Dodecaschcent Ona Calaracd” ® Numaeh K ufsh Jombos!e Trad Caflaract ACTA Itt Colarach x Sth Cataract b; ara Map IV.—THE GREATEST EGypT (MIDDLE AND NEW KINGDOMS). IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 225 of Egyptian vessels. Thanks to these measures, domina- tion over Nubia was once more assured for many years to come, and the Pharaohs had themselves worshipped in temples in the black countries as in Sinai, in order thus to consecrate the definite occupation of the country and to establish a re- ligious bond between the protecting people and the protected. Nevertheless, the contempt felt by the Egyptian citizen for such barbarians made itself manifest in the historical texts; in connection with the Ethiopians we see an insulting epithet —the ‘‘ wretched (hes) land of Kush ’’'—appearing, and it will henceforth regularly accompany the names of the Pharaohs’ enemies. On the eastern bank of the Nile the Arabian Desert, inhabited by the Troglodytes, the guardians of the Red Sea routes, was once more much frequented by the Egyptians. By the Red Sea men went to the land of Punt and Arabia and, perchance, even to the Persian Gulf in search of the spices, aromatic plants, and incense of Arabia, and the diverse products of Chaldzan industry. Under the Old Kingdom the Egyptian boats had set sail from the Gulf of Suez. From the Middle Kingdom a route, already traversed in the prehistoric epoch and then abandoned, was reopened to caravan traffic; it starts from Coptos to come out at Sawu, near Qoseir by the Wady Hammamat.” It was much more direct, and saved the cargoes landed at Sawu a long détour on the backs of men and asses, and brought them not into the Delta at the northern extremity of the kingdom, but to Coptos in the centre of the Theban monarchy. Towards the end of the XIth Dynasty, Mentuhetep V sent an expedition of 10,000 men to pacify the Troglodytes, to exploit the stone quarries, and to reopen the sea route; thereafter the expedi- tions were often repeated.’ Those which made the land of Punt their goal show how the taste for maritime expeditions, the love of fruitful commercial exploration, and the spirit of adventure were growing up among the Egyptians. It is unlikely that long distance trade on the Red Sea was a@ private undertaking. The ships belonged to the Pharaoh, and the captains of the expeditions were usually ‘‘ treasurers * XII, vol. XLV, Pl. VIII (a); see also XVII, I, 657. 2 P. Montet, ‘‘ Les inscriptions de 1O. Hammamat ” in II (Mémoires). * XXII, §§ 278, 288. 15 226 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST of the god ’’—1.e., of the king of the South—accompanied by royal troops. Perhaps this was only due to economic causes ; the expenses of organization would exceed the means of individuals, and could only be assured by the king. How- ever, other considerations may be emphasized: foreign trade deeply concerns the prestige and well-being of a nation, and so its activity must be closely supervised by the constituted authority. The English, French, and other modern peoples were acquainted with the system of ‘‘ royal and privileged companies ”’ for the exploitation of the Indies and Africa— official as much as private enterprises, in which the king’s fleet and army lent armed aid to the merchant vessels and the traders from the counting-houses. On the other hand, it seems that, long before the Phoenicians, who jealously guarded the secret of the distant lands where they trafficked, the Pharaohs had reserved for themselves these profitable voyages to the countries of incense, spices, and precious woods, keeping their subjects in ignorance of any precise data as to the origin of these treasures, which they needed for purposes of cult. Was that a religious monopoly? Or had the tradition of a primitive cradle-land whence the Egyptians derived their gods, Horus, Hathor, Bes, and perhaps the first elements of civilization, never been inter- rupted? In any case, popular imagination was fascinated by this land of Punt, which must be located at the mouth of the Red Sea, on the coasts of Yemen and Somaliland. A tale describes an island, perhaps Socotra (known later also to the Greeks), inhabited by a giant serpent and his family composed of seventy-five serpents. He is the king of the land of Punt. He lives midst gold and riches, his whole body is incrusted with gold and lapis, the island is a marvellous garden: figs, magnificent raisins, fruits, grains, vegetables to satiety, fish, fowls; there is naught which is not to be found there. And so the name of this region is the ‘© Isle of Provisions ’’ (Kau), and its king has no need of the riches of Egypt, which are as naught beside the products of his own land. To this enchanted isle no one penetrates save by hazard of storms; that was the fortune of an Egyptian ship driven by the wind towards these coasts. The whole crew perished save for the hero of the tale, whom the serpent-king welcomes IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 227 with cordiality and soon sends back to Egypt loaded with wondrous presents.‘ On the departure of the ship, the island, transformed into waves, disappears from the visible world, but remained only the more vividly in the memory of the shipwrecked mariner. This tale, many characteristic features of which reappear in the adventure of Ulysses in the island of the Pheacians and the adventures of Sindbad the Sailor,” shows how keenly sailors’ stories interested the Egyptians of this epoch. The world of marvels and distant adventure was opened to them and enticed them far beyond the familiar sites of the valley. And the mines of Sinai were also reached by land as well as by sea. Just as under the Old Kingdom, the Pharaohs regarded copper ore and precious stones as the properties of the Crown, which they worked by means of miners, settled in the country, and guarded and protected against the attacks of nomads by royal troops. The mining operations were extended to take in another site, the Serabit-el-Khadem, north of the Wady Maghara. From time to time expeditions under the command of officers of high rank went to collect the products of ‘‘the sovereign’s mines,’ and brought back the *‘ galleon’’ to a safe place, not without having **crushed’’ some fractions of the Troglodytes (Iuntiu), Semitic nomads (Mentiu), and ‘inhabitants of the sands ”’ (Heriu-sha).*. The Pharaohs of the XIth and XIIth Dynasties frequently commemorate these brief and violent expeditions, some of which may have involved contact with the Asiatics of Palestine. In fact, on some monuments carved in the new “‘ mine of the sovereign ’’—that of Serabit- el-Khadem—we find mention of “ Asiatics ”’ (Amu) among the workers, and of the names of two sheiks (heqa) of Lotanu’ among the visitors to the temple raised by the Pharaohs to Hathor in the mining district.2 The name Lotanu corresponds to the Biblical Lotan, and is sometimes * Maspero, Contes populaires, iv, 104-114: ‘‘ The Shipwrecked Mariner.” * Golinischeff in IV, vol. XXVIII, pp. 73-112; cf. XXVIII, 242 ff. * The term occurs in the tale of ‘‘ The Shipwrecked Mariner ” (2.¢., p.-104). * R. Weill, ‘‘ L’>Asie dans les textes de l’Ancien et du Moyen Empire ’”’ in X, vol, VIII, 199 7#. * Weill, X, vol. IX, 166 7. 228 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST applied to Palestine, sometimes to North Syria, when it is accompanied with a qualification—‘* Upper Lotanu.’’? Political and commercial intercourse with the Asiatics was maintained by more direct routes—the sea way, which carried the ships of Egypt and Byblos from the Delta to the ports of the future Pheenicia, especially to Byblos, where timber from Lebanon and all the products of the hinterland were loaded, and the caravan road through Gaza and the coast of Palestine. We have seen above (p. 218) that the nomads of Syria and Palestine were invincibly attracted by Egypt, and that the troubled times of the Heracleopolitan dynasties had given them the opportunity to plunder the Delta. The Theban kings quickly set these matters in order. A prophecy foretold that a king, Ameni, should come from the South to slay the Asiatics, and ‘*‘ to build the Regent’s Wall (inb heqa) to prevent the Asiatics for the future from coming down into Egypt, whither they are wont to come to beg for water to give drink to their flocks.’’? The prophecy—edited after the event—refers to Amenemhat I, who, as another papyrus informs us, constructed ‘‘ the Regent’s Wall to repulse the Asiatics (Settiu) and to crush the nomads who traverse the sands (nemiu-sha).’’? Thus the ** Gate of the East,’’ fortified since the I[Ird Dynasty, was restored; defence works were organized as on the Nubian frontier to resist all assaults. No trace of this wall has been discovered, but its place must of necessity have been at the mouth of the Wady Tumilat,* the only way of access, thirty-one miles long, across the dismal desert of sands which separates the Nile from Palestine. A popular tale, The Adventures of Sinuhet,’? dating from this period gives a very vivid picture of the conditions under * Cf. Sethe, Urk., IV, 907 where the text distinguishes between Lower (Ar¢) and Upper (7?) Lotanu. * Gardiner, St. Petersburg Papyrus, 1116, B recto 11, 66 ff. in XIII, I, 105. 3 Berlin Papyrus (Sinuhet), 1, 17. “R. Weill, in X, 8, 191, 210; Gardiner, XIII, I, 106; G. Maspero, Contes populaires, iv, 77. ®° The quotations are taken from the translation given by Maspero, op. cit., pp. 79 ff., rectified by that of Gardiner, ‘‘ Notes on the Story of Sinuhe ” in IV, vols. XXXII-XXXIV, p. 386. IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 229 which the journey from Egypt to Palestine would be made. The hero of the tale is a prince of the royal family, who leaves the Court secretly on the death of Amenemhat I (1981 B.c.) for fear of being implicated in a plot hatched against Senu- sert I, the son and successor of the late king. Only with much difficulty and by night could Sinuhet cross the Regent’s Wall; for, he says, ** I was afraid of being seen by the sentry who was on guard on the wall. I set out at night, and the next day at dawn I reached Peten and rested at the Isle of Kamuer. Then, thirst! it fell upon me and assailed me; faintness seized me, there was a rattling in my throat, and I was already saying to myself, ‘It is the taste of death,’ when I revived my heart and pulled myself together. I heard the distant lowing of a herd, and I beheld the Asiatics (Settiu). One of their sheiks (heqa) who had dwelt in Egypt recognized me: lo! he gave me water and had milk boiled for me. Then I went with him unto his tribe, and they showed me the kindness of handing me on from country to country. I set out thus for Byblos (Keben),' I reached the Qedem (Orient), and I dwelt there for a year and a half. There Enshi, son of Amu, who is the sheik (heqa) of Upper Lotanu, sent to me and said: * Thou shall’st be well with me; for there thou wilt hear the speech of Egypt.’ He said that because he knew who I was, and word of my reputation had reached him ; some Egyptians who were in the country with me had given him an account of me.’’ The Regent of Lotanu had heard of the death of Amenem- hat, and politely said to the refugee: ‘* What will become of this land of Egypt without that beneficent god, the fear of whom is spread abroad among the foreign nations?’’ Sinu- het replies by a dithyrambic eulogy of Senusert, and hints to his host: ‘‘ The Pharaoh conquers the lands of the south (Nubia), but covets not the lands of the north (Asia). Never- theless, if he send hither an expedition, may it be that he know thy name of good report and that no slanders concern- ing thee come to the ears of His Majesty. For he ceases not to do good to the land which is subject unto him.”? The sheik replies: ‘In sooth, Egypt is happy since it knows the * The identification of the name with Byblos, at first disputed, now seems irrefutable (cf. XXVIII, 219 7.; Gardiner, ‘‘ Notes,’’ p. 21) 230 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST verdure of its prince! As for thee, since thou art here, abide thou here with me and I will do thee good.”’ The narrative which follows is a document of unique interest; it gives a picture of this region east of Byblos, which must correspond to the Orontes Valley or the oasis of Damascus, such as no Asiatic document allows us to draw. ** The sheik of the Lotanu gave me his daughter in marriage and granted me the boon of choosing for myself in his land from the best which he possessed on the frontier of a neigh- bouring country. It is excellent soil; Aia is its name. There wax figs and raisins, wine is in greater abundance than water, honey is plentiful, oil in great quantity, and all sorts of fruits grow on the trees. There is barley and wheat without stint, and every kind of cattle.’ And great privileges were con- ferred upon me, since the prince came on my behalf and installed me as prince over a tribe of the best in his land. I had daily bread and wine for each day, boiled meat and fowl for roast, and, besides, the game of the country, which was caught for me, or presented to me, or which my hunting dogs brought home. Many dishes were prepared for me, and milk in every way. ‘“‘I spent many years there; my children became strong, each the master of his tribe. The messengers coming down to the north or going up to the south towards Egypt hastened to visit me, for I entertained all comers well. . . . The Settiu, who were setting out on a long march to fight and overcome foreign princes, their expeditions I guided; for this sheik of Lotanu made me general over his soldiers for many years.... Every country against which I marched, when I fell upon it, trembled in its pastures to the edges of its wells; I took its cattle, I made captive its vassals, and I carried off their slaves, I slew its men. By my sword, by my bow, by my marches, by my well-conceived strategems I won the heart of my prince, and he loved me when he became acquainted with my valour. He made me the chief of his children when he beheld the verdure of my ara” This lively recital is the earliest known description of the * It has been questioned whether this attractive description could really apply to Syria; see, however, the similar picture of Zahi given by the Annals of Thothmes III, five hundred years later (p. 275 below). IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 2381 pastoral and warlike life of the tribes of Lotanu. It gives us an idea of their political organization ; for while Palestine and the Phoenician coast were dotted with ports and small fenced cities forming as many principalities or miniature kingdoms, the hinterland, Lebanon and the Damascus region, were the territories of tribes (whit), some composed of agri- culturalists, others of nomads, under the governance of petty clan chiefs subject to a suzerain, the sheik of Upper Lotanu. As Maspero has noted,' the names of the locality and the country—Aia and Lotanu—transcribe Biblical names, the patronymics at once of individuals, tribes, and countries: Aiah, nephew of Lotan (Gen. xxxvi. 24). The manners of these tribesmen were already those which the eastern stories ascribe to the Arabs of the great tent. Here is a knightly episode which might have found a place in the Arabian Nights. 3 **A brave of Lotanu came to challenge me in my tent. ... He declared that he laid claim to my cattle at the instigation of his tribe... . **I spent the night in plying my bow, in sharpening my dagger, in burnishing my arms. At dawn the land of Lotanu hastened to the scene. ... All hearts were afire for me, men and women uttered cries, every heart was anxious for me on my behalf, and the people said: ‘Is there in truth another strong enough to fight against him ?’ ** He (the challenger) took his shield, his axe, his sheaf of javelins. When I had caused him to spend his weapons in vain and had warded off his darts so skilfully that they struck the earth without one of them falling near another, he rushed upon me. Then I loosed my bow upon him, and when my dart lodged in his neck he cried out and fell upon his nose. I finished him off with his own axe. I uttered my shout of victory over his back, and all the Asiatics cried aloud in delight. . . . And this sheik Enshi, son of Amu, embraced me, and I took possession of the goods of the defeated champion. What he would have done to me, that did I to him: I seized his cattle, I took what he had in his tent, I plundered his douar, I enriched my treasury, and I increased the number of my cattle.” Growing old, Sinuhet solicited and obtained permission 1 Contes, 78. 232 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST from Senusert I to return to Egypt and take up his place at the Court once more. Then he left his property in Aia to his children. ‘‘ My eldest son was chief of my tribe just as if my tribe and all my goods belonged to him—my serfs, all my cattle, all my plantations, all my date-trees.’’ Then he set out with some sheiks of the land of Qedem and of the land of the Fenkhu,? who had grown up in the love of Pharaoh; for ‘* Lotanw is thine like thy dogs.’ His Majesty kept a warm welcome for the wanderer, but one not untouched with a certain irony : ** Here you are, then, come back after visiting foreign lands and traversing the deserts;’? and, turning to the royal children and the queen, the king said: ‘‘ There is Sinuhet returning (accoutred) like an Amw and like a child of Settiu!’? The queen and the children burst into laughter, and ‘* sheik ’’? Sinuhet received his pardon. Upper Lotanu, which corresponds to Ccele Syria, had then regular relations with Egypt about the middle of the reign of Senusert I (1950 B.c.). Without being occupied by a military force, it was already colonized by Egyptian refugees and was constantly traversed by royal messengers, travellers, and merchants. Even the Egyptian language was spoken there. The respect which Pharaoh inspired in the region was such that Sinuhet said, no doubt by hyperbole: ** Lotanu is as devoted to him as are his dogs.’? The Egyp- tians, for their part, maintained a proper aloofness befitting the differences in culture, wealth, and strength which sub- sisted between the little towns of Syria, or the tribes that dwelt beneath their tents, and the great State of Egypt. The Asiatics appeared uncouth and dirty barbarians to the nobles of Pharaoh’s Court. The artisans and labourers of Egypt, too, despised the Palestinian villagers, or failed to appreciate the attractions of nomadic life. Sinuhet admits * Sethe has sought to prove that Fenkhu was the old name from which poivikes was derived and meant Pheenicia; the name recurs in Egyptian texts of the Vth Dynasty (XVI, vols. 45, 85, 130). This seductive inter- pretation is rejected by the majority of Egyptologists (IV, vol. 33, 18; cf. Hall, XIX, 159) on philological grounds, However, Sethe has returned to his argument fortified with fresh grounds (Mitt. Vorderasiat. Ges., 1916, p. 305-319), and maintains that fenkhu originally denoted a Syrian tribe, was then extended to the foreign elements introduced into Syria and came from the same stem as ¢olmé. * Maspero, Contes, pp. 101-2. IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 238 this. ‘* No Asiatic archer (Pedti) would willingly associate with a fellah of the Delta; for how can a cane-brake be transplanted to a mountain?’’! Nevertheless, these racial contrasts and oppositions were not incompatible with amicable relations. The Egyptians would have been glad to become the instructors of the people of Palestine and Syria,” to make their land an outpost of Egypt against the East. We have seen the important part allotted to Byblos in the maritime intercourse between Egypt and Syria at the time of the Old Kingdom. In the present state of our know- ledge it is impossible to tell whether the ports of the north coast were already in the hands of the enigmatical Phoenicians,’ but the ports existed with a population of bold navigators. The papyrus of the Admonitions, which revives the picture of the troubles of Heracleopolitan Egypt, presents the trade in wood and oils which the Egyptians imported from the ports of Syria as extending also to the isles and the land of the Keftiu, the Cilicians and the Cretans. The nobles of Phoenicia and Crete are said to have adopted the practice of mummification in imitation of the Egyptians, applying to their own funeral uses the products for which the Nile- dwellers displayed such avidity for the cult of their own dead.* The Egyptian texts are vague enough about the relations with the peoples of the Mediterranean islands; an official of Mentuhetep VI (about 2010 B.c.), however, boasts of having conquered the Haunebu. Another, who lived in the reign of Senusert I (about 1950), says that he registers with his pen matters concerning the Haunebu.® The testi- mony of archeology is more precise. At Illahun in the funerary town of Sesostris II, and at Abydos (same epoch), fragments of Creto-A‘gean pottery, and, above all, a mag- nificent vase of the type termed Kamares, have been dis- 1 Contes, p. 86. In the eyes of the Egyptians, the Asiatics were mountaineers (khastiu); let us not forget that Lebanon and the Taurus reach altitudes of 9,000 and 12,000 feet. * The epithet “‘ miserable ks”? was not yet applied to the Asiatics, save in the papyrus quoted above, p. 218. 3 Hall, XIX, 158. * Gardiner, The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage, 32. 5 XXII, §§ 228, 278. 234 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST covered. Its presence in a tomb at Abydos contemporary with Amenemhat IIT (about 1830 z.c.) allows us to synchro- nize with the Middle Kingdom in Egypt the corresponding period of the Minoan civilization (Middle Minoan IT).* Towards the end of the XIIth Dynasty, and still more under the XIIIth and succeeding dynasties, seals in the shape of a scarab engraved on the flat face, with a name bordered by spirals, become increasingly common in Egypt; this spiral motive is characteristic of the Creto-Aigean workshops. Thus from the Asiatic coasts to the islands of the Medi- terranean extended a zone of Egyptian influence, where policy advanced along the paths opened up by trade. But events of capital importance came to arrest the pacific pene- tration of the Egyptians into Asia and to reverse completely for several centuries the traditional réles of the two parts of the Oriental world. IT THE INVASIONS OF THE KASSITES AND THE HItrTITES IN MESOPOTAMIA The reign of Hammurabi had consecrated the victory of the Semites over all the other populations known in Hither Asia in the crescent of fertile lands limited on the north by the plateau of Anatolia and on the east by the table-land of Iran. The time was come when huge masses of half- barbarous peoples were going to descend from the highlands into the plains, contest with the Semites for the possession of the cultivated lands, and wrest from them the gains won by centuries of labour and invention. In less than three centuries (roughly from 2050 to 1750 B.C.) the political equilibrium which the Semites had established after 2,000 years of effort will be upset, to the profit of newcomers, the Kassites, the Hittites, and the Mitannians; the recoil of this catastrophe in Hither Asia will be felt to the utmost limits of the Oriental world. Towards the end of the third millennium, tribes of Aryan race, the ancestors of the Indo-Europeans, were settled to the * Hall, XIX, 86, 159; the Kamares vase is reproduced on Plate Til} a cf. Hall, ‘*‘ The relations of “i gean with the Egyptian Art” (XIII, vol. I, pp. 116 7f.). On the consequences of these facts as affecting the chronology of the period, see below, p. 253, note 3. IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 285 east of the Caspian and the Sea of Aral. Their previous history is still unknown. They reveal themselves at the moment when, driven forward either by a change in the climate of the plains of Turkestan or under the pressure of Mongolian peoples, they deserted their settlements to seek more fertile or less disputed territories. Their tumultuous flood divided into two streams: the one poured by way of the River Indus in the direction of Hindustan, there to come to rest; the other crossed the plateau of Iran and descended the terraces which border the valleys of the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Chaboras. To this second stream belonged the Medes, who stopped on the plateau of Iran and colonized its south-western part for more than a thousand years, and the Kassites, who, continuing their migration, were the first to come in contact with the Semites of Mesopotamia. Are the Kassites (or Cosseans) Aryans? Opinions are divided on this point. The Kassite terms preserved in Baby- lonian documents exhibit a relationship with the dialects of the mountain tribes of Iran, and are different from Indo- Kuropean, Elamite, Sumerian, and Semitic. Nevertheless, a certain number of personal and divine names are closely allied to those of Aryan languages. The Kassites must, then, at least have experienced influence from the Aryans—a necessary consequence of close proximity. They had, more- over, borrowed from the Aryans, a race of horsemen, an animal hitherto unknown to the Oriental world—the horse, which furnished migrant peoples with an ally of prime im- portance alike for the journey and for battle. It was from the Kassites, arrived in the vicinity of Mesopotamia, that the Babylonians learned to know ‘“‘ the ass of the mountains ”’ harnessed to the travelling waggon or the war chariot, the first reference to which in cuneiform documents appears about 1900 B.c. The first successors of Hammurabi beheld their eastern frontier invaded by floods of Kassites, driven forward by the Aryans’ migrations. Samsu-Iluna (2080-2048 B.c.) repeatedly gave battle against them. I refer the reader to M. Dela- porte’s book, Mesopotamia, for the account of their slow but ultimately invincible infiltration, which culminated three 1 Meyer, XXII, § 146, concludes that the Kassites are not Aryans; the contrary view is maintained by Hall, XIX, 201. 236 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST centuries later (about 1760 B.c.) in the installation of a Kassite dynasty at Babylon. A storm, still more threatening for Semitic civilization, was brewing on the northern frontier, in that vast region which extends from the Augean Sea to the Caucasus, where the people termed Asianic lived. In 1925 3.c. Babylon was sacked by an invasion of Hittites, who overthrew the throne of Hammurabi’s suc- cessors. This attack achieved a brutal, decisive, but short- lived result. That differentiates it fundamentally from the insidious but lasting penetration by the Kassites. The Hittites invaded Mesopotamia through the valley of the Kuphrates, which they descended, coming from the Taurus region or the Anatolian table-lands. This is their first appearance on the stage of history; their origin is very uncertain in the present state of our knowledge. We find them established astride the great routes of the plateau of Asia Minor, and divided into two groups—one in the Halys Valley on the route leading to the Black Sea and in the vicinity of the iron mines of Cappa- docia, the other on the Cilician coast and in the district of the Taurus and Amanus ranges on roads leading to the Mediterranean and in proximity to the Taurus iron mines. Whence did they come? Like the Kassites, they seem to have formed the advance guard of Asianic peoples in migra- tion, who drove them in front of the main body. But it is unknown whether they came from Europe after crossing the Bosphorus, or from the Caucasus, or, again, from the plains of Central Asia. Their forward movement and establishment in Asia Minor were contemporary with the Aryan migration. Perhaps they had been forced into Anatolia while the Kassites had been thrust aside down the Iranian slopes. For information as to their origin the Hittites’ written monuments have been scrutinized with passionate interest. The inscribed documents belong to two classes: some make use of the Babylonian cuneiform signs to express the Hittite * Consult Ed. Meyer, XXXVI,; Ed. Pottier, “* L’art hittite ” in XI, vol. I (1920); Cowley, The Hittites (1917); G. Contenau, “‘ Les Hittites” in Mercure de France (Mar. 1, 1922). ‘*To some,” writes Contenau, ‘ they would be the ancient Pelasgians who had crossed the Hellespont; to others again the proto-Armenians,”? IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 237 language, others exhibit a picture writing of rude appearance and distinct from the Egyptian and Sumerian hieroglyphics. The texts written in these pictographic signs have not yet been deciphered; those which use the Babylonian script are to-day interpreted with sufficient certitude for a compre- hension of their meaning, but are not yet clear enough for the classification of paradigms and grammatical forms. Among the decipherers, Hrozny assigns the Hittite speech to the western group of Indo-European languages, on the strength of its kinship with Lydian and Latin; Weidner holds it to be a Caucasian tongue influenced by Aryan elements; others, again, like Cooley, distinguished in the existing documents at least two languages and several dialects.! It looks as if the Hittites formed no unitary people, but an aggregate of tribes, who by development became a con- federacy of small States.’ The figured monuments, the oldest of which do not take us back beyond the fourteenth century, show us the Hittites under a physical aspect quite distinct from that of the Semites. They are thick-set, broad-shouldered men whose heavy type (Fig. 21) betrays their mountain origin and is utterly unlike the slender elegance of the Arabs and the robust stolidity of the Canaanites and Chaldeans. The Egyptian bas-reliefs, which are still our oldest source for a knowledge of these Asiatics, depict them with obvious and studied fidelity. Thence we learn to recognize these long, beardless faces which are shaved on the forehead, while the hair falls in two masses over the shoulders and forms a tress, sometimes short and twisted like a plait, sometimes long and thin like a Chinese pigtail (Fig. 35). The brow is high and retreating, but the nose forms one straight line with the 1 Fr. Hrozny, Dre Sprache der Hittiter (1917); Weidner in Mit. der Deutschen Orient-Gesell. (1917); Forrer, zbid. (1922), and in Zeitsch Deutschen Morgenland-Gesell. (1922); Sayce in Anatolian Studies presented to Sir William Ramsay and Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1920), p. 58. The latter author holds the principal language of the Hittite texts to be Asianic. * “What is clear from the present state of our studies’? (writes G. Contenau, /.c., p. 899), ‘‘ is the extraordinary mixture of elements which went to make up the Hittite kingdom; Indo-European elements derived from the Armenian region, probably Caucasian and Asianic elements, possible re-enforcements of European elements, that is the picture given by a study of the language, religion and sculptured monuments.” 238 =FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST forehead, without any depression at the bridge, and is prominent and convex. The lips are thick, the chin short and retreating; the eyes slant up obliquely toward the temples. There is something Mongolian about this type, to which we still find analogies among the Turks and Armenians of to-day." The Hittites’ costume included a long, unornamented robe descending very low; later they adopted the Egyptian loincloth or the heavy robe of embroidered wool of the Semites. Two features were persistently preserved, at least Fic. 21.—HiIrtTitE SOLDIER WEARING A BEARD IN SEMITIC STYLE. in the case of kings—a high, pointed cap shaped like a tiara and supple top-boots in which the upturned toes, like those of medieval shoes, are distinctive.” The Hittites produce the impression of great physical strength. Their armament was very perfect. Together with the shield, sometimes rect- angular, sometimes indented at the sides (Fig. 8), they carried the pike, the double axe, the long dagger, and the sword. Thanks to the possession of the mines of Cappadocia and the Taurus, they were one of the first peoples of the Orient to use iron lance-heads and sword-blades. At an epoch later than that which concerns us here they will adopt as protection for their heads in war a metal cap surmounted by a crest with a waving plume, the prototype of the helmet with large crest and nodding plumes of the ASgeans and 1 Maspero, XX, II, 353; Ed. Meyer, XXXVI, 13, Pls. ceerh. 2 Ed. Meyer, XXXVI, Pls, XIV-XV. . IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 239 Homer’s heroes.' Like the Kassites, the Hittites had domes- ticated the horse even before its appearance in Mesopotamia, and used it harnessed to the chariot, principally for war. They arrived either by the Upper Euphrates or by the Cilician Gates, in the vicinity of that Mesopotamia the plains of which were but fields of wheat and orchards filled with an unheard-of variety of fruit-trees, and the towns of which were replete with all the riches and seductions of an already luxurious civilization. The temptation was no less potent for the Hittites than for the Kassites. But the former, a robust and adventurous race, did not proceed by timid attempts and slow infiltrations; their flood rushed on with the impetus of a torrent and seized Babylon in a single irruption (1925).* Their victory was complete and sufficed to overthrow the Ist Dynasty of Babylon. It was, however, ephemeral and profited others than the Hittites. The Sumerians for a century and a half recovered the advantage over the Semites in Shinar and founded the dynasty of the Land of the Sea (1925-1761 B.c.); and then the Kassites, who had continued their migration and gradual occupation of the country, took advantage of the general convulsion to instal themselves definitely. They succeeded in 1760 B.c. in re-establishing the unity of Sumer and Akkad, under the authority of a Kassite dynasty (which lasted till 1185). For these 600 years which saw the Hyksés, the Egyptians, and the Hittites in Hither Asia, Babylon played only a third- class part. No doubt the Kassites, like the other barbarians who had preceded them, were assimilated by the old elements in the population. Still, the result was an enfeebled race and a dynasty lacking the financial and military means for con- tinuing the traditional Babylonian policy of-expansion. It was a period of inertia, and is otherwise scarcely known and almost devoid of monuments. Thus the eclipse of Babylon during the second millennium is explained by the aftermath of the Kassite and Hittite invasions. As for the Hittites, after their triumphal raid the bulk of their forces withdrew into Cilicia and Cappadocia loaded with treasures, idols, and royal statues, which the recent excava- * Ed. Pottier, XI, vol. I, 268 7. 2 Ed, Meyer, XXXVI, 57. 240 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST tions have unearthed.! From this short domination in Shinar the Hittites retained respect for Babylonian civilization, from which they borrowed the characters of several of their deities,? much of their art,? and that necessary instrument of civilization, writing. They remained in contact with Babylon and the Amorites through elements in the popula- tion established as colonists or landowners in the Fertile Crescent. When Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees to proceed up the Euphrates and go down again into Syria as far as the neighbourhood of Hebron in Palestine, he had business relations with “the sons of Heth’’ (Gen. xxiii, 3) at an epoch which may correspond to the Hittite conquest. In several passages in the Bible we meet ‘“‘ the traditional memory of a people who had occupied the land long before the arrival of the Israelites in Palestine. The preponderant part played by this people in the foundation of important cities—Jerusalem among the rest—has not been forgotten. In the maledictions of Ezechiel the prophet says to the city: ‘Thy father was an Amorite, thy mother a Hittite.’ ’” The conquest of Syria-Palestine by the Hittites was only realized later, but the way was prepared for it by colonies scattered at the beginning of the second millennium. With the Kassites and the Hittites a third element appears to us in the mosaic of migrating peoples: this is the Mitanni folk. We see them insinuating themselves between the Assyrians and the Hittites of the Taurus, between the Tigris and the Orontes astride the Euphrates in the *‘ Land of the Two Rivers’’ (Naharina), a strategic position of the utmost importance at the junction of the roads which lead from Mesopotamia to the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, and Egypt, and in the inverse direction. The Mitannians are distinguished from the Hittites, and resemble the Kassites in a close kinship with the Aryan races. Their language, known from a long letter found at El-Amarna (p. 290 below), seems Caucasian in type, but also includes elements resem- bling Hittite. Their gods are of the same type as those of 1 King, Chronicles, i, 148; Meyer, XXXVI. 2 Cf. Haddad, Astarte, and Tammuz-Adonis with Teshub, the Mother Goddess, and the Son-God among the Hittites. ’ Ed. Pottier in XI, vol. I, 264 7. 4 G. Contenau, Mercure de France, l.c., p. 380. IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 241 the Hittites, but among them we find named in the fifteenth century the great Aryan gods—Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and the Agvin twins.!' The impression produced by later docu- ments (once more provided chiefly by Egypt) is that the basis of the population of Mitanni was perhaps at home in Asia Minor, but the warriors, denoted by the Aryan word Merinau (young men),? and the kings, who bore Aryan names, belonged to conquering tribes forming a sort of military aristocracy,’ who governed an alien mass. That is the historic réle played in our own time by the Turkish and Kurdish nobles in the same region.* We have much less information about the Mitannians than about the Hittites. Yet they played a prominent part in the first half of the second millennium s.c. Mitannian names are borne by several chiefs in Syria and Palestine, which indicates the geographical extension of the race. But after some glorious centuries (see p. 289 below) the Mitannians were annihilated by their two mighty rivals, the Hittites and the Assyrians. Their monu- ments have, up till now, disappeared from history with their political domination. For the subsequent evolution of Hither Asia we refer the reader to M. Delaporte’s book, Mesopotamia, and to M. Glotz’s Zigean Civilization. Here let it suffice to conclude by insisting on the historical significance of the events which the scarcity of texts allows us to sketch rather than to describe. The invasions by Aryan and Asianic tribes at the beginning of the second millennium put an end to a great Semitic empire which was in embryo in the extensions of the Babylonian-Amorite realm of Hammurabi at once towards Asia Minor and towards Palestine. On the Syrian coast the Egyptians had interposed the barrier of their armies; in Asia Minor less resistance was encountered, since no organized State occupied its table-lands. And so the Babylonians had already advanced their soldiers and their merchants towards the mines of the Taurus and the Cilician Gates to secure access to the Eastern Mediterranean (see p. 207 above). * Winckler, Mitt. Deutsch. Ortent-Gesell. (Dec., 1907), 51. * Annals of. Thothmes III (cf. zufra, p. 275). * Calling themselves by the name A harrt=Aryans (Hall, 201, n. 6). This interpretation is disputed by King, XIII, vol. IV, Pp. 192: * Meyer, XXXVI, 58. 16 242 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST Excavations! have proved that in the direction of the mines of Cappadocia and on the Halys route their ambition was no less and their advance no less well planned. About 2300 B.c. a Babylonian colony” was flourishing at the foot of the voleano, Mount Argeeus, at Mazaca, the site where Cesarea, the capital of the Hellenistic kingdom of Cappadocia, was to rise later on. Through it passes a great caravan route, which migrations of peoples and armies followed, the future Royal Road of the Persian Empire which Herodotus describes (v, 2). From Cesarea it reaches the centre of the Halys basin at Pteria; there it bifurcates, sending out one branch towards the Black Sea, which it reaches at the port of Sinope, and the other towards. the Avgean through Sardes, to come out at the port of Ephesus. The site was therefore perfectly chosen to control communications between Meso- potamia on the one hand and the Euxine and At’gean Seas on the other. The Babylonians were not alone in coveting this gateway ; about the end of the third millennium the kings of Assyria, very humble vassals of Babylonia, had advanced into Cappa- docia along the Upper Euphrates, crossed the river at Meli- tene, and pressed on as far as Mazaca. Thereafter Assyrian names overlay the Babylonian at this site.’ Thus in the heart of Cappadocia the ambitious projects of the Assyrian kings are attested at a very early epoch, while in Assyria itself not a single contemporary text has been discovered to reveal them to us. The Babylonians and Assyrians in Asia Minor found themselves in contact with the migrant peoples long before they faced their onslaught in Mesopotamia ; the horses, which the newcomers brought with them, already appear on the cylinders and small objects exhumed at Mazaca.* The Semitic colony at Mazaca disappeared when from the north and east the Hittites, Mitannians, and their allies came in force to occupy the plateau. Soon the Hittite invasion descended upon Mesopotamia and expanded right to Babylon. 1 Chantre, Mission en Cappadoce (1898); G. Contenau, 7rente tablettes capadociennes (1919). 2 XXXVI, 51. 8’ This expansion of Assyrians along the route to the Black Sea explains why the Greek geographers gave the name Assyria to the coastal region of the Halys and the territory of the Sinope (KXXVI, 52). XXXVI, 54-55. IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 248 **Thus,’? as G. Contenau writes, ‘‘the Hittites are the rival power which forbade (the Semites) access to the road to Europe, thrust them back into Mesopotamia after the raid which put an end to the Ist Dynasty of Babylon, and, as a recoil, directed them towards Egypt, where the Syrian- Semitic element played a prominent part at the time of the Hyksés invasion. . . . Thus we see the Semitic bloc, consti- tuted by Mesopotamia and Syria, surrounded by non-Semitic peoples—the Elamites on the east, the peoples of Van and of Mitanni on the north, the Hittites on the west. We have to wait for the Mussulman invasions to see the Semites realizing the expansion which they were already attempting at the dawn of their history.’”! III Tue Hyxsos Invasion In Ecypr The capture of Babylon by the Hittites (1925 B.c.) falls about the middle of the XIIth Dynasty of Egypt. The accession of the Kassites at Babylon (1760) coincides with the beginning of the XIIIth Dynasty (about 1788 3.c.). At the end of the XIIIth Dynasty an invasion coming from Asia, that of the barbarian Hyksés, conquered Lower Egypt. A connection between these great facts is evident. Egypt, the wealth and fertility whereof were proverbial, could not escape the attacks of the barbarians; as soon as they had devoured and digested the civilized States of Asia, they descended the corridor which leads along the coast from the Euphrates to the Nile and tried to invade the Delta. This period, during which Egypt underwent the same trials as the other old Asiatic civilizations, is still very obscure. Just as texts are silent or wanting in Babylonia in the critical centuries when the Hittites and Kassites occupied Shinar, so in Egypt the monuments seem to disappear at the same time as the barbarians approach. However, it is established that the invasion was preceded by a period of slow and peaceful infiltration analogous to that of the Kassites in Babylonia. The narrative of the adventures of Sinuhet teaches us that Kgyptian emigrants were numerous and welcome in Syria at the beginning of the XIIth Dynasty. In the sixth year of 1 Mercure de France, l.c., p. 399. 244 FIRST << SSD wieswne j sere Mee fe Oi, Gs. ba 2 EMPIRES OF THE EAST ow 6° ye Oe ee orc ere e nse es oO ot we AIDA A. DLy Na Wore: et REO BATS lata v i i A f rf) 4 SX [xppb0 ae S.A SS EL : } Fic, 22.—ARRIVAL OF CANAANITES AT BENI-HASAN ABOUT 1900 B.c. (After Newberry, Beni-Hasan, 1, Pl. 30.) IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 245 Senusert II (about 1900 B.C.), approximately twenty-five years after the capture of Babylon by the Hittites, a picture carved on the wall of a tomb at Beni-Hasan (Middle Egypt) attests the fact that one of the important events of the epoch had been the installation of Asiatic emigrants far from the Delta, in the heart of the Nile Valley. A band of warriors armed with bows, lances, and boomerangs, dressed in woollen robes adorned with variegated patterns, or loincloths in Egyptian style, arrives in the presence of the nomarch, escorting asses loaded with thin packs of antimony powder, an Asiatic product. A lyre-player and a warrior accompany the women, whose heavy robes are richly embroidered. The chief (keqa khast—* sheik of the desert? *) of this small tribe of thirty-seven persons drives before him an ibex, which he presents as a gift; his name is Ibsha (F ig. 22). A royal scribe is handing to the nomarch a tablet, on which it is written that ** some Amu are come, to the number of thirty-seven, to bring to the nomarch antimony powder from the Empty-land (the desert).’”! The intervention of an officer of the royal administration, who himself counts and introduces the Asiatics, shows that their settlement at Beni-Hasan had an official character. They are neither traders nor free artisans coming to try their fortunes in Egypt, but a complete family or a small tribe who have implored Pharaoh’s hospitality, and whom he has directed to the nome of Beni-Hasan. This is the first time that such a scene has been depicted in Egypt; the document is still unique. Is not the inevitable inference an exodus of the people from Palestine, driven to Egypt by some excep- tional event, and seeking a refuge under the shelter of Pharaoh? The approximation of the date (1900 B.c.) to that of the Hittite invasion (1925) allows us to assume that this exodus was somehow correlated with the disturbance of the nomad populations thrust into the corridor which leads to Egypt. Now, in the reign of the next sovereign, Senusert III, the Egyptian armies were seriously engaged in the centre of Palestine; the danger had therefore become instant. Senu- sert IIIT went himself “‘to smite the Mentiu-Settiu of Sekmem (Shechem), and wretched Lotanu was overthrown.’’ . Bibliography : Maspero, XX, I, 468; c/. Weill, X, vol. VIII, p. 204. 246 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST General Sebek-Khu, who relates the event, had, nevertheless, to ‘protect the rear-guard ’’ of the Egyptian army against the Amu, and prides himself on ‘‘ not having turned his back.’’! The circumstance indicates that the Egyptian army had to fight a retreating action without much glory. A change of tone is noticeable in the narrative of warlike ex- ploits; we have the epithet ‘‘ wretched’ applied to the Asiatics—an epithet never previously met in accounts of campaigns in Asia. However, the Egyptian armies were still masters of the situation. In the forty-fifth year of Amenem- hat III (about 1804 B.c.) the captain of an expedition, Phtahur, says that ‘‘ he had brought the king the tribute of the Mentiu on his return from mysterious valleys and from remote lands hitherto unknown.’’? On the other hand, emissaries were despatched as ambassadors to the sheik of Lotanu.® There is no doubt that the situation in Palestine was preoccupying Pharaoh’s mind. What happened under the XIIIth Dynasty (1788-1660 B.c.), and how the storm brewing at the gates of Egypt eventually burst the last barriers, we do not really know, in the absence of monuments. Everything points to the infer- ence that the external peril was augmented by the fact that very numerous kings followed one another after very brief reigns upon the throne of Egypt; that is the usual symptom of anarchy in Egypt. A period of dynastic rivalries and intestine wars, complicated by foreign invasions, extends from the XIIIth to the XVIIth Dynasties. The Theban Middle Kingdom ended then like the Old Kingdom, with this difference—that the social troubles were less serious. On the other hand, the Asiatic danger was very threatening. History and chronology here suffer from the almost total lack of important monuments, the normal consequence of in- vasions in Oriental countries. | The official sources give hardly any help. The tables Saqqarah and Abydos pass over in silence all the Pharaohs from the end of the XIIth to the beginning of the XVIIth * Garstang, El Arabah, Pls. 4-5; cf. X, vol. IX, pp. 2 #. For the identi- fication of Sekmem, see XXII, § 290. 4 XVII; 'I,.728. * Weill in X, vol. IX, pp. 9-10; cf. XXII, § 289. IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 247 Dynasty ;1 the Turin Papyrus, sadly mutilated, enumerates a great number of royal names, the classification of which is extremely difficult, but which probably belong to contem- porary local dynasties. As for the Greek authorities, far from dissipating the obscurity, they only pile up legends, errors, and contradictions. The abbreviators of Manetho do not hesitate to attribute 1,570 years to the interval separat- ing the XIIth from the XVIIth Dynasty, but the accurate data resulting from the Sothic dates reduce these fabulous figures to 210 years, according to the demonstration given by Eduard Meyer.” As we shall shortly see (p. 253, note 38), this *“‘ short chronology ’’* is confirmed by recent discoveries in Crete and the rest of the Oriental world. With these reservations as to the number of the kings and the inflated chronology of Manetho, we can make use of the dynasties as a convenient framework for arranging the rare historical facts which emerge from the chaos. The XIIIth Dynasty includes in reality three royal families whose numerous sovereigns, from their very short reigns, have left only rare monuments. Several of these Pharaohs were usurpers, as is evident from the unusual titles which figure in their cartouches. One of them adopts as royal name his title of ‘‘ General ’’; another inscribes in that place his surname ‘‘ the Negro.’’ The latter, who belongs to the end of the dynasty, declares himself ‘* beloved by the god Seth of Avaris.’** Now, Seth is the Egypto-Semitic god of the Asiatic invaders, the Hyksés; Avaris is their capital. It is therefore highly probable that before the end of the XIIth Dynasty, consequently by 1700 B.c., the Hyksés had reached the Delta and imposed their yoke upon the Egyptian kings, at least in Lower Egypt. The name Hyksdés, given to these invaders, comes to us from Manetho, quoted by the Jewish historian Josephus. He applies it to the chiefs rather than to the peoples themselves, and says that it is composed of two terms—i«x=hyk, which meant king in the sacred language, and ows, the meaning of which in the vulgar tongue was shepherd; the whole would * On the other hand, the Karnak list cites thirty-five names belonging to the XIIIth and XVIIth Dynasties. 2 XXIII, 79 #f.; XXII, 8§ 298 7. ° It is disputed by several historians such as Petrie and G. Maspero. XXII, § 301. 248 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST then make up “shepherd kings” (BaciAeis troipéves). This explanation of Manetho’s is not devoid of verisimilitude, for, as we have seen, the Egyptians called by the name heqa the Arab, Palestinian, and Syrian sheiks of Sinai or Lotanu. On the other hand, shés in Coptic means “ shepherd,’’ and comes from an Egyptian word, sha’su, applied to the nomads of Arabia and Palestine. However, it is generally admitted that this is a case of a false “‘ folk-etymology.”? The true origin of the word seems to lie in the term heqa-kha’st— ** regent of the desert or of foreign lands ’’—which from the VIth Dynasty to Ptolemaic times usually denoted the chiefs of Asiatic tribes.'| Let us recall that the chief of the Semitic tribe settled by Senusert II at Beni-Hasan bore this very title heqa-kha’st, from which the word Hyksés might be derived. In the future the conquering kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty will continue to apply this name to a part of the Asiatic tribes whom they combated.? Of the final invasion Manetho has composed an account (preserved by Josephus) which we must quote. It is the only extant evidence about those barbarian invasions from which Babylonia and Syria had suffered before the Nile Valley. ** In the reign of King Timezeus’ the breath of divine wrath smote us I know not why; contrary to all expectations, men of unknown race, come from the Kast, dared to invade our country, took possession of it easily and without combat, made prisoners its chiefs, then savagely burned the cities, pillaged the gods’ temples, and grievously maltreated the inhabitants, butchering some and reducing others to slavery with their wives and children. Finally they made one of their number, named Salatis, king. He dwelt at Memphis, levied tribute on the upper and the lower province,‘ and placed garrisons in the best sites. He fortified particularly the eastern frontier, foreseeing that the Assyrians, becoming one day stronger, would desire to invade his realm... . And so he fortified Avaris and planted a garrison of 240,000 men there. He came thither in the summer season both to * Weill, La jin du moyen Empire, 187; cf. B. Gunn and Alan H. Gardiner in XIII, vol. V, p. 38. * Sethe in XII, 47, 84. * Not known from the monuments. * Lower and Upper Egypt. IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 249 distribute wheat and pay wages, and also to train his troops assiduously so as to inspire the foreigners with fear. . . .°”! No hieroglyphic text gives a narrative which can be compared with that of Manetho, but it is not customary for the official documents to describe disasters inflicted upon Egypt. On the contrary, after the day of vengeance we find allusions to the unspeakable times of defeat, when Egypt was devoured by the ‘‘ plague’’ (iadt)? of the invaders. Thothmes I will say of his own subjects: ‘“‘I have made victorious those who were in fear, and I have rid them of the evil.’’? Queen Hatshepsut recalls “‘ that she has restored what was in ruins since the days when the Amu resided in the periphery of the Delta and Avaris, and when the nomads (Shemamu) among them overthrew what had been estab- lished. They reigned, ignoring the god Ra, and no one obeyed the orders of the god.’* At a later date a popular tale, which has come down to us in a XI Xth Dynasty edition, expresses itself thus: ‘‘ It happened, therefore, that the land of Egypt belonged to the pestilential ones, that there was no (legitimate) lord king. The day came when King Seqeninra was prince in the land of the South, the pestilential ones (were) in the city of the Amu, and Chief Apopi in Avaris; for he commanded the whole land which brought him all its tribute, and all the good things of North Egypt. . . . Now, King Apopi prayed to the god Sutekhu as his master, and there was no longer tribute for any god of the land save for Sutekhu alone. . . .”> Merneptah at the end of the XIXth Dynasty recalls the events in the same terms: ‘* That had not been seen in the annals of the kings of Lower Egypt when this land of Egypt was in their hands, when the plague came upon it in that time when of the kings of Upper Egypt none was found to repulse them. . . .’’® M. Raymond Weill, taking advantage of the vagueness of these narratives, regards the whole story of the Hyksés * Josephus, C. Apzon. I, 44, 85; cf. Th. Reinach, Zextes relatifs & UV histoire du Judaisme, p. 28. * Cf. Gardiner, Admonitions, II, 5-6, same expression. * Sethe, ‘Neue Spuren der Hyksos”? in XII, vol. XLVII, p. 78 (cf. Urk., IV, 102). * Urkunden, IV, 890. ° Maspero, Contes, p. 289. ® Rougé, luscriptions hiérogl., 188-9. 250 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST invasion as a legendary construction. In his opinion the Hyks6és kings were in reality only an Egyptian dynasty of the Delta, who would have taken Asiatics into their service to combat the Theban kings; he regards as commonplaces without historical value the evidence we have just cited. That is not the opinion of the majority of historians.? In our opinion the vagueness of the Egyptian texts is explicable by the pride of the Pharaohs and the shame of reviving in clear terms the days of defeat, but we feel no doubt that the passages quoted above refer to a real invasion. No pictorial monument enlightens us as to the physical type of the Hyksés. The human-headed sphinxes, in which Mariette thought he could discern the rude physiognomy of barbarian conquerors,*® are, in point of fact, portraits of Amenemhat III. We are no better informed on the ethnic origin of the Hyksés. Manetho says “that they came from the East, and takes them for Phcenicians, while others call them Arabs.’’* The Egyptian texts call them Asiatics (Amu), Beduins (Mentiu), mountaineers (Khastiu), or nomads (Shemamu).° Among them numerous Syrian and Semitic elements were to be found; proof is to be found in the onomasticon of the sovereigns and chiefs, where we find such names as Khian, Jaqob-her, Anat-her, which recall Canaanite gods and heroes; but other names, such as Bnon, Apakhnan, ete., which are neither Semitic nor Egyptian, probably come from Asia Minor. The Hyksés were certainly a heterogeneous mass into which the Amorites and the Semites had been swept by a torrent of migrating peoples impelled by a movement parallel to that of the Kassites, Hittites, and Mitannians.° By themselves the Canaanites, repeatedly defeated by the Egyptians, would never have been able to force the fortified barrier of the Delta. It must be admitted that they were enclosed among other peoples, those + La fin du moyen Empire égyptien (1918); this work is of great use owing to its excellent documentation. * Meyer, XXII, § 303; Gardiner and Gunn in XIII, vol. V, p. 86; vol. III, . Lo, f * G. Maspero, XX, I, 503, and Ti2bG; * Ap. Josephus, C. Apion., I, 14, 85. * The names Khastiu and Shemamu, Shasu will also characterize the Syrian populations at the time of the campaigns of the Thothmes. * G,. Maspero, XX, vol. II, pp. 55 7; Meyer, XXXVI, p. 58, and XXII, § 304. 68 ee ie TF Ete IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 251 warriors of whom Manetho speaks, who continued to devote themselves to military manceuvres in the field of Avaris. These were probably vigorous and bold barbarians armed with swords of bronze and iron, and employing horses har- nessed to the terrible war-chariots which the Egyptians knew not before their advent. It was this people, better armed than the Egyptians, who defeated the militia of the nomes and Pharaoh’s black troops, badly led by a disorganized Government. So the directive force of the Hyksés may well have been one of those new-come nations—Kassites, Hittites, Mitannians, or their kin—while the rabble swept on by the invasion was composed of Amorites and Canaanites. The paucity of Egyptian documents permits of no greater pre- cision, but much is to be hoped from the excavations at the moment in progress in Syria, on the route followed by the Hyksoés, where they may have left vestiges of their passage. The thrusting aside of Semitic peoples by the invaders involved displacements of entire tribes. At the beginning of the Kassite invasions in Shinar the Phoenicians, whose original habitat seems to have been the islands and ports of the Persian Gulf, emigrated across the desert to the Red Sea and then to the Mediterranean, and found on the Syrian coast ports and islands suited to their maritime tastes.’ The first tribe of Israel, under the leadership of the patriarch Abraham, following the curve of the Fertile Crescent, by short stages passed, at the same epoch, from Chaldza into Palestine, where it met the Hittites. Later, after the entry of the Hyksés into Egypt, the companions of Jacob and Joseph’ could make their way into the Nile Valley; ‘‘ a quite ancient tradition tells that they arrived in Egypt in the reign of one of the Hyksés kings, Aphdbis (one of the Apophis).’”° Finally, those who would become the Hebrews—in par- ticular the Edomites—began to penetrate into Canaan. They were still unknown there under the XIIth Dynasty; we find them installed about the XIXth Dynasty (circa 1800 B.c.). Their irruption into the country, then, began in the interval or round about the sixteenth century. The Edomites helped to push the Canaanites in the direction of Egypt, which they * XX, vol. II, pp. 62-64. * These names appear on scarabs of the Hyksés period, Weill, /.c., 184 7. waa OLLI Vp, 71; 252, FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST entered mixed up pall-mall with the other Asiatic peoples in migration.? The Hyksés domination in the Nile Valley was, then, an event of world history, and not merely an episode in Egyp- tian history. In this period of eighty years, from 1660 to 1580 B.c., we are witnesses of an attempt at a great barbarian empire; its centre of gravity lay at Avaris? (probably Pelusium, on the eastern border of the Delta). Egypt was but the southern half of this empire; the corridor of Pales- tine-Syria formed its northern half. Perhaps the Fertile Crescent was subject to the hegemony of a single master at least for some dozen years. It is from Manetho and the Egyptian monuments that we derive our knowledge of the names of the Hyks6és_ kings. After the XIIIth Dynasty, Manetho enumerates a XIVth, composed of national kings resident at Xois, west of the Delta; then the shepherd kings of Avaris form the XVth, XVIth, and XVIIth Dynasties, although in Upper Egypt some Theban princes also constitute a XVIIth national dynasty. The most reasonable plan for reconciling these divergent pieces of evidence is to accept the postulate that these dynasties were parallel? and for a century (1680-1580 B.C.) reigned concurrently : AT AVARIS AND IN AT Xols. Lower Egypt. AT THEBES. The XIVth The XVth, XVIth The XVIIth Egyptian Dynasty and XVIIth Dynasties Dynasty of Upper (Western Delta). of Shepherds. Egypt. The shepherds of Avaris were much more powerful than the kinglets of Xois and the princes of Thebes. Two of them, Apophis and Khian (corresponding to the Apophis and Iannas of Josephus), received tribute from all Egypt and + Isidore Lévy, ‘Les Horites, Edom et Jacob dans les monuments égyptiens ”’ in Revue des Etudes juives, LI, 46 ff. * Flinders Petrie thinks he has found the ruins of Avaris on the present site of Tell-el-Yahudieh between Memphis and Bubastis, but this city seems to have been only a small fortress. The most probable theory locates Avaris at Pelusium. On this topic consult Gardiner, The Geography of the Exodus, and on the other side J. Clédat, ‘‘le Site d’Avaris” in Recueil Champollion (1922). * XXII, §§ 305, 307. IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 253 possessed full authority over the lower valley of the Nile and over a great part of Upper Egypt. The conquerors had been quickly conquered by the refined civilization of Egypt, and had rapidly comprehended the political advantages of the wise administration of the Pharaohs. So we observe the kings of Avaris adopting the usages and titles of the Egyp- tian Court; they had statues carved in the official style, they had thousands of scarabs engraved, on which their names were written in hieroglyphics, but encircled with spirals or undulating and interlaced lines, according to the taste of the Asianic countries. The very temples of the Egyptian gods were maintained and restored by them.' But in Avaris and at Tanis the Baal of Syria, the Teshub of Asia Minor, was worshipped under the name of Sutekhu, a form derived from Seth, the Egyptian god of the desert and foreign lands. A sovereign like Khian appealed to the god Ra as much as to Sutekhu and Teshub; for he sought to unite under his sway Asia and Egypt, hitherto always separate. He in- scribed on his first royal cartouche the significant title ‘* He- who-embraces-the-countries.’’ While calling himself ‘* the good god”’ like the Pharaohs, he retained that old title of the Asiatic sheiks, keqa khast, from which the word ** Hyksés *’ is perhaps derived. These claims to universal domination were, perhaps, justified by an authority extend- ing over the whole of the civilized Orient : we read the name of Khian on a block of granite at Gebelein between Thebes and the First Cataract, and on a statue from Bubastis in the Delta; it has been discovered also on scarabs among the ruins of Gezer in Palestine, on a small basalt lion found at Baghdad,’ and on an alabaster lid unearthed by Sir Arthur Evans in the Minoan palace of Knossos in Crete.’ It is not 1 XXII, §§ 307, 308. 2 Weill, Za fin du moyen Empire égyptien, 179 ff. * This find gives confirmation to the short chronology which reduces to a century the domination of the Hykséds in Egypt. The Cretans of Middle Minoan II traded with the Egyptians of the XIIth Dynasty; those of Middle Minoan III had relations with Khian of the XVth Dynasty; those of Late Minoan I sent ambassadors to the court of XVIIIth Dynasty Pharaohs. Now, the interval of time between Middle and Late Minoan could not be very long. The several palaces of Knossos were built in accordance with ‘continuous architectural principles, ‘“‘in particular, the second reconstructed palace (about the end of the XVIIth Dynasty) was erected on foundations of the second palace (contemporary with the XIIIth Dynasty).’? As M. 254 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST inconceivable that Khian should in truth have dominated the whole Oriental world from the First Cataract to the Persian Gulf, or imposed on it the terror of his arms from this central point at Avaris, midway between Egypt and Syria. But such an empire was not durable. It had nothing in it of that which constitutes a State; it is vain to seek in it for a principle of political, religious, or moral unity. The domination of the Hyksés was only a territorial occupation. Their strength rested on the weight of the populations who had submerged the Orient; the prestige due to superiority did not exist among them. Not even their military power was uncontested, since Thebes and Xois resisted and kept national sovereigns. Besides, they had neither the moral strength for expansion nor technical superiority. In Egypt they behaved like barbarians and parvenus; far from being able to impress their mark on Nilotic civilization, they became speedily Egyptianized. Hence the ephemeral character of their dominion, attested by the small number and trifling importance of the monuments which they left in Egypt and wherever they passed. As the Huns terrorized Kurope in the fifth century of our era, so the Hyksés terrorized the Oriental world, incapable of imposing them- selves save by force and numbers. Their domination col- lapsed about 1600 3B.c.; for some unknown reason the military machine which maintained them was abruptly broken and could not resist the shock of attacks coming from the south and perhaps from Assyria.! Thereafter, all that was left of the Hyksdés there, where they were established from the Nile to the Euphrates, was a heterogeneous mass which lost even its name, so rapid and complete was its absorption by the ancient populations. The Asianic and Aryan barbarians, come from Asia Minor, therefore showed themselves incapable of carrying Dussaud says, these observations ‘‘ are extremely favourable to Professor Meyer’s system and provide him with valuable support’? (XVIII, 55 7f.). See also Sir Arthur Evans, The Palace of Minos at Knossos, I (1921), pp. 18, 31, 421, and G. Glotz, #gean Civilization (1925), pp. 26, 205. + Manetho has preserved this hint that the Hyksés feared the Assyrians on their Asiatic flank (p. 248 above). IRANIAN AND ASIANIC INVASIONS 255 to a successful conclusion the plans of empire sketched by the Semites and organized by Hammurabi. But their effec- tive domination of the whole Oriental world, precarious though it was, may have led the prudent statesmen of Thebes and Babylon to reflect on the means to be used for the organization of a more durable empire. CHAPTER II THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE AND THE CONCERT OF NATIONS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY Tue Hyksés invasion awakened national sentiment among the Egyptians, revealed to them the full gravity of the Asiatic danger, and inspired them with the design of neutral- izing it by imposing their domination on the whole Orient. These factors dictated a policy to which effect was given in three stages—the liberation of the Nile Valley, the conquest of Syria, and the creation of an Egyptian empire in Asia. This was the work of the XVIIIth Dynasty (1580-1821 B.c.), which reconstituted in the Nile Valley the New Theban Kingdom. if Tur Hyxs6s DRIVEN FROM EcypT The liberation of the land was due to the Theban princes. Upper Egypt had paid tribute to the Hyksdés of Avaris with- out having been occupied by them in a permanent manner. The princes of Thebes, grouped in the XVIIth Dynasty, had never ceased to maintain resistance against the Asiatics ; they soon initiated the war of independence. As a result of circumstances which escape us, the dominion of the shepherds was greatly weakened at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Thebans were quick to seize the opportunity for intervention. Some episodes of the contest are known to us. The earliest date introduces us to a “ regent of Thebes ”’ named Seqeninra. He appears in a popular tale, from which we have already quoted (p. 249 above) a description of the occupation of the country by the Hyksés.} King Apophis had just built a magnificent temple to his god Sutekhu (the Syrian Baal) in Avaris. Every day he sacrificed victims * Pap. Sallier, I; cf. Maspero, Contes populaires, IV, 288 ff., and intro- duction, pp. xxvi, 7f.; cf. Gardiner, XIII, vol. V, 39 7. 256 THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 257 there, ‘‘ and the vassal chiefs were present with garlands of flowers, just as in the temple of Ra.’’t On the completion of the edifice, Apophis dreamed of imposing the worship of his god on the Thebans; ‘‘ then, as he hesitated to employ force in such a delicate matter, he had recourse to a ruse. He took counsel with his princes and generals, but they knew not how to advise him. The college of soothsayers and scribes was more resourceful: * Let a messenger go to the regent of the city of the South to say unto him: “« King Apophis bids thee: Let the hippopotami which are upon the pool of the city be hunted upon the pool that they may allow sleep to come to me by night and by day.”’ He will know not how to answer for good or for evil, and thou shall’st send another messenger. “ King Apophis bids thee: If the regent of the South answer not my message, let him serve no longer any other god but Sutekhu. But if he reply thereto and do what I tell him, I will take naught from him, and I will no longer bow down before any other god but Amon-Ra, the king of the gods!”?’ ”’ Another Pharaoh of popular legend—Nectanebo—at a much later date bred mares which conceived by the neigh- ings of the stallions of Babylon and his friend Lycerus in Chaldea had a cat which went every night to strangle the cocks of Memphis. The hippopotami of the lake of Thebes, which disturbed the repose of the King of Tanis, are evi- dently close relatives of these extraordinary animals. The sequel of the tale is unfortunately lost. We may believe, without fear of being very wide of the mark, that Seqeninra came through the ordeal safe and sound. Apophis fell into his own pit and saw himself faced with the awkward alterna- tives of deserting Sutekhu for Amon-Ra or declaring war. Probably he chose the latter solution, and the end of the manuscript celebrated his defeat. Very probably there is a foundation of historical fact in this legend which Maspero has so illuminatingly interpreted. It is reducible to this: the first serious resistance offered to the Hyksés of Avaris came from Thebes in the reign of Seqeninra. A mummy has been found belonging to a king of this name, and exhibiting five wounds on the head. It is * I quote here Maspero’s text, XX, vol. II, 74-75. 17 258 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST tempting to conclude that it is that of the Seqeninra of the tale, fallen gloriously on the field of battle.* The conflict thus begun did not cease. We possess the biography of a great captain of this epoch—Ahmes, son of Abana, a native of El-Kab. His father, he tells us, had been a soldier of King Seqeninra, and Ahmes himself had taken part in the sack of Avaris in the reign of King Ahmes I (who founded the XVIIIth Dynasty in 1580 B.c.). Consequently the war of independence must have begun about 1600. But a King Kames, who comes between Seqeninra and Ahmes I, played an important part in it. On a wooden tablet discovered at Thebes in 1908 by Lord Carnarvon a copy has beén preserved of a commemora- tive stele set up in a temple at Thebes by King Kames.* In the third year of his reign he took counsel with the great men of the South to discuss the perils of the situation. The Hyksés king of Avaris had made an alliance with the Nubians, who had been in revolt since the Asiatic invasion had broken the strength of the Egyptian monarchy ; he was in occupation of the whole valley as far up as Hermopolis and Cuse. ‘‘I wish to fight with him,’’ says King Kames, ‘* and open his belly ; my will is to deliver Egypt and to slay the Asiatics!’? So Kames descended the Nile at the behest of the god Amon of Thebes. With the aid of the mercenaries, Mazoi, the Egyptian militia cut off the Asiatics from their base and forced them to give battle. ‘‘I spent the night on my ship,’’ says the king. ‘*‘ My heart was joyful. At dawn I swooped down upon the foe like a falcon. I overthrew him, I destroyed his entrenchments, I slaughtered his people, I forced his wife to come down to the bank (? as captive). My soldiers were like lions; of what they had taken—slaves, flocks, oil, and honey—they made a partition, with joy in their hearts. As for the rest of the hostile army, it was all in flight, men and horses.’’®? The result was the recapture 1G. Maspero, XX, vol. II, 79. Another important historical consequence is this: the tradition makes Seqeninra the contemporary of Apophis the fourth Hyksés king of Manetho’s XVth Dynasty. It therefore admits that the XVth Hykséds Dynasty was contemporary with and parallel to the XVIIth Theban (see p. 252 above). 2 See the study published by Gardiner, ‘‘ The Defeat of the Hyksés by King Kamose’”’ in XIII, vol. III, 95 #., and again in vol. V, 45 ff. 8 This is the first time that the use of the horse is mentioned in an Egyptian text: it shows that the Hykséds had introduced it into Egypt. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 259 of Cusee and Hermopolis. The latter city, the domain of the god Thoth, was one of the great national sanctuaries of Egypt. The powerful clergy of Thoth had to put their wealth at the service of the national policy of the Thebans. And so the names of several kings at the beginning of the XVIIIth Dynasty are formed in such a way as to do homage to the deities of Hermopolis. Thoth and Aah (god of the moon) figure in the royal names Ahmes, Thothmes (Thutmes), and Ahhetep (queen).! Under Ahmes I, the immediate successor of Kames,’” (1580 B.c.), the Hyksés finally lost what of North Egypt was left to them. Captain Ahmes tells us that a ship in the Egyptian fleet was named “ The-Coronation (the rising)-in- Memphis ’’; that seems to mean that King Ahmes I, for the first time since the Asiatic invasion, had been able to cele- brate the traditional rites of coronation in Memphis. This town had, therefore, been retaken before the accession of Ahmes I; that can only have been the work of Kames. Well equipped with war-chariots taken from the Asiatics, and with ships, the Egyptian army advanced simultaneously upon the Nile and upon the plain; the principal event was the slege of Avaris. According to Manetho, Ahmes I had gathered 480,000 men before the city, without, however, being able to storm it; the Hyksés obtained honourable terms and quitted the city with their wives, children, and riches, to return to Syria. The inscription of Ahmes, son of Abana, proves, on the contrary, that Avaris, attacked by land and water, was taken by the second assault. The inhabitants surrendered unconditionally and were led into captivity; as his share of the spoil Ahmes received a man and three women. Part of the garrison, however, succeeded in escaping to Palestine. Ahmes I pursued the refugees thither and laid Siege to a city, Sharohana, which was later to belong to the tribe of Simeon (Josh. xix, 16). The siege lasted three years because the Egyptian army was still inexperienced in attacking fortresses. Eventually the city was reduced by hunger and pillaged ; the population was divided among the victors. But * On a stele of King Ahmes I, the king’s subjects are exhorted to see in him ‘‘ the god upon earth” and to worship him like Horus and like Aah (Urk., IV, 20 and 18). He was under the protection of Thoth also (¢0., 19). * On this question, see Gardiner in XIII, vol. V, 47. 260 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST King Ahmes did not venture to advance farther. He stopped short on the threshold of Asia. When “ the king had slain the Mentiu of Asia, he returned to the south to Nubia to destroy the Nubian Beduins,’’ who had been in alliance with the Hyksés. Once more it is Fic. 23.—ASIATIC PRISONERS AT THE PLOUGH (EL-KapB). Captain Ahmes who describes these expeditions, in which he took a glorious part, multiplying his deeds of bravery and > receiving as rewards “‘ the gold of valour,’’ slaves, and lands granted as military fiefs. He conducted against the Nubians ‘the ships of the first two successors of King Ahmes I, Ameno- phis I and Thothmes I. In the latter’s reign the rebellion 3 “an Fic. 24.—PRISONERS OF KUSH. was at length mastered. ‘* The hour came for the execution (of the culprits). Their people were deported in captivity, and His Majesty returned northward, grasping in his hand all the foreign lands, and (their chief) the wretched Beduin of Nubia fixed head downwards before the Falcon, His Majesty’s ship.’’* Nubia, reoccupied as far as Napata, was * Inscription of Ahmes, ll. 24 ff.; cf. Sethe, Urk., IV, 1=XVII, II, § 6. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 261 placed in charge of a viceroy with the title “‘ royal prince of Kush.’”? The gold mines were restored to working order and trade revived to its full activity. The fortresses were occupied, and splendid temples all along the Nile from Elephantine to Napata offered images of Amon and the Pharaohs to the adoration of their Nubian subjects. Thus a new Egypt developed, the civilization and art of which were at first purely Theban; but this character gradually degenerated under the influence of the neighbouring negro populations. Such were the results obtained by Thothmes I about 1525 B.c. Egypt was delivered from the Asiatic invasions and re-established upon her southern frontiers. Despite dynastic quarrels (between Thothmes I, Thothmes III, and Queen Hatshepsut), what we know of the internal state of the country bears witness to the reign of order, material prosperity, and military and financial power. The Pharaonic monarchy, having recovered all its strength, proceeded to seek a solution of the Asiatic problem; for the capture of Avaris had by no means alleviated its gravity. II THe EGYPTIANS IN SYRIA The Hyksés, after the fall of Avaris, disappear from history ; neither as a military power nor a political organiza- tion had that barbarian empire survived the capture of its capital. But as an element in the population the invaders must have subsisted, mixed with Canaanites and Amorites, from the Euphrates to the Isthmus. The recent excavations in Palestine have, in point of fact, brought to light innumer- able scarabs of Hyksdés type which bear names and the spiral decoration characteristic of the times of the invasion. Yet many of these small monuments are posterior to the fall of Avaris : when the Pharaohs conquered Palestine such scarabs bearing their names continued to be manufactured till the middle of the XVIIIth Dynasty.? On the other hand, the + The first known appear at the beginning of the reign of Thothmes I (Breasted, XVII, II, 61); Sethe, Urkunden, IV, 40, 1. 14. 7 R. Weill, i fin du moyen Empire, II, 729 ff. 262 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST Egyptian texts will often mention, among the Egyptians’ adversaries in Palestine and Syria, those heqau-khast from whom the name Hyksés comes. Does this name explicitly designate the former invaders or the Canaanites or the mixture of the two peoples? It is probable that after their military collapse the Hyksds (or at least the foreign elements which went to compose them) amalgamated with the Semitic population ; future excavations should throw some light upon this point. In the course of the two centuries corresponding to the invasion, Palestine and Syria had entered upon a period of urban development. The hieroglyphic and cuneiform docu- ments of the XVIIIth Dynasty introduce us to the ports of Gaza, Ascalon, and Joppa (Jaffa), and, on the plateau of the Shephelah, the cities of Sharohana, Hebron, and Jerusalem, in that region which was called Kharu.! The chain of Carmel formed the barrier between Kharu and Syria; Megiddo, a strong place of prime importance, guarded the passage. On the coast beyond opened the rocky ports of Zahi—Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Simyra, and Arad. Each of them was a maritime fortress (menit) visited by coasting-boats, the ships of Byblos (kebentiu), those of Crete and the Hgean (keftiu), and those of Egypt. Between Lebanon (lmenen) and Anti- Lebanon, covered with cedars and pines, Cele Syria spread its orchards and wheat-fields, watered by the Jordan and the Orontes, flowing in opposite directions. Numerous small fortresses there gave shelter to the population of peasants. The most important strategic point was the deep depres- sion in which flows the Eleutheros (Nahr-el-Kebir), which opens a transverse route athwart the north of Lebanon from the port of Simyra to the oasis of Palmyra (depression of Homs). The intersection of this route with that along the Orontes was watched over by the ‘holy ”’ city of Kadesh, a citadel as important as Megiddo. To these very fertile valleys, connected on the right with the oases of Damascus and Palmyra, veritable ports on the sandy sea of the desert, the Egyptians gave the name of Upper Lotanu. Farther 1 The geographical names in italics are those given in the Egyptian texts. On all questions relative to the geography and ethnography of Syria at the time of the Egyptian conquest, consult the classical work of W. Max Miller, Asten und Europa. 263 THE CONCERT OF NATIONS “aaIdNY NVIIGADY FHL JO ANI YT, AHL LV AIAOM IVINGTIO GHI—' A dv ‘ é ee ae Sey Tt? ie Lk eA os te aN Taree is : ts pane y ass Ge $ Rowen ee Atos s See as z, ee NO TSed -~ -=-- Ysape PW) axC7 Q "A SOWADY a nant SIPARG IOAMHE |) -o®™ vinogyadv> oe y a, ~< may ae er. i Puozigaty adouig ANIXNG 264 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST north between the Orontes and the Euphrates began the land of the two rivers—Naharina—with the cities of Khalep (Aleppo) and Tunep. They overlooked the outposts of the great citadel which commanded the Euphrates ford—Car- chemish, on the right bank of the river. Here the realm of Mitanni was established in the middle of the way of com- munication between Egypt and Babylonia and Anatolia. Before the Hyksés invasion, Naharina, with its partly Aryan population, separated the Hittites of Anatolia, the Semites of Babylonia and Assyria, and the Amorite and Canaanite Semites. After the invasion these diverse elements were submerged by the flood of invaders. In what condition of disintegration or of mixture had the ebb left them? We cannot say. Nevertheless, at the end of the sixteenth century Mitanni appears as the predominant State; its kings, heirs of the Hyksés empire, held in the palm of their hand the “Great Men’’ of Lotanu, and occupied the citadels of Carchemish, Kadesh, and Megiddo. The Pharaohs were well aware of this state of affairs. They had everything to fear from a fresh barbarian invasion or a counter-offensive by a State such as Mitanni. To ensure the security of Egypt in the face of a threatening or restless Asia Minor, only one tactic could be effective—the military occupation of the branch of the Fertile Crescent which leads from the Euphrates to the isthmus, and the establishment of a bridgehead at the extremity of the corridor of invasion— t.€., in this region of Naharina which is the glacis upon which the routes through Cilicia, Anatolia, and the Euphrates Valley converge. The Thothmes and Rameses understood this strategic necessity ; as soon as Nubia was pacified they made preparations for the occupation of Syria. History teaches that the Ptolemies, the Crusaders, Bonaparte, Mohammed-Ali, and even General Allenby himself in the last world war, obeyed one single necessity: it is always in Syria that great captains have defended the gates of Egypt. However, the desire for safety does not explain by itself the Egyptians’ counterstroke. War begets war, and the invasion by Asiatics had provoked in Egypt a national feel- ing of resentment which found expression in the inscriptions of the XVIIIth Dynasty. The hope of revenge, the taste for THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 265 battle, the attraction of military glory, the lust for booty, prestige, rewards, and titles (decorations, honorary arms,’ slaves, and lands); such were the motives which animated the rising generations. See how the ship’s captain, Ahmes, introduces himself to posterity: ‘I give you to know the honours which have come to me. I have been rewarded with gold seven times in the sight of the whole earth and also with male and female slaves. I have been recompensed with very numerous lands. My name is that of a brave by reason of its actions, and it shall never disappear from the earth.’”* Fic. 25.—EGypTIAN INFANTRY UNDER THE XVIIITH Dynasty (DEIR EL-BAHARI). When Ahmes is speaking of Egypt’s soldiers, his comrades in arms, he says *‘ our soldiers,”’ “‘ our army.’”> This accent, in which pride is mingled with fraternal patriotism, will recur in the military narratives of the Thothmes; it is something quite new in Egypt, and is explained by the national exalta- tion. Such was the condition of mind of the troops; we can judge from it what the Pharaohs’ must have been like. They had in their hands all the means for a policy of conquest: soldiers, trained, eager, provided with perfect equipment (horses, chariots, ships), in which the shock-troops furnished by the Mazoi and the blacks of the Sudan were supported by + The “‘ victorious soldiers’? of Egypt received as decorations rings, bracelets and necklaces of gold, honorific arms (axes and daggers), gold lions and flies, and gold hearts to be worn round the neck (Sethe, ‘ Alt- egyptische Ordensauszeichnungen ” in XII, vol. XLVIII, p. 143). “ Inscription of Ahmes, ll. 2-4; cf. Urk., IV, pp. 684, 780. ® /bid., ll. 88, 81; cf. Annals of Thothmes III, 1. 75. 266 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST the national infantry’ and by chariots mounted by picked young men of the upper class (Figs. 25-26), financial re- sources restored by the gold mines of Nubia and swelled by the products of Egypt’s fields and workshops, and an export- able surplus—wheat, cattle, and manufactured goods—to ex- change for the minerals of Asia. For all these reasons of a national, military, and economic nature the Pharaohs attempted, in their turn, to accomplish what the barbarous Hyksés had rudely outlined—the creation of an empire in which Egypt, united to the Near East, should be the mistress of the civilized world. After the recapture of Avaris, Ahmes I (1580-1554 B.c.), having occupied Sharohana, had made it a bridgehead for the coast of Palestine. That was enough to justify the in- scription on the walls of Karnak—* The foreigners (Khastiu) are all discouraged; for the king’s massacres (terrify) the Nubians, and his bellowings (resound) in the country of the Fenkhu (? Pheenicians).2 The fear of His Majesty is upon the interior of this earth like that of the god Minu, and so men bring him fine tribute. . . .” Nevertheless, Ahmes I had stopped there, and Amenophis I (1554-1588 B.c.) waged war only in Nubia. Thothmes I (1533-1501) also served his military apprenticeship there, but, considering the situation more threatening in Syria, he recalled his troops from Nubia to the eastern frontier and pressed them forward ener- getically. Without striking a blow the Egyptian army traversed the desert, the Shephelah, and Ccele Syria, and reached the banks of the Kuphrates. It was the finest military exploit that a Pharaoh had ever achieved. We have no official account of it, but the companions in war of Thothmes I did not fail to recount their deeds of prowess. It seems that the expedition encountered no resistance before Carchemish, with such glee does the old captain, Ahmes, describe it. ‘‘ After these events (the victory in Nubia) we passed into Lotanu to refresh our hearts in foreign lands. His Majesty went as far as Naharina, where His * What the texts of the Middle and New Kingdom call “ the live men of the army,” the citizen-soldiers, ankhu nu mshau ({uscription of Sebekhu of the XIIth Dynasty, above, p. 246); Zuscription of Kares, 1. 13, XIIIth Dynasty (Urz., IV, 48), * On the Fenkhu see above, p. 232, note 1. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 267 Majesty found this Wretched One and gave battle. His Majesty made great carnage amongst them; without number were the living prisoners whom His Majesty brought home as the result of his victories.’’' Another witness also places the battle in Naharina.* Thothmes I crossed the Euphrates, and on the east bank he set up a stele in his name,’ which bore witness to his triumph and seemed to advance the Fic. 26.—EGYPTIAN CHARIOT. frontiers of Egypt to that point. In any case, he, too, con- tented himself with a military demonstration. And so, having asserted the strength of his armies, he led them back to Egypt, leaving garrisons only in the south of Palestine. With what delirious enthusiasm did Egypt welcome the con- queror! An echo of it is still to be heard in the words of a stele discovered at Tombos on the Third Cataract in Upper Nubia. ‘‘ He has sat upon the throne of Horus,”’’ it is said of the king, ‘‘ to enlarge the frontiers of Thebes . . . that the Heriu-sha, the Khastiu who are abominable to god and the captive Haunebu may pay tribute unto her.*... All the foreign lands are united and bring their tribute unto His Majesty. He hath conquered the frontiers of the earth for " Ure., IV 36> XVII, 11,8 Si. * XVII, II, § 85. * According to the Azszals of Thothmes III (Urvz,, IV, 697; XVII, II, § 478). 4 That is to say, the Beduins, the Asiatics, and the people of the Mediterranean. 268 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST his domain, and he who traverseth them with his victorious sword to seek a combatant shall find none to oppose him.”’ And so an Egyptian army had penetrated to the very heart of the country that had never been traversed hitherto, save by stray merchants or messengers! For the Egyptian people that was an almost fabulous adventure enlivened by picturesque and bizarre episodes. In Asia there were moun- tains with solid water, with snow, on their summits! And farther on there was a strange river, a sort of topsy-turvy Nile, which flowed southwards to reach the sea, while in Egypt you go down-stream to go north and up-stream to reach the south! ‘‘ He hath opened valleys unknown to his ancestors, and which the (kings) wearers of the Two Crowns had never seen. His south-eastern frontier is in this Nubia ; his north-western frontier is that inverted water which descends when it flows up-stream! Never had such a thing happened to the other kings of the North: and so his name is bruited abroad under all the orb of heaven. ... The oath is taken by his name in all lands because of the great- ness of his power. Never had that been seen in the annals of his ancestors since the Followers of Horus. ... He hath subdued the islands of the Great Ocean (shen-ur) : the whole earth is at his feet.’”! These emphatic eulogies, repeated in honour of the suc- cessors of Thothmes I, will become commonplaces, mere banalities of epigraphic style; here they are to be taken in their full sense in honour of the conqueror of Asia, and testify to the unaffected joy of a people intoxicated for the first time with military glory. How far the assertions affecting the Hau-nebu and the peoples of the isles are to be taken literally we do not know. It is at least certain that, in accordance with custom, all his neighbours in Asia and the islands sent Thothmes I presents,” which he transformed into ** tribute.’ The temples at Thebes were the first to benefit thereby. In the tomb of Inenj, an architect who lived at that time, reference is made to cedars imported from the Levantine ports and bronze from Asia, imported for the decoration of the great edifices’ erected as memorials of national thanks- 1 Urk., IV, 82 f.; XVII, II, $8 67-73. ? Jbid., 55; XVII, II, § 101. ° 1bid., 56; XVII, II, §$ 103 #. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 269 giving in honour of Amon, the tutelary god of the victorious dynasty. It was not long before a reaction set in among the Khastiu against their new masters. Thothmes II returned to Lotanu and the Euphrates,’ and Thothmes III (1501- 1447 B.c.) had to begin the conquest again from the begin- ning in the twenty-second year of his reign (1479). The Mitannians had fomented a general revolt from Syria to Palestine to such good purpose that the garrisons left by the Egyptians were expelled. ‘‘ There had been a long period of years [in which the Asiatics had ruled] by brigandage, every man serving their [princes who were in Avaris|]. But it happened in other times that the garrisons which were there were (? shut up) in the city of Sharohana. From the land of Yroza unto the confines of the earth a revolt was being prepared against His Majesty.’’? Then Thothmes III ‘* set out from the citadel of Zalu on his first victorious expedition [to repel those who had attacked] the frontiers of Egypt.’’ The complete account of this first expedition and the summary of the subsequent ones is known to us from the **king’s journals,’’? in which the scribes noted every day the incidents of the campaign. Inscribed on the walls of the temple of Amon at Karnak as an offering to the god to whom the credit for the war was given, this text forms the Annals of Thothmes III,* one of the most significant sources for Egyptian history, and the first journal of a great campaign which the world’s history has preserved. We will make large extracts therefrom; for no evidence permits of a better appreciation of the mentality of the Egyptian imperialists. Setting out from Zalu on April 19, 1479 B.c.,° the Egyptian army reached Gaza on April 28. It had taken nine days to cover the 146 miles of arid desert which separate the two cities, a speed which attests a perfect * Sethe, Untersuchungen, 1, 40; Breasted, XVII, II, § 125. * The interpretation of this fragmentary passage involves some uncer- tainties; cf. Sethe, XII, vol. XLVII, 84; Gardiner, XIII, vol. V, 54, note 2. S tire., TV, 693. X VIL, [lS 472. * Bibliography in Maspero, XX, vol. II, p. 256, note 1. I follow the text of Sethe, Urkunden, IV, 647 jf.; cf. Breasted, XVII, II, §§ 407-540. ® All the Egyptian dates will here be translated into our modern reckon- ing for clearness in the narrative. 270 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST organization. After one day’s rest the march was resumed, and on May 10 the army arrived at the foot of the pass which leads across Carmel to Megiddo. It had crossed 105 miles in eleven days without a battle, all the cities of the Shephelah having submitted. Before crossing the ridge, Thothmes III held a council of war and informed his generals that he had received reports about the enemy. ‘‘ Lo, this conquered wretch of Kadesh? has come and entered into Megiddo; he is there at this moment. He hath made a coalition with the princes of all the foreign lands that were in the waters (in obedience to) of Egypt, from Naharina, with the . . . the Syrians (Kharu), the Cilicians (Kedu), their horses,” their warriors, their men. In reply to what hath been related he hath said unto them: *I shall make me ready for [battle with His Majesty here] in Megiddo.” Now tell me what ye think thereof!’’? The generals reply with a discussion on the choice of routes which cross the ridge of Carmel. There are three roads; the most direct, which comes out by Aluna, gets gradually narrower and will force the army to march in single file, horse behind horse, man behind man. The vanguard will then be attacked before the body of the army has had time to deploy, since the enemy is waiting on the other side near the city of Aluna. But two other routes exist: one comes out on to the plain south of Megiddo, near Taanach; the other skirts Megiddo on the north. And so the generals urge the king “not to march on the (narrow) way which leads to the unknown.’’ At this moment fresh reports come to hand on the position of ** this conquered wretch.’’ Fortified by this information, Pharaoh spurns the caution of his generals. ‘‘ By my life,’’ said he, ‘*‘ My Majesty will proceed upon this road to Aluna. Let him among you who hath it in his heart march by the roads which ye have named, or let him among you who hath it in his heart march in company with My Majesty. But let it not be thought among these conquered ones whom Ra detests: ‘If His Majesty + The prince of Kadesh and the prince of Megiddo were the heads of the coalition ; they were Amorites or Mitannians. * In all the military and diplomatic texts of the epoch horses are mentioned ; they represented one of the most important elements of a State’s strength. Men were still amazed at this ally newly introduced into Oriental civilization. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 271 proceed by another path, that is because he chanceth to be afraid of us! ...’ That is what they will think.” Then the generals agree: ‘‘ May thy father, Amon-Ra, do after thy heart. But as for us, we shall be the companions of Thy Majesty wheresoever thou shall’st go: for the servant’s place is behind his master.’’ Then His Majesty had word sent to all the soldiers that they would take the narrow way, and he swore a mighty oath: ‘‘I shall not allow my victorious soldiers to march ahead of me in this place.”? He had resolved in his heart to place himself at the head of his men, so that each of them might readily keep step in the march, horse behind horse.! Three days later—May 13—His Majesty’s tent was pitched at Aluna. On entering upon the straitened section of the defile, Thothmes took the head of the column, ‘‘ bear- -ing the image of his sire, Amon-Ra, which should open the way before him.”’ The first division of the army was accord- ingly under the patronage of Amon; apparently there was a second division marching, preceded by a statue of Herma- khis.* Pharaoh’s audacity was marvellously successful. For the enemy did not expect to see the Egyptians arrive by the more difficult route; the forces of the Prince of Kadesh were therefore drawn up in the plain on the side of Taanach. The Egyptians’ vanguard emerged without hindrance. Then the generals begged Pharaoh not to attack before the whole army had crossed the pass. ‘‘ May our victorious master hearken unto us this time! May our master protect the rear-guard of our soldiers with his troops. And when the rear-guard shall be free of the hills, then shall we fight these Khastiu, and our hearts shall not be anxious about our soldiers’ rear- guard.’’ His Majesty was reasonable; he awaited the arrival of the body of the army, which came out about midday, *‘ at the hour when the shadow turneth.”? About the seventh hour of the evening the army was drawn up facing Megiddo. The town’s garrison was keeping a close watch, while the coalition’s forces were still waiting to the south near * On all the questions raised by this narrative consult the very complete discussion given by H. H. Nelson, The Battle of Megiddo (Chicago, 1918), with numerous photographs showing the present state of the sites and roads. * See p. 315 below, where the army of Rameses II appears divided into four divisions each under the zgis of a deity. 272 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST Taanach. The Egyptians were allowed to bivouac undis- turbed. An order was given out to the troops: ‘ Prepare, sharpen your arms; for we are going to advance to give battle to this conquered wretch to-morrow morning.’’ And while the council of war was in session in the royal tent, refreshment was served out to the officers, and loaves were distributed among the men. At the same time the password was sent round—*‘ Courage, courage! Watch, watch!’? In vy Y } ‘ } Aa If oe u & as > wy 3 “ays MallliMticcs nn Hla MOG wh, , = = = ~ ~ > = SS ~ Sy s wh ns aw ny = = Vly AY MTT The three ways SAV Eats VYeyy nytt WIM Koz, ai 1 en Wier WIS DUAN Y BS Wyby f Np Ny Pie LLL . ‘ After Breasted Maga uT] (0 paqtsanss> 4, iti Mi’ Map VI.—THE DEFILE oF ALUNA AND MEGIDDO. the royal tent was the ‘‘ watch for life,’’ the headquarters post. Liaison officers came to give their reports to His Majesty : *‘ Our quarters are in good condition, the troops of the North and of the South likewise.’ Next day, May 14, the king rose at dawn, and marching orders were given to the whole army. His Majesty bran- dished his weapons from his chariot of electron, arrayed in his full panoply of war, like to Horus and Mentiu. The right wing was marshalled south of the city, in the ravine of the Kina, the left wing swung round to the north of the town; in the centre His Majesty with Ra strengthened all hearts. Unfortunately the account of the battle is abbreviated at this point. ‘Lo, His Majesty was mighty at the head of his soldiers, and when they (the enemy) saw His Majesty in his THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 273 might, they took to flight towards Megiddo, falling over one another with panic in their eyes; and they abandoned their horses, their chariots of gold and silver. They were hauled up by their garments that they might be hoisted into the city over the walls; for the people of that town had closed (the city gates upon them). Ah! if only His Majesty’s soldiers had not given their hearts to plundering the pos- sessions of those vanquished foemen,! they would have taken Megiddo in that hour, while the defeated wretch of Kadesh, with the defeated wretch of that city, were being hastily hoisted over the city walls to bring them into the town. The fear of His Majesty had pierced their flesh; their arms were paralysed ; for His Majesty’s Ureeus had been mighty among them.’’? Then their horses and their gold and silver chariots were captured; as for the warriors, they were piled up like fishes in the corner of a net. ‘“* His Majesty’s victorious soldiers began to count their captures. The tent of that defeated wretch, all broidered with silver, was also taken.? All the soldiers began to shout aloud and addressed prayers of thanksgiving to Amon for the victories which he had given his son that day, and they also offered up prayers for His Majesty to exalt his victories. Then the booty that they had taken, in the form of (amputated) hands, of living prisoners, of horses, or of chariots of gold and silver adorned with paintings, was counted.”’ The battle was won, but the greater part of the hostile army had found refuge in Megiddo. And so Thothmes III did not give his soldiers’ ardour time to cool. Behold !”’ he said to them, “all the princes of these North countries which have rebelled are in the city. To take Megiddo is to take a thousand cities. Take it, then, vigorously !”’ It was, above all, important not to begin an interminable siege such as had been laid to Sharahona by Ahmes I. The Kgyptian * For a similar episode in the battle of Kadesh under Rameses II, see p. 318 below. * The victory of Thothmes III was therefore partly due to the magic force of the Ureus which guarded his brow; it is the might of the Ureus which constitutes the might of the king. * From another passage we learn that it was a tent of large size supported by seven posts adorned with electron (Urk., IV, 664). In this connection Nelson recalls the famous tent of Darius taken by Alexander the Great (0f. czt., p. 56). 18 274 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST army now possessed the necessary siege apparatus and troops specially trained in such operations. Megiddo was surveyed and surrounded with a wall of circumvallation buttressed with green timber (to protect it from the fire thrown by the enemy). The central point was a ‘‘ castle’? of solid walls, to which the promising name ‘* Menkheperra'-catches-the- Asiatics-in-his-net ’’ was given. A close watch was kept to prevent a sortie. ‘*‘ Orders were issued to allow none to pass beyond this wall except those who came to knock on the gate (to surrender).’? A detailed report of the siege was drawn up every day; this journal, copied on to a parchment roll, was later deposited in the temple of Amon. The garrison, overcome by famine, at last surrendered. ‘- Lo, the princes of those lands came crawling on their bellies to kiss the ground before His Majesty and to implore the breath of life for their nostrils, (vanquished) by the strength of his sword and the greatness of Amon’s power over all foreign lands.’’ All the princes of the land defiled before him, loaded with their tribute of gold and silver, and followed by great and small cattle, and they were sent southwards to Egypt. Meanwhile Thothmes set reliable men in charge of. the conquered regions and ‘‘ recognized new princes in each citys? The scribes were hard put to it to draw up the list of the captured spoils. Their catalogue enumerates only 340 prisoners taken alive, part of the garrison having already surrendered to escape the famine;* but there were 2,041 horses, the gold-incrusted chariots of the princes of Megiddo and Kadesh and those of their followers—924 in all. The fine bronze war-helmets of the two defeated princes come in for special mention. The armament of the garrison was represented by 502 bows. In the country, moreover, the soldiers captured much cattle—1,929 oxen, 2,000 small goats, and 20,500 white sheep. The greed of the victors was not yet satisfied. ‘* The tilled fields of the territory of Megiddo were measured by controllers of the royal household for the harvesting of their crops. From them 207,300 bushels of grain were reaped, without counting what His Majesty’s soldiers had previously cut and carried off.’ 1 Royal name of Thothmes III. * Urk., IV, 665: ®* The account of the first campaign ends here. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 275 Several cities in the region, dependent on the Prince of Kadesh, made their submission. They delivered up their princes with their harems and their children, and also the warriors from Mitanni, probably Aryans, whom the Egyp- tians called the Merinau.: Al] these, with their slaves—2,503 persons in all—were despatched to Egypt. They took with them great vases, “specimens of the work of the land of Kharu,”’ cups, gold plates, knives, gold and silver dises, the weight of which was estimated at more than 400 pounds, and also the furniture, armaments, ornaments, and robes of the Prince of Kadesh. Thothmes III pressed on northwards into (Upper) Lotanu —1.é., into the Orontes Valley—but he did not attack Kadesh in this first campaign. He contented himself with building a fortress in the heart of Lebanon, which he christened with the provocative name ** Menkheperra-enchains-the-Nomads (Shemau).’? Then “he returned to Thebes, where he cele- brated a great feast of victory on his return from his first victorious campaign to overthrow wretched Lotanu, to enlarge the frontiers of Egypt, in the twenty-third year.’”? Till the forty-second year Thothmes III returned annually to continue his warlike task and to drive the pike of Egypt deeper into the throat of the Asiatics, From the twenty- fourth to the twenty-ninth year the Egyptians made progress in Syria to the north of Megiddo (Lotanu), pursued the tribes (wht)® of the Asiatics, still half nomadic, catalogued the wealth of the land, especially the edible plants and domestic animals, a descriptive inventory of which was engraved on the walls of Karnak.’ The gardens of the coast and the Orontes Valley (Zahi) seemed enchanting to them. ** His Majesty found the land of Zahi, the gardens whereof were full of fruits. Their wines were in the presses (over- flowing) like floods of water, and their grain grew on the * See Alan H. Gardiner’s note in his edition of the Pap. Anastasi, i, p. 25, note 1. Winckler has found this name under the form martanna (in Vedic Sanskrit marya=young men, hero) in the tablets from Boghaz-Keui. 2 Urk., IV, 789-40; XVII, II, §§ 548 #. SU, » 4 Vy Bike, * Mariette, Karnak, Pls, 28-31; among the fauna of Lotanu “ unknown fowls which lay every day” are mentioned (Urz., IV, 700). These are probably some gallinaceous birds; cocks or hens are very rarely seen depicted on the Egyptian monuments before the Hellenistic epoch. 276 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST terraces (literally ladders) in such superfluity that it was more abundant than the sands of the beaches. His Majesty’s soldiers had an abundance of everything. ... And so His Majesty’s soldiers were drunken and rubbed down with oil every day, as is their fortune (only) on féte-days in Egypt.’”’ The army had already pressed on as far as Tunep and Khalep (Aleppo), strong cities between the Orontes and the Euphrates, and laid hands upon Arad and the coastal ports. And so Thothmes seized two(?) A®gean vessels, loaded with slaves, bronze, tin, emery, and various precious articles, and re- turned to Egypt by sea. Thereafter the reinforcements for the Egyptian armies arrived by sea. The ports (meniut) of the north coast (the future Phoenicia) were improved, equipped, and provisioned’ so as to serve as naval bases for the Egyptian squadrons and centres of commissariat for the troops operating in Zahi and Naharina. That meant a great saving in time and fatigue for the troops of Thothmes, who could now take the con- federates of Naharina on the flank without having to under- take the exhausting land journey from Zalu to the Orontes. And so the campaign of the thirtieth year (1472 B.c.) was decisive. 'Thothmes arrived before the walls of Kadesh, stormed the ‘‘holy city,’’ cut down its orchards, and pillaged its crops. This was the greatest success since the capture of Megiddo; no threat on the army’s rear any longer hindered the advance upon Naharina. In the thirty-third year Thothmes at last reached the great bend of the Euphrates in the district of Carchemish,*® the third great fortress which commands the passage of the great topsy- turvy Nile. The citadel was captured, the ford foreed, and Thothmes III ‘* planted another stele beside the stele of his father, Thothmes I, upon the eastern bank of that water. Then His Majesty embarked (upon the river) to take the cities and work the settlements of the tribes (whwt) of this conquered one of wretched Naharina.’’ The Mitannians fled before Pharaoh ‘‘ like a flock of goats.’’ 1 Urk., IV, 687; XVII, II, § 462. * Beginning from the thirty-first year the Ammzals often mention the measures taken every year to equip the ports (Urk., IV, 692, 707, 713, 719, 123, 727, 732). 8’ The city is named in the /uscription of Amenemheb, one of the gallant captains of the Egyptian forces (Urk., IV, 891; XVII, II, § 583). THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 277 Thothmes III reached the strategic position which dominates the whole of the “‘ Fertile Crescent.’? For the first time he found himself in contact with the great powers which in the future, sooner or later, were to be Egypt’s rivals; all sent him tribute. The Babylonian part of Upper Mesopotamia (Sangar) and Assyria (Assur) presented lapis lazuli and vases of wrought gold; “the great Hittite ’’ (Kheta) sent silver bracelets, a block of precious stone, and rare woods.’ Satisfied with this booty, not so much profit- able as honorific, Pharaoh returned, glad ‘‘to have en- larged the frontiers of Egypt.’? On his way he hunted in the forests of the land of Nii and “laid low 120 elephants for the sake of their tusks.’? All these spoils were shipped to Egypt in the coastal ports, which were well provided with vessels from Crete (keftiu) and Byblos (kebentiu) and Egyp- tian transports (sektiu).4 But the Mitannians tenaciously resisted the Egyptians. In the thirty-fifth year (1467 B.c.) “* this wretched conquered one of Naharina reassembled his horses and his men from the confines of the earth, more numerous than the sands of the beach, to drag them to battle against His Majesty.’ They were utterly routed; tribute once more flowed in. In the forty-second year a general revolt in Lotanu imperilled the conquest of all the country north of Megiddo. The men of Naharina descended upon Tunep and Kadesh and involved all the Fenkhu in defection.° Thothmes III, starting from the coast, caught his enemies on the flank; he cut them off from Naharina, their northern base for supplies, by taking Tunep first of all. Then he led the militia up the Orontes and debouched upon the plain of Kadesh, where the rebels were concentrated. The two armies stood hurling defiance at one another when the Prince of Kadesh devised a strategem : he let loose a rutting mare and drove it in the direction of the Egyptian army, in the hope of exciting * A little later Cilicia (/sy) offered copper, tin, ivory, and lapis (Urz., IVS ZU). * Urk., 700 ff.; XVII, II, §§ 484 f. ° Inscription of Amenemhebd, 1. 23; the captain saved Pharaoh’s life when he was attacked by a huge elephant (II. 24-25) * Urk., IV, 707; XVII, II, § 492. SOF. LV, 1102 XVII; II, § 498; * Urk., IV, 729; XVII, II, § 529. 278 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST the stallions harnessed to the chariots and so disorganizing the good order of Pharaoh’s mounted troops. But the brave Amenemheb was on the watch; he rushed swiftly up to the mare, although he was on foot, and slit her stomach, carry- ing off her tail as a trophy to lay at the king’s feet. Then Thothmes led on his army ‘‘ to break the wall of Kadesh ”’; Amenemheb was the first to breach it." The victors cap- tured 691 warriors of Naharina with their horses. The coalition’s last effort was broken. It is at this point that Thothmes breaks off the recital of ‘‘ his victories from the twenty-second to the forty-second year, as it has been established in the temple of Amon ”’ (1460 B.c.).? Thus a century after the recapture of Avaris from the Hyksos the Theban Pharaohs had reconstituted ‘‘ Greater Eigypt’’ and conquered the western horn of the ‘“ Fertile Crescent’ of Asia. All the Oriental kingdoms, all the peoples of note on the continent or in the islands,* recog- nized their supremacy and paid them tribute. It may be imagined that Egypt was a trifle intoxicated. Here is how national and dynastic pride find expression on the famous triumphal stele* erected by Thothmes III in the temple of Karnak to commemorate the victories he had gained with the aid of his sire, the god Amon: ‘“T have granted thee by decree,’”? says Amon to Thothmes III, ‘“ the earth in its length and breadth, the men of the West and the men of the East beneath the place of thy face. ... Thou has crossed the river of the great bend of Naharina in thy power and thy might.... I have granted that thy conquests should embrace all the lands ... and that the peoples should come loaded with their tributes to bow themselves before Thy Majesty. ‘* I have come, I have granted thee to crush the princes of Zahi, I cast them beneath thy feet across the mountains. I have granted that they see Thy Majesty as a master of radiant splendour when thou shinest in my form in their faces. ‘“T have come, I have granted thee to crush those who are in the land of Asia (Se¢zz), to break the heads of the Amu of Lotanu, I have granted 1 Urk., IV, 894-5; XVII, II, §§ 589 ff. 2 Urk., IV; 784; XVII, II, § 540. * After his last campaign Thothmes received tribute from Cyprus (Untinay), gold vases of Cretan workmanship (eftiu), and iron utensils (Urk., IV, 7883). 4 Urk., IV, 611 #f.; Maspero, XX, II, 266 #.; XVII, II, § 658. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 279 that they see Thy Majesty robed in thy panoply (of war) when thou seizest thy arms in thy chariot. ‘*T have come, I have granted thee to crush the Zast Land to invade those who are in the Land of the Gods (Punt, Abyssinia). I have granted that they see Thy Majesty like the Comet who rains down the heat of his flame and sprinkles his dew. ‘“T have come, I have granted thee to crush the West Land, Crete (Keftz) and Cilicia (/s7), which cower in dread of thee. I have granted that they see Thy Majesty like a young bull, steadfast of heart, with sharp horns whom none may resist. ‘“] have come, I have granted thee to crush those who are in their lands of Mitanni who tremble in terror of thee; I have granted that they see Thy Majesty like a crocodile, master of terrors in the midst of the water whom none can approach. ‘“I have come, I have granted thee to crush those who are in the Isles (Creto-4Egeans), the peoples in the midst of the Very Green (Mediterranean) who are stunned by thy roaring, I have granted that they see Thy Majesty like the Avenger who raiseth himself on the back of his victim.? ‘“T have come, I have granted thee to crush the Libyans (Zehenu), the isles of the U¢enau? which are in the power of thy souls, I have granted that they see Thy Majesty like a fierce-eyed lion, and that thou make corpses of them across their valleys. ‘*T have come, I have granted thee to crush the most distant lands, the Great Circle (the Ocean), which is placed in the hollow of thy hand; I have granted that they see Thy Majesty lke the falcon, master of the wing, who conquereth with a glance what hath pleased him. ‘*T have come, I have granted thee to crush ‘ those who are in front of the country,’ to take the Herzu-sha prisoners alive; I have granted that they see Thy Majesty like the jackal of the South, the master of movement, the runner who roveth over both lands. ‘*T have come, I have granted thee to crush the /untiu, the Nubians, who to the bounds of their country are in thy hands. I have granted that they see Thy Majesty like the two brothers (Horus and Seth) whose arms I have joined to give thee the victory... .”’ III Ture ORGANIZATION OF AN EGYPTIAN EMPIRE The twenty years’ campaigning of Thothmes III gained for Egypt not only security, but also the hegemony in the Oriental world for a century, from 1460 to 1360 B.c. The 1 An allusion to the Falcon Horus, which plants its talons in the backs of gazelles, typhonian animals. 2 Hall (Oldest Civilization of Greece, p. 163) compares this name wtnaw with that given by the Assyrians to the island of Cyprus, ‘“‘ Yatnan.”’ Let us observe that the Libyans are here associated with the people of the Isles as will be the case again in the days of Rameses III. 3 Sinai and Asia, which are in front of Egypt, in contrast to the Mediter- raneans, who are behind Egypt: Hau-nebu (the Egyptians faced south in taking their bearings). 280 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST horn of the Fertile Crescent, which comprises Palestine, Coele Syria, and part of Naharina, constituted a province so closely bound to the metropolis that we may use the term Egyptian Empire to describe the political union of the region in obedience to a single master from the Upper Nile to the great bend of the Euphrates. For a century the Egyptian hegemony was maintained almost without armed intervention. The successor of Thothmes III, Amenophis II, repressed a revolt in Syria and pressed his troops into the heart of Mitanni in a three months’ campaign.’ Thothmes IV, too, came thither to marry the daughter of the King of Mitanni. Amenophis III (1415-1380) several times visited these provinces in Asia? and hunted the lion® there ; he found no other adversaries. Under his reign ‘‘ the peace of Egypt ”’ truly enriched Palestine and Syria. It was during the reign of Amenophis III and at the beginning of that of Amenophis IV (1880-1362 B.c.) that the Egyptian Empire attained its apogee. By a piece of singular good fortune, documents give us a satisfactorily minute in- sight into its administrative organization and political and economic aims. Some 800 bricks, inscribed with cuneiform characters, were accidentally discovered in 1887 among the ruins of the capital of Amenophis IV—Akhetaten, to-day Tell-el-Amarna. Decipherment proved that these documents were none other than the archives of the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Pharaohs. They included, in the form of copies or minutes, letters addressed to Amenophis III and Amenophis IV by the kings of Babylon, Alasya, and Mitanni, and by the princes of Palestine or Syria, and also some replies from the Pharaohs or the Egyptian governors. A surprising thing is that the despatches of the Syrian princes and the Egyptian administrators are written in the Baby- Jonian language and script. On the other hand, non-Semitic dialects like the Mitannian are there also, written in the cuneiform characters. So there was in those days a diplo- 1 XVII, II, § 784. 2 XVII, II, § 817. * A scarab engraved on a large number of specimens tells us that the king killed 102 lions during the ten years of his reign; cf. XX, vol. II, p. 298, and XVII, II, § 865. * XXVII, 49 #.: ‘* Diplomatie pharaonique.”? The principal editions of these latter are those published by Winckler and Knudtzon. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 281 matic language current throughout the civilized East, and that language was Babylonian. More recent finds have brought to light more diplomatic and administrative correspondence from Taanach in the land of Canaan,! and from Boghaz-Keui, the Hittite capital.* There, too, the cuneiform writing alone was used, or formed the chief medium of communication, side by side with a rude pictographic script. These archival documents of diverse provenance mutually supplement one another and illuminate world politics in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries before our era. For the first time in the world’s history we are in possession of texts relating to the same events, but derived from opposing sides; they allow us to check the evidence of questionable sincerity emanating from official history, from the laudatory inscriptions engraved in honour of the Pharaohs or their god Amon. We will divide the analysis of these texts into two parts: first, those concerning the Asiatic provinces immediately subject to the Pharaohs; secondly, those referring to the great neighbour kingdoms. The Egyptian provinces in Asia included Palestine and Syria up to a northern frontier, which we cannot define, but which did not overstep the spurs of the Taurus, between the Amanus Mountains and the Euphrates. The occupation of this region, which commands the whole of the military and commercial route from Asia to Africa, gave strategic security to Egypt. There Thothmes III had crushed all resistance by his campaigns repeated over twenty years. On the testimony of his Annals, he had not failed to pillage the country, to hold the inhabitants to ransom, or carry off to Egypt the best products of the fields and workshops after each expedi- tion. But once pacification had been achieved by fire and sword, the Egyptian conquest was merciful and beneficent. Amenophis III seems to have cherished the ambition of making Palestine and Syria provinces attached to Egypt, not only by force of arms, but still more by community of political and commercial interests. 1 Dr. Sellin’s excavations published in the Denkschriften des k. Akad. der Wiss. Wien, III (1906). 2 Vide infra, p. 8038. 282. FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST In Palestine and Syria the Pharaoh’s sovereignty was an accomplished fact. The kings of Babylon, the former masters of the country, did not dare to challenge it. ‘* The land of Palestine is thy land; its kings are thy vassals,”’ wrote Burnaburiash to Amenophis IV. The city of Tunep, in the heart of Naharina, described itself as *‘city and servant ”’ of the Pharaoh.? However, the Pharaoh did not exercise his power directly; he utilized the political organs found in the country by the Egyptians, which were varied. In the towns of the Shephelah, and on the Syrian coast at Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, the Amarna letters mention “city chiefs,” called khazani; they call themselves ‘the king’s men,”’ and sometimes bear the name ‘“‘ king,’’ some- times other titles. They were not Egyptians; their patro- nymics indicate natives, representatives of the old Semitic families of the country.” Occasionally Aryans (the M erinau, p. 275 above) and Asianics?® appear among these Semites, marking fresh and recent infiltrations of foreigners into Canaan. In some towns, such as Arad and Tunep, we find neither kings nor khazani, but a council of notables; they were therefore miniature republics. The Pharaohs had accordingly made use of such directive authorities as existed in the countries, but they had taken the precaution of Egyptianizing them. After the capture of the great cities of Lotanu, Thothmes III deported ‘‘ the sons and brothers of the great men to incorporate them in the Egyptian forces. And if one of these great men came to die, His Majesty would send his son to replace his father.’?> The Syrlan princes brought up in Egypt and initiated into the civilization and administration of the Pharaohs, therefore formed a nursery of khazani and kinglets for Kharu and Lotanu. In the same way the Cesars devoted their attention to educating in Roman manners the sons of German chiefs, and modern colonial Powers have not acted differently towards the heirs of the great native families of India or Africa. The local chiefs administered the country directly; their cities belong to them, say the Amarna letters. It was the native troops who had to ensure public order and the free 1 XXVII, pp. 68 and 70. > XXVII, 60 7. * Below, p. 290. * XXVII, 61. ° Urk., 690 (1. 10); XVII, II, §§ 467, 434. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 283 transit of caravans and shipping. Pharaoh only occupied with his forces a few strategic points—the fortresses con- structed by Thothmes III to dominate Megiddo' and Kadesh. We may perhaps suppose that permanent Egyptian garri- sons were planted at Carchemish and in the ports which served as bases for Pharaoh’s armies, but in the rest of the country the native levies were sufficient, provided they were supported by a few Egyptian archers or chariot fighters. The khazani often appealed for military support, but the numbers of effectives demanded were not excessive. The Government of Megiddo solicited the despatch of two archers, that of Tyre asked for twenty, that of Byblos for four with twenty chariots. If the matter was particularly ticklish, the figure might rise to 200.7. These Egyptian soldiers certainly played the réle of instructors and served as cadres for the native troops, a procedure which is still applied in the case of our own colonial armies. The maintenance of these nuclei was a charge upon the khazanu, who provided provisions for every body of troops despatched, for every messenger, for every officer of Pharaoh. To these charges, which constituted a sort of military service, must be added the annual despatch of products of the country—cereals, fruit, wines, oil, honey, domestic animals, oxen, goats, and sheep, in the case of agricultural regions; elsewhere bears and lions, which were exhibited in Egypt; in the case of Lebanon, building timbers,’ metals in the form of ore (copper, gold, or silver), as ingots or as products of the smithy, especially vases and utensils, among which the Palestinian workmanship of Kharu and the Syrian of Zahi were distinguished,* rare stones, ivory, lapis lazuli, malachite, emery, firestones, precious essences, incense, spices, and human labour-power (slaves and workmen). All that Thothmes III enumerates among the spoils of his campaigns flowed to Egypt as an annual tribute, secured by written contracts with the khazani and the cities of Kharu, Zahi, and Lebanon, and loaded every year in the ports of Pheenicia.° A further distinctive mark of the situation of the cities or 1 See pp. 273 and 275 above. 2? XXVII, 64. 3 XVII, II, § 436 (Urz., 66). ‘ XVII, II, § 509 (Urz., IV, 718). 5 XVII, II, § 483 (Urz., IV, 700). 284 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST princes in the Asiatic provinces in their relations with Egypt is that they correspond with Pharaoh directly without any intermediary. The letters were composed in accordance with an official formula, the outlines of which were followed with the minimum of deviation. In the opening paragraphs ex- pressions of humble servility are piled up: “To the king, my master, my god, my sun, there is said this: I, khazanu of the city of X, thy servant, the dust of thy feet, and earth which thou treadest, seat of thy throne and stool for thy feet, = Re = — 2 sits ree Vinge = 3 Lar Cd i N cia ; SS Fic. 27.—CANAANITES AND THEIR TRIBUTE. One of them is Carrying an elephant’s tusk, the other a copper ingot of Cypriote type. shoe of thy horses, I roll me seven times on my belly and on my back’ in the dust at the feet of the king, my lord, sun of the heaven. . . .”? Then the correspondent defines his essential duty: ‘*I am the king’s servant, his house-dog, J guard all the land of X for the king, my lord.’”? Next, when all is well, come invariable phrases : ** The country is in good condition, the king’s orders are obeyed, the tribute is des- patched regularly to Egypt.’’? When a difficulty arises, the letter sets forth all the details. Pharaoh’s answers, too, were drawn up in accordance with invariable formule : ** Attention! Guard the king’s * The Egyptian bas-reliefs do actually show Syrian nobles crawling on their bellies or their backs; c/. Breasted, XVI, Fig. 147. 2 XXVII, 61. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 285 city which is under thy authority! . . . The king hath sent to thee X, who is the king’s commissar in the land of Canaan. What he saith unto thee, hearken well thereto, that the king find thee not remiss. ... Attention! Be not forgetful! Prepare food in great quantity, wine and all things for the king’s troops.’? And the concluding sentence sounds like a haughty fanfare : ‘* Know that the king is like the sun in the heavens and that his troops and numerous chariots are in very good condition.’”* Thus Pharaoh busied himself with the affairs of Syria as with those of Egypt. The correspondence was prepared, the files studied, solutions to the problems worked out by the scribes of the Foreign Office staff, but in many cases the king went into an examina- tion of the case in person. Sometimes he summoned the Syrian princes to Egypt to secure fuller information. More often he entrusted the supervision of the execution of his orders to royal messengers. These are called, in the Amarna letters, Rabizu (minister), while the Egyptian texts style them sometimes, like Thutii, ‘‘ the director of all the foreign lands, he who satisfies the king’s heart in every country and in the - isles in the midst of the sea,’’ or, as in Pir ieee the case of Amenemheb, “‘ the mouth of the Canaanrre Kuazanv. king, the eyes of Horus, the ears of the king of the North, the companion of the king, he who is attached to his legs on land and sea and in all the foreign countries.”’? The Amarna letters give the names of some of these messengers, who were often great personages—viceroys of a sort® or com- missars with limited jurisdiction. They inspired great awe and intervened vigorously in difficult cases, but always with the obligation of referring the matter to Pharaoh.* Pharaoh’s messengers contributed largely to Egypt’s renown in the Oriental world; popular literature made them into heroes of romance® and endowed them with supernatural powers. 1 According to a tablet preserved in the Louvre and published by F. Thureau-Dangin in the Recueil Champollion (1922). 2 Urk., LV, 899: 77. 3 Vide infra, p. 305. 4 XXVII, 63. 5 For instance, the moar of the Papyrus Anastasi, XXVII, 86. 286 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST Thus, according to an Egyptian story, Thutii recaptured the town of Joppa when it had rebelled, thanks to a clever strategem and the superstitious dread inspired by the cane of Thothmes III, which Thutii kept by him as a talisman.? Whatever authority the messengers enjoyed, they did not always succeed in settling the disputes. As may easily be imagined, conflicts were frequent among a mercantile and litigious population of varied origin. Khazani and the petty kings of the Egyptian provinces regarded one another with jealousy and were constantly at loggerheads. They appealed again and again to Pharaoh’s messengers and officers. The latter only interfered in the last extremity, sometimes leaving as many as twenty letters unanswered,’ perhaps with studied indifference. Rivalry between the princes and towns which tended to be over-free was all in Pharaoh’s interest; the equilibrium in Egypt’s favour would be maintained thereby. It is clear that the Egyptian administration of Asia economized in soldiers and expenses. It deliberately left to the populations a degree of independence. The political status and usages of each city and country were respected of set purpose; there was no oppression of the vanquished by the victors, not even in the religious sphere, as we shall Shortly see. Pharaoh contented himself with an effective oversight which ensured order and peace for the military security and economic prosperity of Syria as much as of Egypt. In fact, we have here a case of the system of pro- tectorates; for the first time in the history of the East we see its beneficent effects following the brutal conquests, the thoughtless raids, the Systematic massacres, the mass depor- tations, which to the Semites, nomadic or sedentary, had been, and too often will be, the only way of treating vanquished peoples. Pharaoh’s diplomacy was not bounded by the frontiers of Syria. Amenophis III and IV maintained constant relations with the great realms in Asia, which the Amarna corre- spondence has revealed to us. The letters belong or are addressed to the Kings of Babylon, Assyria, and Mitanni, the Great Hittite, and the King of Isi or Alasia. They employ a fixed set of formule stamped with reciprocal * Maspero, Contes, 297. ? XXVII, 70. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 287 courtesy, which attests the existence, already old and con- ventional, of a *‘ language of diplomacy ”’ the terms of which have endured almost unchanged to the present day. More- over, the titular formule are very varied and infused with many shades of meaning, so that the reader can acquaint himself with the degree of power or dependence, as compared with Pharaoh, enjoyed by each correspondent. What attitude in relation to Egypt is adopted by the kings of Babylon, heirs of the former Semitic Empire? Eleven letters from Tell-el-Amarna enlighten us. M. Dela- porte gives a detailed analysis of them in his book, Mesopo- tamia ;' here we shall only insist upon a few essential points. The kings of Babylonia (which was called at this epoch the kingdom of Karduniash) belonged to the Kassite dynasty, which had been able to impose itself on Babylonia without restoring her to her political and military power. They un- questioningly admit Egypt’s suzerainty over that Canaan and that Syria which Hammurabi had once conquered; they even pride themselves on having refused to associate them- selves with Canaanite rebels against Pharaoh. Look at what Burnaburiash writes to Amenophis IV: ‘* In the time of my father, Kurigalzu, a king of Canaan sent to tell him by a messenger: ‘ Let us enter into the city of Karmishat, let us march against Pharaoh by common accord!’ My father sent to say unto him as follows: ‘ Renounce all plans for an understanding with me; if thou wishest to treat the King of Egypt as an enemy, seek another ally. As for me, I will never go; I will never ravage his land, for he is my ally.’ ’” These political bonds Pharaoh wished to tighten by ties of blood—marriage alliances. Amenophis III had married Kadashman-Enlil’s sister. Later he asked for the hand of the same king’s own daughter. The latter refused because he had never had any news of his sister. ‘* How doest thou demand my daughter in marriage, when my sister whom my father hath given thee is there in thy house and no man hath seen her. Is she now alive or dead?’’? Pharaoh replied that it was the messengers’ fault if the Kassite king was ull- informed; but he had difficulty in convincing his corre- spondent, all the more that he resolutely refused him the like favour which he brusquely demanded—the despatch for 1 Esp., pp. 46 7. 2 Winckler, letter 7. 288 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST his harem of an Egyptian princess. Of that refusal Kadash- man-Enlil complains bitterly : ‘* When I demanded the hand of thy daughter, thou hast replied saying: ‘ Never hath the daughter of the King of Egypt been given to anyone.’ When these words were reported to me, I have sent to say to thee what followeth : ‘ If thou sendest her me unwillingly, I prefer that thou send her not at all. Thou bearest not a brother’s affection for me. When thou hadst made me privy to thy intention to consecrate an alliance between us by marriage, I have replied thereto with all the goodwill of a brother. And now, my brother, when I express to thee the desire to ally us by marriage, why dost thou refuse me thy daughter ?’ ’” . In default of wives, Pharaoh sent the Kassites gold; for them that was the price of their humiliation. The kings of Babylon ceaselessly clamoured for the red metal with which the inexhaustible supplies of Abyssinia, Etbaye, and Punt ever filled the Egyptian treasury. **They claimed it by virtue of regular commercial agreements annexed to the marriage treaties. All these Semitic kings of Babylon, Assyria, and Canaan were far-sighted merchants and clever industrialists who did their best to encourage the metal- lurgical industries which had long flourished in their realms. In the hands of tribute-bearers in the Theban temples and tombs we see the very remarkable products of the Syrian and Chaldean workshops; these are vases of gold, silver, and bronze, table-covers decorated with motives copied from the Asiatic fauna or flora, artistically chiselled arms, elephants’ tusks, furniture, stuffs, and jewels ’’ (Fig. 27). Apparently the goldsmiths lacked good quality metal. Egypt could supply it, and cheaply, too, when Pharaoh was willing. And so the kings of Asia had gold imported from Egypt, which they had transformed into works of art and re-exported to Pharaoh, taking a commission. They were very careful to claim their rights and not to allow themselves to be deceived as to the quality of the wares supplied. ‘* The messenger whom thou hast sent me,’’ writes Burnaburiash, **is the bearer of twenty mine of imperfect gold, which, put in the crucible, have not even yielded five mine of pure gold... .’ Or again: ** The gold ingots which my brother 1 Knudtzon, letter 4; cf. AXVII, 77-81. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 289 had not examined, when sent to the crucible to be melted, were returned to me, and the smelter would not accept them. ...’' It is true that the kings of Karduniash sent back, in their turn, caravans loaded with presents—for instance, to bear to Pharaoh the dowry of the Kassite prin- cesses. All too often these caravans were rifled on the way, despite the passports or letters of introduction addressed by the King of Babylon “to the kings of Canaan, the vassals of my brother, the great King (of Egypt),”’ requesting them not to hinder or despoil his messengers, loaded with gifts for Pharaoh, on the road.? Relations with the kings of Assyria were less intimate. However, Pharaoh wrote to them directly, although they were in theory vassals of Babylon. Burnaburiash protests against such encroachment upon his rights as sovereign, and warns Pharaoh not to put his trust in this small people, crafty and ambitious, who were concentrating their forces and pre- paring for a great destiny. ‘The King of Assyria,’’ wrote Burnaburiash, “is my vassal. I need not tell thee why he has come to ask for thy friendship. If thou lovest me, let no treaty be made between you; keep him at a distance.’? But it was in Pharaoh’s interest to keep a balance between his neighbours and conciliate the young people of the future as much as the old people, rich, above all, in their past. A letter from the King of Assyria informs us that written agreements between Egypt and himself were in existence ; he, too, demands a present of Egyptian gold. Mitanni, the dynasty whereof had been planted on the central strategic point of the Fertile Crescent, was also the centre of diplomatic intrigue at this epoch. The Mitannians had apparently been the most stubborn force in the amor- phous mass of the Hyks6és, and then the nucleus of the coalition of Syrian kings against Thothmes III; it was principally with them that the latter fought with fury for twenty years. But unexpected circumstances supervened to incline Mitannians and Egyptians to a mutual alliance. Towards the middle of the fifteenth century the vanguard of a fresh and formidable invasion of the Crescent by Asianic peoples appeared on the horizon. The letters mention the 1 XXVII, 81-83. * Hall, XIX, 265. 19 290 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST presence of Lukki, Shakalasha Shardana, and Danezans in Syria,’ the advance-guard of an irresistible invasion which ran its course in two stages—at the beginning of the reign of Rameses II (about 1300 B.c.) and in the time of Rameses III (about 1200). Through the recoil the Hittites of Anatolia and Cilicia shifted southwards and began to press upon the northern and western flanks of Mitanni. At about the same time on the eastern flank the realm of Assyria was becoming dangerous. Caught between these two adversaries, Mitanni saw her strength and influence waning as her rivals and neighbours progressed. About 1445 B.c. Amenophis II com- pleted the conquests of Thothmes III and invaded Mitanni. ** The great men of Mitanni came to him with their tribute on their backs, to beg of His Majesty the sweet breath of life. That was a great event such as had not been heard of since the days of the gods, when this country which had never known Egypt made supplication to the Good God ”’ (Ameno- phis II). Thereafter a new dynasty appeared (with King Shaushshatar) in Mitanni, perhaps imposed upon that country by the Pharaohs; its policy was based upon a close alliance with Egypt, reinforced by treaties, marriages, and commer- cial agreements. To this policy, which lasted till the end of the XVIIIth Dynasty, Egypt owed the tranquillity of her empire in the days of Amenophis III, and Mitanni the security for existence over against the Hittites and Assyrians. The letters which the King of Mitanni, Dushratta, ex- changed with Amenophis III and Amenophis IV are the most valuable element in the Amarna correspondence. Scarcely twenty years have elapsed since the time when Thothmes IV boasted of crushing the ‘‘ conquered wretch ” of Mitanni. Now Pharaoh pertinaciously woos the daughters of his ‘* old and wretched foe’’; he is pursuing a policy of Mitannian marriages. Thothmes IV wrote to Shaushshatar’s successor, Artatama, to ask for the hand of his daughter; the latter only agreed to the marriage after seven successive messages had reached him. And so the Mitannian princess did not receive the ordinary welcome accorded to foreign princesses—the daughters of the King of Babylon, for 1 Hall, XIX, 260; XIII, vol. VII, p. 40. 2 Inscription of Karnak, XVII, II, § 804. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 291 example. Not only did she enter the royal harem, but she became the great royal wife, the Queen of Egypt, under the name of Mutemuia: the Amarna letters state explicitly! that Artatama’s daughter was the mother of Amenophis III. And so the great Egyptian ‘‘ emperor ’’ had been an Aryan on his mother’s side. That is a fact of the utmost importance,’ which will explain the close union between Egypt and Mitanni and the pro-Asiatic policy of Amenophis III and IV. Moreover, Amenophis III of deliberate choice renewed this blood alliance; although he had already made Tii, daughter of a ** sheik of Zahi’’® his queen, he married Giluk- hipa, Dushratta’s sister, whose hand was granted him after requests six times repeated. And at the end of his reign he espoused Dushratta’s daughter,‘ Tadukhipa, whose betrothal was the object of negotiations reported in full in the Letters. ** Pharaoh sent an ambassador extraordinary, named Mani, the bearer of presents and a royal letter composed in the following terms: *‘ What I send thee at the moment, it is naught, but if thou grantest me the wife whom I desire, presents will come (in greater numbers).’ Dushratta received the ambassador, and, having accepted the presents, sent this reply to the royal suitor: ‘ A great friendship united thy sire and me; now I shall feel even greater affection for thee, his son.’*’ Tadukhipa set out for Egypt under the charge of the Kgyptian ambassador, accompanied by a “* household ”’ com- posed of several hundred Mitannian ladies and a “‘ chapel ”’ for the worship of her national gods. When the health of one of these princesses became imperilled, a statue of the goddess Ishtar was sent to Egypt, which brought to the exile the help and blessing of her country’s gods. Relations between the two royal families were extremely affectionate. Dushratta, hearing of the death of Amenophis III, wrote to his son, Amenophis IV, in these terms: ‘‘ When thy father 1 P. Jensen in XII, vol. XXVIII (1890), 114; c#. Erman, 77d., 112. * It is admitted by Breasted, XVI, 328; and by Hall, XIX, 254; but denied by Maspero, XX, vol. II, 295, n. 2. The testimony of the Letters is, however, irrefutable; Amenophis’ mother was Artatama’s daughter. * This title is given to Tii’s father on a cup published by Hall in XIV, vol. XXXV (1913), p. 63, but the genuineness of this little monument is disputed. * On this subject, see Evetts’ article in XII, vol. XXVIII, 118. Tadukhipa then passed into the harem of Amenhotep IV. 292 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST was going to die, on that day I wept and I fell sick and I was going to die... (but I learned of the accession) of the eldest son of Amenophis and Tii . . . and I said: ‘ Ameno- phis is not dead!’ ”’ Such sentiments were not incompatible with an eye to business. Look how Dushratta, at the same time as he con- ceded his daughter’s hand, demands gold, gold: ‘““To Nimmuria (Amenophis III), the great king, the King of Egypt, my brother, my son-in-law, who loves me and whom I love, Dushratta, the great king, thy father-in-law, who loves thee, the King of Mitanni, thy brother. All is well with me. With thee may all be well, for thee with thy house, my sister and thy other wives, thy sons, thy chariots, thy horses, thy captains, thy country, and all thy possessions ! ‘““In the days of thy fathers they were on terms of friendship with my fathers, but thou hast increased yet more this friendship and with my father thou hast been on most friendly terms. But, to-day, since thou and I are on terms of mutual friendship, thou hast made the bond ten times more close than with my father. May the gods make our friendship prosperous, may Teshub and Amon ordain for ever that that remain so. ‘““As soon as my brother has sent his messenger Mani to say: ‘My brother, send me thy daughter to be my wife and queen of Egypt,’ I have not been willing to wound the heart of my brother and I have ever ordained what was friendly. And after my brother’s desire I have presented her to Mani and the latter has seen her and has been greatly rejoiced thereby. When he has brought her safe and sound to my brother’s land, may Ishtar and Amon grant that she satisfy my brother’s desires. ‘“‘ But I have demanded from my brother a great quantity of gold, say- ing : ‘ More than my brother has sent to my father, let him give and send to me.’ Now, thou hast sent to my father a great quantity of gold and thou hast sent to me only one tablet of gold. ... Oh! let my brother send me gold in great quantity without counting it and more gold than he has sent to my father. For in my brother’s land gold is as common as dust.’’? The rapprochement between Egypt and Mitanni could not be agreeable to the Hittite ‘‘ great king,’? Shubbiluliuma. A contemporary of both the Amenophis, he was to carry through great designs against Egypt after their deaths. However, two letters from Shubbiluliuma to Amenophis IV exist in which reference is made to a treaty between the Hittite king and Amenophis III.. Nevertheless, these letters are curt and dry; they announce the despatch of silver objects and two rare trees and demand other presents in exchange.” On the west, from the coasts of Cilicia to the island of Cyprus, extended the realm of Alasia (or Isi), a coastal and 1 Winckler, letter 17. * Knudtzon, letters 41-42; cf. XIII, vol. VI, 203. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 293 insular zone in which the Pharaohs sought allies and partners for their maritime trade. Cyprus is the land of copper, and so the Letters indicate a brisk import trade in Cypriote copper into Egypt. In the Theban tombs we see a procession of men carrying these ingots or pigs of the metal, the charac- teristic rectangular form of which is exactly that of the actual ** pigs *? found in situ in Cyprus.’ The intimacy of the rela- tions is proved by the following fact : An Alasian having died in Egypt, his personal property there was collected and transmitted to his family, which had remained at home, by Fic. 29.—THE CRETANS’ PRESENTS. (W. M. Miller, ZEgyptological Researches, 1.) a messenger sent expressly for the purpose. The minister (rabisu) of Alasia exchanged gifts and courtesies with the ‘*rabisu of Egypt, his brother.’’ He warned the latter of underhand intrigues which the Great Hittite was conducting with the King of Babylon.* The King of Alasia, for his part, considered himself Pharaoh’s humble vassal; he asks for holy oil for his consecration as king, and also demands metallic silver in exchange for the copper which he exports.* Crete and the Mycenzan world did not escape the political and commercial influence of Egypt. At Tell-el-Amarna itself numerous sherds of Cypriote and Cretan pottery have been found ; on the other hand, the wares exhumed in Crete often exhibit Egyptian decorative motives. In several XVIIIth Dynasty tombs we behold processions of the ‘* Keftiu, the 1 Dussaud, XVIII, 249; cf. Fig. 27 here. 2 XVII, 3385; XIX, 269. 8 XVIII, 248. 294 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST great ones of the isles which are in the midst of the Very Green (Mediterranean),”’ carrying curiously decorated vases, wearing their hair in curls and thin plaits, girt with finely embroidered loincloths, and shod with top-boots ; in a word, dressed just like the people known to us from the frescoes of Knossos. In the tomb of Thothmes IV a fragment of an aragonite vase has been found bearing the note written on it in ink, ‘* Vase of Kefti.’’! At Ialysus in the island of Rhodes, and at Mycene itself, scarabs in the names of Amenophis III and Tii bear witness to intercourse with Egypt. At present (x at SE ee ee EE SE a RN oo Fic. 30.—PHGNICIAN SHIPS ON THE NILE aT THEBES (XXTH Dynasty). there exist about a hundred small archeological documents which have survived as witnesses to the relations between Egypt and Greece in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries.2 We have seen above that vessels from Crete and Byblos were requisitioned by the Egyptian armies to assist the royal fleet in the transportation of troops and captured material. They ploughed the Augean in every direction and sailed up the Nile as far as Thebes, where we see them depicted berthed at the quay and unloading merchandise,’ specimens of which have been found as far away as Nubia. ' XVIII, 282 #f.; Hall, XIX, 291 #.; and XIII, vol. I, 110 7. * Hall, in XIII, VII (1921), 39 #. * Daressy, Revue archéologigue, xxvii. The tomb is attributable to the reign of Rameses III, but there is no doubt that similar scenes were witnessed upon the Nile in the time of the Amenophis. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS bo eo) or IV Tue INTERNATIONALIST Poticy oF AMENOPHIS IV (AKHENATEN) In the days of Amenophis III, therefore, the interpene- tration of the various Oriental civilizations was an accom- plished fact : Babylonians, Mitannians, Hittites, and A‘geans were in communication with Egypt. Intercourse was no longer precarious nor restricted to private individuals, as in the past. After the great clash of arms which had been preceded by the relations of merchants, the kings and their families, their administrators, and their agents became per- sonally acquainted, allied themselves by ties of friendship and marriage, concluded commercial treaties, worked out joint plans of military and commercial expansion, and inter- changed ideas, projects, and opinions in matters of art and in all other domains. A great current of trade and thought, of artistic and economic exchanges, was then circulating between all the capitals—Babylon, Nineveh, Boghaz-Keul, Knossos—and converging like a river with many branches upon the Nile Delta, there to be absorbed in Egyptian civil- ization. For the first time, to our knowledge, in the world’s history men awoke to consciousness of the advantages of universal peace and felt the benefits of a common policy. With one accord, volentes nolentes, they entrusted its guid- ance to Egypt, whose military, political, and economic superiority they recognized. Diplomatic documents intro- duced formule which reflect the amity of peoples and princes—‘‘ to be animated only with a single thought,’’* °° to have henceforth but one heart ’’?—terms which characterize to perfection the progress of spiritual evolution in the direc- tion of a sort of internationalism. Just as there was to be in modern times a ‘* concert of Europe,”’ so in the year 1500 before Christ the ‘‘ concert of the East ’’ was an historical fact. This political union could not be complete without a common spiritual and religious ideal. At a time when the gods presided over all the acts of public life, the peace of the 1 Inscription of Karnak; Egypt and Mitanni. 2 Pap. Anastasi, ii, Pl. 11; Egyptians and Hittites (under Rameses II). 296 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST Orient meant that the several peoples’ gods! had laid aside their arms and concluded reciprocal treaties. In point of fact, Amon and the Osirian triad were worshipped in Syria 7 Sutekhu, who to the Egyptians personified the Syrian Baal or the Hittite-Mitannian Teshub, received a cult on the banks of the Nile, together with other Asiatic divinities, such as Ishtar, Asiti, Kadesh, and Rashuf ;*> such complete toler- ance ruled that during the century of the peace of Egypt no religious conflict has been reported among peoples so different in race, language, and beliefs (cf. Fig. 40). Fic. 31.--WincEep Discs. 1: Egyptian. 2. Hittite, 3. Assyrian. Order in diversity still did not satisfy the Pharaohs. They understood what a potent factor in establishing political unity it would be if they could set up one cult, common to all peoples, of a deity of empire which should be superimposed upon the other diverse cults. In Greater Egypt had they not set up their own statues as objects of worship in Nubia, Sinai, and the Syrian provinces? At Tunep, close to the Euphrates, did not the citizens write that ‘‘ they paid fervent adoration to the gods and the image of the King of Egypt ”’ ?4 That divine character which the Egyptians ascribed to Pharaoh was admitted without question by the Negroes, the Beduins, and the Syrians. What particularly attracted the attention of foreigners was the solar origin of the King of Egypt, ‘* the son of Ra,’’ whose official titles, costume, and * See pp. 328 and 330 below, ? Maspero, XX, vol. II, 570 ff. * AX, Il, 157 #. * XXVII, 70, THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 297 the splendour wherein he lived at Court were constant re- minders of his origin in the luminary. The Syrians, when they wrote to Pharaoh, called him ‘‘ our Sun ”’; foreign kings, striving to imitate him, had themselves also called ‘* Sun ”’ by their subjects and took that title in their ceremonial inscriptions. An emblem characteristic of the Egyptian monuments—the solar disc with two wings—was eagerly adopted by the Hittite, Assyrian, and Babylonian kings and adorned their monuments and seals (Fig. 31). In this cult ‘of the Sun, worshipped both in his celestial form as the luminous disc, and in his human manifestation—the sovereign—the Asiatics recognized one of the chief Semitic gods, Shamash, and the Egyptians the great god of the sky, Ra. Hence at the Egyptian Court support was given to the idea of raising to the dignity of god of empire the Sun-god, so that the master of heaven and the master of men might be confused in one worship. It is since the reign of Amenophis III, the great Emperor of the united Orient, that we observe the growth in Egypt of the worship of one of the Sun’s forms—Aten, the solar disc, whose name recalled Adonai, the ‘*‘ Lord’’ of the Semites. As we shall see in greater detail in The Nile and Egyptian Civilization, Aten was promoted by Amenophis IV to the rank of chief god, if not sole god, in the Egyptian pantheon. The fierce resistance offered by the priests of Amon-Ra at Thebes did not prevent the religious reformation: the king broke down all opposition, drove Amon from his temples, and the priests from their offices, and, to mark the final character of these unprecedented events, changed his name and his capital. Henceforth he called himself Akhenaten (Khunaten)—‘‘ he-who-pleases-Aten ’’—and his capital (on the site of the present Tell-el-Amarna) was Akhetaten, ‘‘ the horizon of Aten.’? The images of Amon and his triad and their very names were obliterated from bas-reliefs and in- scriptions ; in their places on public monuments the image of Aten stood forth, represented by a disc, the rays of which drooped down to earth like arms terminating in hands (Fig. 32), to embrace his creatures and hold out to them the sign of life.’ The significance of this reform would escape us had we 1 See below, pp. 312 f. 2 XXVIII, 56 7. 298 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST not had the good fortune to discover in the tombs of Amarna some extracts from the ‘‘ doctrine’? which Akhenaten taught in honour of his new deity. These are hymns which the king himself sang to extol the beauties, the benefits, and the profound wisdom of Aten. The king’s intentions seem to have been these—to offer to the Egyptians’ adoration a deity who was no longer merely local, peculiar to one town, nor exclusively national in character, but who incarnated the essential force of Nature and thus might exact universal worship. To this end the king chose the sun, one of the primitive elemental deities of mankind, whose power, beneficent to some, terrible to others, seems nowhere more absolute than in the lands of the East. This god was no longer presented to men in the form of a faleon; he is depicted as a radiant dise, a picto- graphic sign, a hieroglyph, which all men, Egyptians or strangers (even we moderns), could read and understand at a glance. Aten, who personifies movement and warmth, is the beneficent, life-giving father of all that exists—earth, water, plants, animals, men of Egypt and foreign countries. That was the essential point which the hymns sung by Akhenaten emphasize :} ‘*“ Thou risest beautifully on heaven’s horizon, O Aten, initiator of life ! ‘* When thy orb shineth in the east, thou fillest the earth with thy beauties. ** Thou art delightful, sublime, radiant high above the earth. Thy rays envelope the lands and all that thou hast created. Since thou art Ra (creator), thou winnest what they give and thou bindest with bonds of thy love... . *“How numerous are thy works! Thou hast created the earth in thy heart (what time thou wast alone), the earth with men and beasts great and small, all that existeth on earth and walketh on its feet, all which liveth in the air and flieth upon wings, the foreign countries (Khast) of Syria (Kharu), (and) of Nubia (Kush), (and) the land of Egypt (Qemz). “Thou settest each man in his place, creating what is needful for him, all with their inheritance and their Property, their languages, differing in words, their forms different too, their skins (different in colour). For, O Divider, thou hast divided the foreign peoples. “* How excellent are thy designs! There is a Nile in the heavens for the foreign peoples and all their beasts that go upon feet, and the Nile cometh from the lower world for the land of Egypt.? * Breasted has made a special study of these texts, see his translation in XVI, 371. For the text cf. N. de G. Davies, The Rock Lombs of El-Amarna, vol TIT, Pl XXVIz. * For the foreign peoples the water falls from heaven; for the Egyptians it comes up out of the earth. THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 299 ‘* Thou hast created all forms, thou alone, the nomes, the cities, the fields, the ways, the waters. Every eye beholdeth thee above; for thou art the disc of the day above the earth. .. .” And so Akhenaten’s god drew no distinction between strangers and Egyptians; all men are in the same degree his sons and must regard themselves as brothers. In the hymn it is very remarkable that foreigners—Nubians and Syrians— should be named before the Egyptians. For the first time in the world a king appeals to strangers, in addition to his own people, to worship the universal benefactor. For the first Fic. 82.—AKHENATEN ADORING ATEN. time religion is conceived as a bond which unites men differ- ing in race, language, and colour. Let us compare Akhen- aten’s hymn with that of Pepi I quoted on p. 185. What progress in the comprehension of human brotherhood! Once Pharaoh jealously regarded Egypt as the one marvel of the world; now his horizon is enlarged to embrace the bounds of the civilized universe. All men therein are sons of the sun and consequently sons and subjects of Pharaoh. Who can fail to see the close correlation of these humanitarian ideas with the imperial policy of Egypt in the 1 A. Moret, XXVIII, 62 7. 3800 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST fifteenth century? What was the object of Akhenaten’s reform? To offer the solar monotheism to the intelligence of the upper classes and the instinctive reverence of the people. Now, in religious policy monotheism means im- perialism.' If the Aten cult had been adopted, as in Egypt, by the Near East as a whole, that would have been a triumph for Egyptian imperialism. Such must have been Akhenaten’s ambition. At the same time as he established his capital in Egypt at Akhetaten he founded south of Soleb in Nubia the city of Gem-Aten—* that-which-finds-Aten ” **-_and in Pales- tine, perhaps in the neighbourhood of J erusalem, Khinateni,® another Akhetaten. These cities, sacred to the new god, erected in foreign lands, could-have no other meaning than that of cities of empire. But so far we have no information as to the welcome which the Syrians and Nubians gave to this propaganda in favour of Aten. The imperialistic intentions of the *‘ doctrine’? are unveiled in the final phrase of the hymns. After exalting the god of the whole of mankind, the king concludes : “Thou art in my heart; there ewists none other who comprehendeth thee save I, thy Soman, iO thous) we who, when thou risest, makest all men to live, who, when thou settest, makest them to die, raise them up for thy son who is sprung from thy flesh, Akhenaten.” So only the King of Kgypt is left as the qualified mediator between Aten and humanity. He alone understands the teaching of Aten, and through him alone the divine benefits will be extended to the men of Nubia, Syria, and Egypt. Mystic and altruistic enthusiasm are here mingled with political astuteness and national egoism. There is one god for all men, but this universal god is, above all, Egyptian in function; he has but one inspired interpreter, Pharaoh, who will be confused with Aten in the adoration of the empire’s peoples. In creating a religious monopoly in favour of the solar disc, Akhenaten had understood that the peoples of the empire needed a common ideal above political and com- mercial interests. It seems, indeed, that he had attempted to press to such extremes the grandiose conception of a world + Breasted, The Earliest ‘nternationalism (1918). * Breasted, XII, vol. XL, 116. * Winckler, Letters, 196, THE CONCERT OF NATIONS 301 empire. In this he was distinguished from a Sargon or a Hammurabi, who did not attain the same degree of compre- hension of the great problems of international policy. If the empire of the East were ever near realization before Alexander and the Cesars, it was in the time of Amenophis IIIf and Akhenaten. CHAPTER III THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE AND THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH AND OF THE SEA I THe Hyirrrres 1n MIranNnrI AND EGYPTIAN SYRIA Tue Egyptian Empire, at its zenith about 1400 B.C., no longer existed in 1860 at the end of Akhenaten’s reign. How did this sudden collapse come about? It was due to a radical change, which dissolved at once the internal foundation and the external support of that political edifice. At home—that is to say, in Egypt—the religious revolu- tion with internationalist tendencies, directed by Akhenaten against Amon and his priesthood, encountered very fierce opposition on the part of the sacerdotal class, supported by popular feeling, which had remained traditionalist. In our book The Nile and Egyptian Civilization we shall describe the miserable end of the Aten cult, the ruin of the new capital, Akhetaten, and the restoration of the worships of Amon at Thebes under the last kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty, Tutankhamen, Ai, and Horemheb (1862-1321 B.c.). This reaction was nationalist as much as religious. Akhen- aten and his partisans were regarded as traitors and foreigners ; in a document of the XIXth Dynasty the memory of the internationalist king was stigmatized with the epithet **the conquered one (kheru) of Akhutaten,’*! just as if he had been a Hyksés or a Hittite. Egypt, we need hardly say, was convulsed and greatly weakened by this half century of violence. Tutankhamen confesses that on his accession (about 1860 B.c.) ‘* the land was in an abominable state and like to the world in the time of the primordial chaos.” And so when troops were despatched ‘‘ to Zahi to enlarge the frontiers of Egypt, they never had any success.’”? The internal troubles, therefore, had as their immediate con- sequence the ruin of the Pharaohs’ military power in Syria. * Loret-Moret, Znscription de Més in XII, XXXIX, 12 and 24. * Stele published by Legrain, IV, XXIX, 164. 302 THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE — 303 Abroad about the same epoch Egypt’s ally Mitanni dis- appeared from the political stage ; it was absorbed by a State already long established in the Halys basin and in Cilicia— that of the Great Hittite,’ whose capital was at Boghaz-Keui. There recent excavations have brought to light diplomatic archives comparable to those of Tell-el-Amarna, but more rich; nearly 20,000 documents written in Babylonian cunei- form (and to a lesser extent in Hittite hieroglyphics) reveal the political history of the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries before our era.” It is significant that these treasures have been discovered among a people new to Oriental history. Henceforth for nearly a century (roughly from 1360 to 1260 B.C.) it is the kingdom of the Hittites and not the Court of Egypt that becomes the political centre of the Eastern world, the point where plots are woven and broken, and where forces clash and come to equilibrium under the inspiration and guidance of vigorous and resolute statesmen. We refer the reader to M. Delaporte’s book for a more detailed account of the Hittites’ history, and we note here only their relations with their mighty competitors in the Oriental world. The Hittite dynasty emerges from the obscure back- ground of history about 1420 B.c. with Khattusil I (the Great Hittite), father of Shubbiluliuma,’® founder of Boghaz-Keui, the ‘* royal town of Khatti,’’ who began to reign about 1870 B.c., at the end of the reign of Amenophis III. The Hittite king had united several tribes or kingdoms into a solid State. He was beginning to experience the pressure of Indo-Euro- pean tribes coming from the north, but was strong enough to divert the stream and direct it southwards. He was him- self preparing to descend from Cappadocia through the **Cilician Gates,’? across the Taurus, and along the Kuphrates to the Plain of Naharina, where he would seize the keystone of the arch of the Fertile Crescent. For the execution of his designs he possessed numerous soldiers, archers, pikemen, and chariot fighters, well armed with * This is the expression used by the Egyptians, as we say ‘‘ the grand Turk” or ‘‘the Great Mogul.’? The word ‘‘ Hittite” appears as khatt? in Babylonian and Ata in Egyptian. * Cf. Meissner, Zettschrift der deutschen Morgenland Gesellschaft (1918), pp. 82-64; ‘‘ Die Beziehungen Ai gyptens zum Hattireiche nach hattischen Quellen.” ® Called Sapallulu by the Egyptians. 304 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST APPROXIMATE SYNCHRONISMS OF THE REIGNS BETWEEN 1450 AND 1850 B.C. B,C. | EGYPT MITANNI | BABYLONIA ASSYRIA | KHATTI 5 Ee Nas BEE a 1450 | Thothmes III, 1501-1447 | Amenophis IT, ee Pee 1440 1430 | ie | 1420 | Thothmes IV, Kara- Ashur- | Des 1455 Indash I Uballit IT, | 1418-1370 | Amenophis | III, 1415-13880 1410 Kadash- ; man-Enlil Khattusil 1400 | 1390 Dushratta Burna- | buriash 1380 | Amenophis IV (Akhenaten), 1380-1362 ‘ Shubbilu- liuma 1370 1360 | Tutankhamen, |} Mattiuzza 1362-1350 Kurigalzu Aranda ! III Muril 1350 | Ai, 1850-1845 weak nobel, Sth he chill Mey ah gr bronze lances and swords and equipped with shields, rect- angular or drawn in at the sides in the shape of a fiddle (‘* Pontic ”’ type), with all the endurance and strength of a race of mountaineers. In Mitanni, Shubbiluliuma en- countered King Dushratta, who had taken precautions against the storm and relied on his alliance with Egypt. At first Dushratta repulsed the Hittites; he even sent his brother-in-law, Amenophis III, a chariot and horses as part of the spoils. But his adversary went to work by means of indirect attacks. He plotted with the Mitannian king’s own brothers, who had sought refuge at the Hittite Court, and with the Amorite chiefs of Lebanon. The latter, moun- THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 305 taineers intolerant of all subjection, eagerly seized the oppor- tunity of ridding themselves of Pharaoh’s protectorate. Thereafter the concerted intrigues of the Great Hittite, Dushratta’s brothers, and the Amorite princes came to sap the authority of the Kings of Mitanni and Egypt and to compass their simultaneous ruin. The Amarna letters contain a long report dealing with the conflict of a certain Amorite chief, Abdashirta, and his son Aziru, with Ribadda, the khazanu of Byblos, who had remained loyal to Egypt towards the close of the reign of Amenophis III. Abdashirta took Simyra by surprise, and, despite the despatch of Egyptian troops, let Mitanni be occupied by the Hittite king, who deposed Dushratta and deported the population to Cappadocia. But Shubbiluliuma did not want a conflict with Egypt; after the death of Amenophis III he wrote to his son Amenophis IV to con- gratulate him on his accession, and pretended to respect the Pharaohs’ hegemony. Amenophis IV, whether through in- difference or impotence, was not wise enough or not strong enough to act effectively. He allowed Dushratta to be crushed by the Hittites, and Byblos to be attacked by Aziru, with whom the chiefs of Arvad and Sidon were allied. He did not bestir himself when the revolt spread to Palestine, and Abimelek, Pharaoh’s Governor in Jerusalem, wrote to tell him: ** All the king’s land is rushing headlong to destruction.”’ Nay, further; when the Egyptian governor of North Syria, Yankhamon, sent some troops to restore order, the Kgyptian Foreign Office, misled by treacherous reports, allowed Aziru (who had had Ribadda assassinated) to come and make his excuses before Pharaoh. The conclusion of this imbroglio was as follows: Aziru, having made a formal submission to Akhenaten, returned from Egypt with the powers of a provincial governor. He had been able to keep his independence over against the Pharaoh, but, according to the Boghaz-Keui archives, he no longer retained it in respect of the Hittite king. The latter treated Aziru as a vassal and constrained him to make a treaty of alliance and submission. As for Mitanni, its King Dushratta was at length assassinated by one of his brothers. Shubbiluliuma * Moret, XXVII, 65; Niebuhr, ‘‘ Die Amarna-Zeit” (Alte Orient, 1903). 20 OF THE EAST FIRST EMPIRES 306 “SLOA(ANS SIH AM IdADY AO ALV) AHL LV ACAWOOTAM SI ‘SAAILAVD) ALINOWY AG GAaIOINd ‘J ILaAS— col x | Se ee L} Bs = ry ON a, ° = ete hitiy,. - i ae G BY, fn He, x Ge 3 SANZ, ANRC Via ROONEY CRASS) nn Ci Lr Iii ie ALE [Xe Bess a iy LN Ms i a 3 Ss GCE mii! f = ~E et EG \f : rauNe Gy PRS . Ss SMES Sy | THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 807 set Mattiuzza on the throne of Mitanni, compelled him to marry his daughter, and so made a vassal of his son-in- law. Thereafter the Mitannian dynasty was extinguished; Naharina, together with Carchemish and Aleppo, was occu- pied by the Hittites, who advanced south as far as Kadesh. At the end of Akhenaten’s reign Egypt, exhausted by her religious quarrels, could not reply. Syria (Upper Lotanu) was in the hands of Hittites; Palestine (Lower Lotanu) was abandoned to the Amorites and the Khabiri, nomads, prob- ably the ancestors of the Hebrews, who were not to attain the social life of a State till three centuries later. This actual situation is confirmed by the documents un- earthed at Boghaz-Keui. There can be read a curious letter from a Queen of Egypt, Dakhamon . . . Tutankhamen’s childless widow. She asks the Great Hittite to send her one of his sons—he had many—to become her husband. Thus the widow of Akhenaten’s son-in-law and successor hoped to consolidate her position in Egypt, and probably to preserve the throne, if only she could obtain a Hittite prince as consort and support. The reversal of the situation is typical. The Hittite power was, moreover, recognized in a formal pact; the treaty concluded by Rameses II recalls that there had been a regular treaty between Shubbiluliuma and a king of Egypt whose name is not given, but who can only be one of the immediate successors of Akhenaten (see p. 326 below). What was the frontier between the two countries? We do not know, but Kadesh being in the hands of the Hittites, it can only be concluded that Syria was no longer an Egyptian province. II Seti I AND Ramesss II in Conruict witH THE HITTITES The advance of the Hittite realm became a danger to Egypt all the more menacing as counterbalancing forces were. lacking in Asia. Babylon in the hands of the Kassites re- mained inert; Assyria was still far from formidable; the Atgean peoples, whose strength was mainly on the sea, 1 Letter quoted by King in XIII, IV (1917), p. 193. 3808 =FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST threatened the coasts of Egypt more than the continental frontiers of the Hittites. When, therefore, Horemheb (1345-1321 B.c.) had re- established the royal authority in Egypt and founded the XIXth Dynasty, he certainly took in the gravity of the situation, but the restoration of order in Egypt absorbed almost his whole attention. We do not know whether he tried to do anything in the direction of Asia, although the Fic. 84.—TuHe ‘‘ PRINCES OF LEBANON ’’ FELL PINES FOR Seti I. pictorial monuments represent him receiving tribute from the Hittites and some Hau-nebu.! The work of Thothmes III had to be begun all over again, for the Shasu (Beduins) and the Khabiri were now disputing the possession of Palestine and had reduced to nil Pharaoh’s authority in this province that the Hittites had spared. With Seti I (1319-1300 B.c.) begins a very strenuous military effort to re-establish the Egyptian Empire in Asia. We can trace its progress, thanks to a long series of very excellent pictures engraved by the XIXth Dynasty Pharaohs on the walls of the temples in Upper Egypt, especially at Abydos, Luxor, Karnak, and Abu-Simbel. 1 XVII, III, § 34. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE _ 309 In the eighth year of his reign (1319) Seti I attacked the Shasu. He dispersed the bellicose tribes, captured the little fortresses in Canaan, crossed Carmel, and on the farther side of the Jordan set up a frontier stele in the massive of Hauran.' Retracing his steps, Seti occupied the ports and reorganized the ‘‘ naval bases’’ which should allow him to carry his military operations into Upper Lotanu. Then Seti I returned overland to his frontier town of Zalu (Fig. 33), driving before him “‘ the princes of the land of the Shasu and the Kharu,”’ chained by the neck, some of whom were sacri- ficed upon the altar of Amon.” The Egyptians had become masters of Lebanon once more, and the mountain princes Fic. 85.—HITTITE AND SYRIAN PRISONERS OF SET! I. had to begin again to have the fine pines felled to be des- patched as tribute to Pharaoh (Fig. 34). As in the time of Thothmes III, the Egyptians set out from the reconquered naval bases for the attack upon Upper Lotanu. In one expedition, the exact date of which is missing, Seti I occupied Kadesh* and the land of Amurru. For the first time the Egyptians came to grips with the Hittites; a battle was fought which resulted in an Egyptian success. Unfortunately we have no interesting details about the initial contest between the two great military powers of the day. The reliefs of Karnak only enumerate the princes of Lotanu and the Hittite chiefs (Fig. 35) among the captives 1 XVII, III, § 81; XIX, 356. 2 XVII, III, §§ 95-119. *° M, Pézard discovered a stele of Seti I on the site of Kadesh in 1922. 310 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST who defiled before Amon.' It is not improbable that a treaty was concluded between Seti I and the Hittite King Mutallu. In any case, the Hittite penetration was arrested south of the Orontes, and the Egyptian protectorate was re-established in Palestine and on the coasts of Pheenicia. The accession of Rameses II in 1800 B.c. brought to the throne of Egypt a young, ambitious, and warlike king whose long reign (1300-1234) was marked by events of decisive import. To be near these provinces of Lotanu, which he hoped to restore to their former prosperity, Rameses founded a city bearing his name, Pi-Rameses, on the site of Pelusium and Avaris; he made it the political capital of the Delta and the seat of the administration for the provinces of Palestine and Syria.’ In the second year of his reign we find Rameses II on the coast between Tyre and Byblos, carving triumphal stele on the precipices of the gorge of the Nahr-el-Kelb, a small coastal stream that leads across Lebanon to the upper valley of the Jordan. It is a way of access to Ccele Syria less practicable than the Nahr-el-Kebir (Eleutheros), the direct route from the port of Simyra to Kadesh. Undoubtedly the use of the Nahr-el-Kelb means that the Nahr-el-Kebir was in the hands of the Hittites.* Mursil or his son Mutallu (for the Hittite chronology is here uncertain) prepared for a decisive struggle for the supremacy in Syria. The situation had been aggravated on the frontiers of the Hittite realm. Since the Achzan invasion towards the end of the fifteenth century had substituted for the Cretans’ civilization and hegemony, the preponderance of the Mycenzans, the maritime and warlike tribes of the western coasts of Asia Minor, Phrygians, Mysians, Lydians, Carians, and Lycians, yielded to the impulse emanating from the opposite side of the Hellespont, abandoned their seats in disorder, and gained, either by land routes or by sea, the coasts of Cilicia, the islands of the Aigean, and the shores of * XVII, III, §§ 147-152. * See Gardiner’s exhaustive study, “‘ The Delta Residence of the Rames- sides ” in XIII, V (1918), pp. 127 ff. * Lepsius, Denkmailer, III, 197, a-c; cf. XVII, III, § 279. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 9 311 Phoenicia and Palestine. Even in the days of Akhenaten the Amarna letters had already mentioned the presence of Danauana (Daneans)' and Shakalasha, or Sheklal,’ at Simyra, of Shardana, or Shardanes,* at Byblos, and of Lycians (Lukki) on the roads and coast of Syria.* Like all robust and brave barbarians who filter into lands of old civilization, they hired out their strength to the highest bidders, sometimes taking service under Pharaoh, sometimes accepting the pay of the Amorite princes or the Hittites. Towards 1800 s.c. the gradual infiltration developed into a steady migration, for the archives of Boghaz-Keui and the Egyptian texts suddenly reveal a dozen peoples of Asia Minor grouped round the Hittite army in Naharina. Then appear for the first time in history those names made famous by the Homeric poems—Pidasa (Pedasians),° Masa (Mysians), Dar- danut (Dardanians), Iliwna (men of Ilion), Kirkisha (men of Gerges in the Troad), beside the Lycians and the Danzans.° The cohesion of these tribes is striking ; they seem all to come from the Troad.’ It really looks as if a relatively homo- geneous population had emigrated in a‘compact mass towards the Fertile Crescent, under the pressure of the Achzan peoples coming from the opposite shores of the Hellespontine Straits. Wedged in between these people of the Troad and the Egyptians, the Hittites found themselves in an awkward predicament. But Shubbiluliuma and his sons were experi- enced politicians and possessed a fine army. Powerless to expel the newcomers, they bound them by contracts and utilized them as mercenaries. With the petty kings of Naharina and the Lower Orontes, already broken in to diplomatic methods, Mutallu concluded treaties, some of which have been discovered at Boghaz-Keui. The Hittite kings had been able to array against Egypt one of those political and military partnerships to which modern history gives the name of coalitions. Mutallu writes 1 Maspero, XX, II, p. 860, n. 1. * Probably come from the regions of Sagalassos to the north of Pisidia (XX, II, p. 359). * From the district of Sardes in Lydia (XX, II, p. 860, n. 2). * XX, Il, p. 359, n. 3. * From Pedasos in the south of the Troad (/i/ad, VI, 34). 6 XVII, III, §§ 306, 349. 7 XXXIII, p. 454. 3812) FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST to the King of Aleppo, Rimisharrima, to remind him that his father, Mursil, had already concluded a pact with him, but the copy of the pact had been destroyed. So he sends him another tablet, sealed with his seal, containing the following clauses: ‘“The Sun,’ the great king, shall be the ally of Rimisharrima, King of Aleppo, and Rimisharrima, King of Aleppo, shall be the ally of the Sun, the great king, the King of Khatti. The sons of the Sun, Mursil, King of Khatti, shall be the allies of Rimisharrima, and he of them. ... And we, sons of Shubbiluliuma,? the great king, altogether and with our houses shall act as one in these circumstances. The gods of Khatti and the gods of Aleppo are witnesses thereof,’’ Other treaties of the same sort were no doubt made with the kings of Naharina, Carchemish, Kodi (Cilicia), Kadesh, and Arvad, who, according to the Egyptian texts,+ were allies of the Hittite great king. The treaty with the kingdom of Kizwadana, situated to the west of Khatti, was still more precise. This realm, which seems to have lain between Assyria and Khatti, was the object of quite exceptional watchfulness. In the time of Khattusil it had belonged to Khatti; subsequently it had recovered its independence and had been joined to the kingdom of Kharri. Mursil had succeeded in attaching to his policy Shumashurra, the King of Kizwadana, and had bound him by a treaty of sixty-four articles, which included a clause providing for a military alliance. ‘If I, the Sun, commence war upon any foreign country, be it Kharri, be it Arsawa, then Shumasharra will give 100 equipped’ horses. and 1,000 foot-soldiers, he shall fight in the army of the Sun. Their expenses en route, until they fight in company with the Sun, shall be provided for them by the Sun.” Such was the truly formidable coalition which Mutallu had been able to assemble against Rameses II. The strength of the army thus constituted lay in the number and the blind courage of these barbarian masses, but a real weakness re- sulted from its inexperience in scientific warfare and its lack of homogeneity. To it Rameses opposed a smaller but more ' The Sun, the title taken by the Hittite king. On this see above, p. 296. * The King of Aleppo was therefore a son of Shubbiluliuma. ® Meissner, /.c¢., 35-36. XVII, III, § 306. That is to say, chariots with their complement of three combatants each. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE © 313 compact army composed of four corps, the division of Amon under the direct command of the king, and the divisions of Ra, Phtah, and Sutekhu. To this Egyptian militia were joined Sudanese black troops,' “the Young Recruits of Amurru,’’? and some Shardana mercenaries.2 The latter, only recently incorporated in the Egyptian army, still kept their original armament—a long iron sword, a round shield, Fic. 86.—THE SHARDANA IN THE SERVICE OF RAMESEs II. and a metal casque surmounted by horns and a crescent— but they had adopted the twisted loincloth and the leather cuirass of the picked troops among the Egyptians. Their tall stature, fairness of skin, regularity of feature, and small moustaches excited surprise among the people of the Nile, and so the sculptors loved to depict them on temple walls (Fig. 36). The Pharaohs put into the field against the bar- barians other barbarians, a fact which invests the clash of the two armies with a special interest. The campaign con- * The texts from Boghaz-Keui call them ‘“‘ the troops from Melukha.”? * Derived in the first place from prisoners of war, XVII, III, § 307. 314 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST ducted in the fifth year of Rameses II (1295 s.c.) culminated in the Battle of Kadesh, the first of the world’s great battles of which we have a detailed account.’ The Egyptian army set out from Zalu at the end of April, 1295 B.c., and after a month’s march at a pace of at least twelve and a half miles a day reached the latitude of the forts near Beirout. There ‘‘on the coast of the land of Amurru”’’ it established its bases for commissariat and depots for men and munitions, and advanced to the valley of the Upper Orontes, probably by way of the Nahr-el-Kelb. It marched down-stream without opposition and reached ** the heights to the south of Kadesh.”’ Kadesh, on the site of the present Tell Nebi-Mandth,? is a fortress perched on the top of a hill on the left bank of the Orontes at the confluence of a stream, a little south of the present Lake of Homs. The route followed crossed from the right to the left bank by a ford at the village of Shabtuna, six and a quarter miles above Kadesh. The banks are precipitous, towering above the river to a height of 100 feet, and only leave one narrow passage, through which war- chariots could advance but slowly. Seen from Shabtuna, Kadesh on its hill forms a screen which masks a wide stretch of the horizon. Behind this screen Mutallu with all his forces was awaiting Rameses in silence. Reaching Shabtuna, Rameses, who knew nothing about the enemy’s position, was misled by two sham deserters sent expressly for this purpose by Mutallu.? ‘* Two Beduins (Shasu) came to say: ‘Our brethren, who belong to the greatest of the families among those that are with this defeated one of Khatti, would be the slaves of Pharaoh and abandon this defeated one of Khatti. Now this defeated one * All the aspects of this battle have been studied with great erudition by J. Breasted, The Battle of Kadesh, and XVI, III, §§ 298-351. * See the photograph of the country as it looks to-day given in the account of the archeological exploration carried out by J. H. Breasted in 1920, and published in the American Journal of Semitic Languages (July, 1922), p. 272. * The account of the battle of Kadesh has been preserved in two series of texts: first, a sort of Official Bulletin engraved on the walls of the temples beside the bas-reliefs illustrating the battle; second, a poetical account, called the Poem of Pentaur from the name of the scribe who has transcribed it on to papyrus. The translation will be found in Breasted, XVII, III, §§ 305 7. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE = 315 of Khatti is encamped in the country of Aleppo, north of Tunep ; for he fears to come south because of Pharaoh... .’ Now, these were lying words that the two Shasu spake, for the defeated one of Khatti had sent them to see where His Majesty was and to contrive some trick to prevent His Majesty’s soldiers from fighting. ... And this conquered one of Khatti had come with all his chiefs from every country, with infantry and chariots, and was drawn up ready for battle behind perfidious Kadesh; but His Majesty knew naught thereof. Then His Majesty came down into the plain and arrived to the north-west of Kadesh,’’' where Rameses pitched his camp. This, then, was the situation: Rameses, believing the hostile army 100 miles farther north, crossed the ford of Shabtuna to take up his position beyond Kadesh, so as to cut off the town from any communication with the relieving army and to begin the siege in perfect security. For the occupation of this advance post he had taken with him only his bodyguard (the Shardana), and the division of Amon, the body of the army, delayed by the ford, where the chariots proceeded in single file, and also by the narrow way through a forest on the left bank between the ford and Kadesh (the Forest of Bay), was following in divisions with intervals between them. ‘* The division of Ra was (only) crossing the stream south of Shabtuna, at a distance of one iter (approxi- mately four miles) from the [division of Amon]... the division of Phtah was (still) to the south of the city of Aranami, and the division of Sutekhu was following on the march.’*? However, Rameses sent a patrol in the direction of Kadesh (which was occupied by a garrison of the enemy). It brought back two Hittite scouts. Pharaoh, who was resting on his electron throne, cross-examined them himself.° ‘Who are you?” ‘* We belong,’’ answered the Hittite scouts, *‘to the defeated one of Khatti. ’Tis he who has sent us to see where His Majesty was.’’ His Majesty replied: 1 XVII, III, §§ 319-20 (Bulletin). The following quotations indicated by paragraphs are based upon XVII, III. 2 §310 (Poem). 3’ Not without having them soundly flogged to make them speak the truth, an episode represented on the reliefs in the temples, § 330; cf. the drawing in XX, II, p. 392. 316 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST ** Then where is he, the defeated one of Khatti? I had heard that he was in the country of Aleppo.’’ They replied: Lo, the defeated one of Khatti is in readiness with the numerous mountaineers (Khastiu) whom he has brought with him to conquer, with all the countries of all the districts of the land of Khatti, of the land of Naharina, and of Kodi in their totality. They are provided with infantry and chariots, all well armed, and as numerous as the sand grains on the beach ; they are waiting, ready for battle, behind Kadesh the perfidious. . . .” This report filled the king’s tent with consternation ; the council of chiefs was called together to hear the confessions of the Hittites. Rameses interrogated his officers. ‘* Look you, how the chiefs (both Egyptian and Asiatic) have acted ! They have told Pharaoh that this defeated one of Khatti was in the land of Aleppo and that he had fled before His Majesty on learning of his approach! And this is what I hear at this hour from these scouts, that this defeated one of Khatti has come with men and horses as numerous as the sands, and that he is drawn up behind Kadesh the per- fidious. And the officers of this country, like those of the land of Pharaoh, knew naught of it!’? Then the officers began to make excuses, laying the blame upon subordinates. ‘* Orders were given to the vizir to hasten (the arrival) of His Majesty’s soldiers, who were stil] on the march south of Shabtuna, to bring them thither where His Majesty was.??! On the temple reliefs we see a horseman starting off at a gallop in search of the divisions that had remained behind. While Rameses was holding a council meeting, Mutallu was acting. He had manceuvred his left wing round Kadesh to keep out of sight of his foes, and on the right bank of the Orontes he was massing his chariots for the attack. ** He ordered his men into their chariots, a multitude more numerous than the sands, to the number of three men to each chariot, one of the three being a Hittite.’> Mutallu knew how to wait for the most favourable moment; that came when he saw the division of Ra debouching from the Forest of Bay. “Then he sent them across the river south ' Bulletin, §§ 321-324. * Champollion, Monuments de lEgypte, I, Pl. 18, p. 68. % Poem, § 370. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE | 317 of Kadesh, and they made their way among His Majesty’s soldiers, who were on the march and who understood nothing (of what was happening). Then His Majesty’s infantry and chariots gave way before them and fled northward right to the spot where His Majesty was.’ eo ae pie Sy KADESH Ne CS Ai j i ox Ke : ; - en a en % rc 1 £25 ZZ HITTITE 3 1 ZH MINS Liz, A & Gy Mays BARMY 1 RCT ae } cf sme %, ‘ Ls Uf \s HS ak! fit wv liz {’. 2500 MiestaG ~S& Hittite Chariots Mat ry \v Nig, MMOH Ney HAUL RA tte IW NHOU s Q Q ° 9 Coe MED a © 0 zdpy| jo == Ses ° o5=f/0O=—> + 0°90 20 2° o> f[HS >= eS © 0e°0 o> cl > <0 t A o> oS oe? Ke OF = ie Ae be oe pape ier tee a EL OF = Q ° © = — = OOS oe AL 7 . ° ote Pee ROY RY A == Anttnitnyy,, Egyptian army on the march Map VII.—THE BaTTLe oF KADESH, (After Major Burne.) We can well imagine the division of Ra dispersed along the route in marching order at the end of a weary stretch. Surprised upon its right flank by the thunderous, terrifying charge of 2,500 chariots in four groups? launched like a whirl- wind, it offered no resistance. The poem admits that (the Hittites) “* cut in two the division of Ra, which was marching 1 Bulletin, § 325. * Figure given in the Poem and the reliefs, §§ 312-336. 818 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST all unconscious and quite unable to reform its ranks for battle.’’? The fugitives from the division of Ra poured pell-mell into Rameses’ camp, with the Hittite chariots hard on their heels ; the result was frightful confusion. It is a miracle that Rameses and his whole advance guard were not captured or cut to pieces. Although the texts are silent on the point, it may be inferred that the story of the Battle of Megiddo 150 years before, which is the usual story of Oriental battles, repeated itself: the Hittite mounted troops arriving at Pharaoh’s camp had no thought but plunder, and let slip their prey while grasping the shadow. Rameses had time to arm himself for battle. ‘‘ When His Majesty saw that, he was filled with rage against them, like his father Mentu of Thebes. Taking his panoply of war, the king with his own hands seized his coat of mail and was like to Baal in his hour. He went himself to fetch his horses and brought them up in haste, being all alone. And he went among the ranks of the enemy, the men of this defeated one of Khatti. And His Majesty was like unto Sutekhu, the great one of valour. He began to cut and hack about among them, he drove them headlong, falling one over another, right to the waters of the Orontes. ‘I have conquered all the lands when I was quite alone, when my foot-soldiers and my chariots had abandoned me. No one of them returned. I swear, as Ra loves me and my father Tum favours me, that all that My Majesty has said above, I have done it in very deed in the sight of my foot-soldiers and my chariots!’ ’’? (Fig. 37). However much exaggeration is to be allowed for in this ending of the official bulletin, it is clear from all the docu- ments that Rameses kept his head and valiantly exposed his person with the decision, the courage, and the strength of a boyish hero. But it is no less certain that he would in the end have been overwhelmed by the Hittites in their chariots, had not the latter been surprised, in their turn, by the timely arrival of fresh Egyptian troops. That is clearly shown by the reliefs in the temples. At the conclusion of the council held in the camp, messengers on horseback and the vizir himself in a chariot had rushed to meet the delayed divisions. Avoiding being overtaken by the rout of the second division 4-8 Slik 2 This is the end of the Bulletin, §§ 325-327. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE § 319 ‘HILLVG FHL NI [TI SISHWVY—' LE “OT Fed UE ch i fe s i y My 3 j pies Lee Mi Vir ay aay ee J i VERT Ti AG); y 820) FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST (Ra), the messengers and the vizir succeeded in joining the third division (Phtah) while it was in the Forest of Bay, and shouted: ‘*‘ Forward, Pharaoh your master [is attacked ].’”! On the other hand, in the Forest of Bay marched also a corps of *‘ Pharaoh’s Young Troops (Naluna) from the land of Amurru,”’’ coming, no doubt, from the depots of the coast where the army’s bases lay. These troops, in good order and composed of young soldiers full of ardour, quickened step, and, debouching from the forest, saw the tumultuous combat in the camp, where the Hittites were plundering, the Egyp- tians flying, while Pharaoh was fighting heroically in a corner of the field of battle. The unexpected arrival of the **Young Men’ and of the third division transformed the Egyptian rout into a Hittite defeat.? Let us leave the texts on the bas-reliefs to tell the tale. ‘Arrival of Pharaoh’s Naluna from the land of Amurru. They found that the soldiers of the defeated one of Khatti had [invaded] His Majesty’s camp on the west side when His Majesty was left alone with no soldiers with him, since the soldiers of the (first) division of Amon, with whom His Majesty was, had not finished pitching camp, and the soldiers of the (second) division of Ra, with the soldiers of the (third) divisions of Phtah, were on the march, their troops having not yet come out of the Forest of Bay. Then the Naluna cut in pieces the enemy belonging to the vile defeated one of Khatti when the latter entered Pharaoh’s camp. And Pharaoh’s officers slew them (too) without letting a single one of them escape.’”® It is strange that Mutallu did not renew his attack after the arrival of the Egyptian reinforcements. The reliefs in the temples show us the rest of the Hittite army, all ready to intervene, drawn up in “ two divisions of 9,000 soldiers and chariots behind the defeated one of Khatti”’ ; some soldiers left the ranks to rescue the fugitives from the beaten army. But ‘‘ Mutallu stood before his soldiers and _ his chariots, his face averted, his heart dismayed. He came not forth to fight through fear of His Majesty, since he had seen §§ 333-334. * This has been well brought out by Max Burchardt in Reder “ A°gypten und Hethiter”’ (Die Alte Orient, 1919). See also the very lively commentary on and criticism of the battle by Major Burne, in XIII, VII, pp. 191-195. 3 § 340. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 321 His Majesty victorious over the defeated one of Khatti and all the princes of all the countries who were with him.’ However, beneath his eyes Rameses and his soldiers, now victorious, were throwing the Hittites into the river. There perished, cut down or drowned, the chiefs of the mounted forces and of the archers, the commander of the Hittite guard, the driver of Mutallu’s chariot, even one of his SO a , WIPER MAIS A INL NV \) so ip. ,. rf S CESS NEID : UNNI INNA 4 Val Aya Wh NK AINA XK KA a _- yo > Fic. 88.—THE HITTITE RESERVES RESCUING THE FUGITIVES ON THE BANK OF THE ORONTES. brothers, the scribe of his archives, and other notables. The garrison of Kadesh succeeded with great difficulty in drag- ging some out of the water. We see the luckless prince of Aleppo held aloft head down by his own soldiers, to enable him to vomit up the water which he had swallowed? (Fig. 38). The final success of the Egyptians was not disputed. Mutallu, seeing night coming on and fearing the unexpected arrival of the (fourth) division of Sutekhu, was unwilling to embroil his reserves and yielded up the field of battle. 1 § 338. * This prince of Aleppo is probably the Rimisharrima of the Hittite sources. 21 822. FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST Such was the famous battle, which bears no sort of resemblance to the frontal attacks and the single combats of the earlier epochs. Here the strategy of the chiefs and the troops’ capacity for carrying out manceuvres played a no less decisive part than the strength and courage of the combatants. A point to be noted is that the Hittites rather than the Egyptians give proof of foresight, skill, and resolu- iu y I i on SS Re > pre Fic. 89.—THE EGYPTIANS STORMING DAPUR. tion. Nevertheless, the discipline of the old troops and the spirit of the young king had redeemed the imprudence of the Egyptian General Staff, which lacked the sense to spy out ahead a hostile land or to cover its line of march. The final result is that the battle was indecisive and only a victory for Rameses IT in the obviously biassed Egyptian documents. * * It looks as if a long despatch, unfortunately much mutilated, from the archives of Boghaz-Keui refers to the battle of Kadesh. In it there is a question of fact to be settled (as to the alleged Egyptian victory?), great armies of the King of Egypt and of Khatti, three corps of troops on the march (the three Egyptian divisions which took part in the action?), the THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 323 The poem copied by the scribe Pentaur! magnifies all the episodes of the battle and turns them to the glory of Rameses. At the moment when Pharaoh finds himself alone in his camp, which is given over to Hittite plunderers, he turns in spirit to his house’s god and asks him imperiously if he, too, has deserted him. ‘““Who art thou, then, my father Amon? A father forgetful of his son? ... I call upon thee, O my father Amon! Behold me here in the midst of peoples so numerous that no man knoweth who are the nations leagued against me and I am all alone, none other is with me! My numerous soldiers have deserted me, none of my chariot-fighters hath regarded me when I have called upon them; not one of them hath heard my voice when I cried to them. But I found that Amon is worth more to me than a million soldiers, than a hundred thousand chariots, than a myriad brothers or young sons; for numbers of men count for naught, but Amon prevaileth against them.” While the voice was echoed unto Hermonthis,? Amon arose at my bidding, he stretched out his hand towards me, he uttered a cry of joy when he hailed me from behind: ‘‘ Face to face, face to face with thee, Rameses Meriamon, I am with thee! ’Tis I, thy father! my hand is with thee and I am worth more to thee than hundreds of thousands. I, the strong one who love valliance, I have recognized a courageous heart, and my heart is satisfied.” Then (continues Rameses), ‘‘ I am like to Mentu. To the right I hurl my spear, to the left I seize the enemies. I am as Baal in his hour before them. I have encountered two thousand five hundred chariots, and as soon as I am in the midst of them they are overthrown before my steeds. Not one of those men hath found courage for combat, their hearts fail them in their breast, fear paralyzeth their limbs. They know not how to launch their darts and have no longer any strength to hold their lances. I hurl them into the waters as the crocodile plungeth therein; they are prostrated face downwards one upon the other and I am slaying in the midst of them. He who falleth riseth not again. And so they say one to the other: ‘ This is not a man who is amongst us, it is Sutekhu the great one of valour, it is Baal incarnate.’ ’’® The real result of the battle came to this: Kadesh was not taken, Rameses returned to Egypt to celebrate his **triumph ”’ and sacrifice some prisoners before Amon. In the following years Syria and Palestine as a whole rose against Egypt. Rameses II had to reconquer the western horn of the king sitting on his throne (like Rameses II in his camp), the black troops of Egypt, the army of Amurru (the Young Men?), the King of Aleppo, etc. ; cf. Meissner, /.c., pp. 37-42. 1 Discovered by Champollion on a papyrus from Aix-en-Provence. See the bibliography given by Maspero, XX, II, 396. 2 Former sanctuary of Mentu, south-west of Thebes. 3 Maspero’s translation. 824 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST Fertile Crescent step by step. We find a siege of Ascalon and the storming of Dapur in the land of Amurru depicted in great detail on a bas-relief in the Ramasseum (Fig. 39), and a campaign in Naharina in the vicinity of Tunep, a city where the statue of the king of Egypt had been a traditional object of adoration since the days of Thothmes III.! It took sixteen years, from 1295 to 1279 B.c. to bring these cam- paigns to an unstable conclusion. However, Mutallu had died; his brother, Khattusil II (1290-1255?), had replaced him upon the throne. Other perils were looming in the east and resulted in a change in the orientation of Hittite policy. Ill Tue Ecypto-Hirtirt ENTENTE The rivalry between the Hittites and the Egyptians in the west of the Fertile Crescent was only one episode in the history of the Oriental world in the thirteenth century B.c. ; another rivalry was beginning to manifest itself in the east, in Mesopotamia—that between Assyria and Babylonia. For a detailed account of these events I refer the reader to M. Delaporte’s book in the History of Civilization. I will merely remark that, after centuries of waiting and restrained ambition, the kings of Assyria at the beginning of the thir- teenth century possessed the forces necessary for an aggres- sive policy. Not only did they free themselves from the suzerainty, long fictitious, of Babylon, but Shalmaneser I (1290-1260 B.c.) conquered Diarbekir on the Upper Tigris, crossed the Euphrates, and captured Carchemish, at least for the time. Thus the Hittite realm was attacked on the flank by a vigorous adversary with fresh and already formid- able resources. The contest for hegemony in Syria came thereafter to take a second place in the concerns of Khattusil ; it was the Assyrian peril which seemed the most menacing. Hittite diplomacy immediately set to work. Against Assyria the natural ally was Babylon, the former suzerain of Assur. Khattusil If had already addressed himself to Kadashman-Enlil II to remind him of the old alliances 1 §§ 352-366 ; cf. p.296, supra. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE § 3825 between the Hittites and the Kassite dynasty at the moment when Rameses II was seriously threatening Syria. Khattusil reminded the young king that on the death of his father, Kadashman-Turgu, he had himself written to the nobles of Babylon, urging them to recognize Kadashman-Enlil. Khattusil complained that the Assyrians and Arameans had interfered to slander him at Babylon. He repeated that there had been a treaty of alliance and fraternity between Kadashman-Turgu and him, and quoted the following instance : ‘““ After the King of Egypt and I were incensed against one another, I wrote to thy father in these terms: ‘ The King of Egypt is at war with me.’ Then thy father wrote to me: ‘If the troops of the King of Egypt come, then I shall go with thee, and . . . I will come in the midst of my soldiers and of my chariots.’ Thus thy father was ready to come. And now, O my brother, thy warriors call for thee, and say: ‘ Let us go with the warriors and the chariots.’ ’” But the latter does not seem to have procured a military intervention by the Babylonian forces against Egypt; even in face of Assyria, Babylon confessed herself impotent. The consequence was that Khattusil looked forward to the conclusion of hostilities with Egypt, so as to be able to husband all his forces for use against the Assyrians and to secure if possible the support of Pharaoh in return for an equitable division in Syria. This ‘‘ reversal of alliances,’’ carried out with decision by Khattusil, culminated in 1279 B.c. in the famous peace treaty with Rameses II. It is the first diplomatic instrument of international high policy that human archives have preserved to us. This very important monument has by good luck come down to us in a very satisfactory state of preservation. The Egyptian version, engraved upon the walls of Karnak and the Ramesseum at Thebes, has been known since Champollion’s time. The recent excavations at Boghaz-Keui have brought to light two copies of the Hittite version written in the Babylonian tongue.” 1 Meissner, /.c., 45; Langdon, XIII, VI, p. 202. 2 Ibid., pp. 45-57. A fresh comparison of the two versions, which sometimes diverge from one another in phraseology together with a study of the historical conditions of the treaty, has recently been undertaken by Gardiner and Langdon, ‘‘ The Treaty of Alliance between Hattusil and 3826 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST The treaty dates from the middle of the twenty-first year of Rameses II. It was negotiated at Boghaz-Keui between the Hittite and Egyptian plenipotentiaries. The final text, written on a silver tablet sealed with Khattusil’s seal, was carried to Pi-Rameses in Egypt by the Hittite messenger Tarteshub and the Egyptian messenger Rames. This Hittite text leaves the initiative to Khattusil, who formulates the proposed clauses; Rameses figures in it only in a secondary role. Approved by Pharaoh and Amon, it was deposited in the archives and engraved just as it was on the walls of Thebes and elsewhere. On his part, Rameses had the counterpart written out by his Babylonian scribes; this was the Egyptian text, in which he takes the initiative and the first place, Khattusil occupying only a subordinate place. The text includes most of the phrases of the Hittite minute, but omits the personal details referring to Mutallu and intro- duces a few trifling modifications. Copied out on a silver tablet stamped with Pharaoh’s seal, the Egyptian text was despatched to Khattusil and, after the approval of Teshub, was inscribed upon bricks and deposited in the archives where it was rediscovered by Winckler.? Here is a translation of the version preserved in Egypt, that in which Khattusil takes the initiative : I. Preamble.—In the twenty-first year on the twenty-first day of the first month of winter under His Majesty the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Usermara-Setepenra, son of Ra, Rameses-Meriamon .. . on this day when His Majesty was in the city of Pi-Rameses . . . then came the messenger of the king . . . and the messenger of Khatti.. . bringing (the silver tablet) which the great chief of Khatti, Khattusil, had sent to Pharaoh to ask peace from His Majesty Rameses. Copy of the silver tablet which the great chief of Khatti, Khattusil, has sent to Pharaoh by the hand of his messenger Tarteshub and his messenger Rames. I]. Y7¢le.—Treaty which the great prince of Khatti, Khattusil the strong, the son of Mursil, the great chief of Khatti, the strong, the son of the son of Shubbiluliuma, the great chief of Khatti, has made on a silver tablet for Usermara-Setepenra, the great ruler of Egypt, the strong, the son of Men- mara,* the great ruler of Egypt, the strong, the son of the son of the son of Menpehtira :* a genuine treaty of peace and fraternity giving peace (and fraternity between us by means of a treaty of Khatti with Egypt) for ever. SS SNE Ont LD AE NOT ALOT CREE Se TASES AT NT EE Rameses II” in XIII, VI, pp. 179-205. I summarize here the results of this admirable study. Cf. also Reeder, “ Ac gypten und Hethiter,’ pp. 36 ff., and XVII, III, §§ 367 7. * Langdon, Jl.c., 199-201. a Seta eh, $ Rameses I. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 327 Ill. Previous Treaties.—In the past and from all eternity as concerns the situation of the great ruler of Egypt and of the great chief of Khatti, god had not permitted that there should be war between them thanks to a treaty. But in the time of Mutallu, the great chief of Khatti, my brother, the latter warred (against Rameses-Meriamon), the great ruler of Egypt. And so, henceforth, dating from this day, behold, Khattusil, the great chief of Khatti, has made a treaty to render permanent the situation which Phra has created, and which Sutekhu has created for the land of Egypt with the land of Khatti so as not to allow of hostilities existing between them for ever. IV. Present Treaty.—Then Khattusil, the great chief of Khatti, has him- self made a treaty with the great ruler of Egypt, Usermara-Setepenra, to date from this day to establish a real peace and a real fraternity between us for ever. And he is in fraternity with me and at peace with me, and I, I am in fraternity with him and at peace with him for ever. And the children’s children of the great chief of Khatti shall be in fraternity and at peace with the children’s children of Rameses-Meriamon, the great ruler of Egypt, being in our position of fraternity and peace. And the land of Egypt with the land of Khatti is at peace and in frater- nity, as we are for ever, and hostilities shall exist no more between them ever. V. Mutual Prohibition of Invasion.—The great chief of Khatti shall not invade the land of Egypt to plunder anything there ever; and Usermara- Setepenra shall not invade the land of Khatti to plunder anything there ever. And as to the regular treaty which existed in the time of Shubbilu- liuma, the great chief of Khatti, and likewise with the regular treaty which existed in the time of Mutallu, the great chief of Khatti, my brother, I will uphold them. Behold then, Rameses-Meriamon, the great ruler of Egypt, upholds the peace made between us from this day, and we will act in con- formity with this regular situation. VI. Defensive Alliance against an Enemy Abroad.—lf any other enemy come into the lands of Usermara-Setepenra, the great ruler of Egypt, and if he send unto the great chief of Khatti to say: ‘‘ Come with me to aid me against him,” the great chief of Khatti shall come with him, the great chief of Khatti shall slay his enemy. But if it be not the will of the great chief of Khatti to come (in person), he shall send his soldiers and his chariots and shall slay his enemy. VII. Common Action against Rebellious Subjects.—If Rameses-Meriamon, the great ruler of Egypt, have cause for anger against his own subjects, and if they do any act of offence against him, and if he set out to slay his enemy, the great chief of Khatti shall act in conjunction with him to destroy anyone against whom they have cause for anger. VIII, IX, X. (Here follow reciprocal clauses providing for Rameses’ help against an attack from abroad or a revolt among Khattusil’s subjects and a mutilated clause relating to the succession to the throne in the two countries.) XI. Extradition of Important Fugitives—lf{ a great lord flee from the land of Egypt and come to the land of the great chief of Khatti, or if it 828 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST be a city or a district belonging to the territories of Rameses-Meriamon, the great ruler of Egypt, that comes to the great chief of Khatti, the great chief of Khatti shall not receive the same, The great chief of Khatti shall have him brought to Usermara-Setepenra, the great ruler of Egypt. XII. Extradition of Common People.—Or if it be a man or two men whom none know at all, who flee . . . and if they come to the land of Khatti to be the servants of another, they shall not be tolerated in the land of Khatti, but they shall be brought to Rameses-Meriamon, the great ruler of Egypt. XIII-XIV. (Reciprocal clauses relating to Hittite refugees.) XV. The Hittite and Egyptian Deities Witnesses to the Treaty.—For all the words in the treaty made by the great chief of Khatti with Rameses- Meriamon, the great ruler of Egypt, written on a silver tablet, lo, for all these words a thousand deities male and female of those of the land of Khatti, with a thousand deities male and female of those of the land of Egypt, they are with me as witnesses to these words; the sun, lord of heaven, the sun of the city of Arinna.? Sutekhu, lord of heaven, Sutekhu of Khatti (then follow eleven other Sutekhus), Astarte of the land of Khattj (here follow ten other deities), the queen of heaven, the gods, masters of the oath, the goddesses mistresses of the oath, the mistress of the oath Ishara, the mistresses of the mountains and the rivers of the land of Khatti, the deities of the land of Kizwadana, Amon, Phra, Sutekhu, the deities male and female, the mountains and rivers of the land of Egypt, the heavens, the earth, the great sea, the winds, the clouds. XVI. Comminatory Clause against Anyone who does not observe the Lreaty.—All these words written on this silver tablet of the land of Khatti and the land of Egypt, whosoever shall not observe them, a thousand gods of the land of Khatti and a thousand gods of the land of Egypt shall destroy his house, his land, and his servants. On the other hand, whosoever shall observe these words which are on this silver tablet, be he Hittite or Egyptian, and whosoever shall not neglect them, a thousand deities of the land of Khatti and a thousand deities of the land of Egypt shall cause him to be in good health and to live, him and his houses and his land and his servants. XVII. Amnesty for Persons Extradited.—lf a man flee from the land of Egypt, or two or three, and if they come to the great chief of Khatti, the great chief of Khatti shall arrest them and shall have them sent to Usermara- Setepenra, the great ruler of Egypt. But, as for the man who shall be brought to Rameses-Meriamon, the great ruler of Egypt, let not his fault be imputed to him, nor let his house nor his wives nor his children be destroyed, nor let his eyes, his ears, his mouth, nor his limbs be injured,? nor let any accusation be brought against him, XVIII. (Reciprocal clause respecting Hittite refugees.) * Patron deity of the Hittite royal family; Arinna lies to the south of the Anti-Taurus on the river Sarus in Cappadocia. * Mutilations included among the judicial penalties. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE = 329 XIX. Description of the Silver Tablet.—This is what is in the centre of the silver tablet : oO Obverse : a figure consisting of a likeness of Sutekhu embracing a likeness of the great prince of Khatti encircled by a legend saying: Seal of Sutekhu, the ruler of heaven, seal of the treaty made by Khattusil, the great chief of Khatti, the strong, the son of Mursil, the great chief of Khatti, the strong. What is within the border which frames the relief is the seal of Sutekhu. Reverse : a figure consisting of a female likeness of the goddess of Khatti embracing a female likeness of the princess of Khatti encircled by a legend saying: Seal of the Sun of the city of Arinna, lord of the land, seal of Pudukhepa, princess of the land of Khatti, daughter of the land of Kiz- wadana priestess (?) of the city of Arinna, mistress of the land, servant of the goddess. What is within the border which frames the relief is the seal of the Sun of Arinna, lord of the whole land. (C/. Fig. 40.) Such a document speaks for itself ; we need not emphasize the tone of perfect equality and sincere fraternity which has been established quite naturally between the haughty Pharaoh and the ‘‘ defeated wretch of Khatti,’’ nor on the ingenuity and complexity of the phraseology providing the prototype for subsequent treaties of the world’s history. Let us just note the final clause, in which the deities of the cities and those of Nature participate as witnesses to and guarantors for the treaty ; in this respect at least we are still within the mental environment of primitive peoples. Above the armies drawn up for battle and the diplomatists seated at the council table we perceive the great divine figures created by the imagination of Hittites and Egyptians, some- times struggling in mortal combat, sometimes treating one another as allies and brothers. In the archives of Boghaz-Keui we have good written evidence which leaves no room to doubt that this pact re- flected the secret desires of the two allies. It is curious that no geographical delimitation of frontiers should have been laid down in the treaty. We shall admit with the majority of historians that the Hittites kept Syria as far south as Kadesh, while the Egyptians retained Palestine and the coastal towns as far north as Byblos or thereabouts. But it may apparently be inferred from this very omission that Rameses and Khattusil wanted to give themselves the 330 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST illusion and, above all, to make the rest of the world believe that their forces were thenceforth indissolubly united and that their two empires would form but one for ever. Such is the conclusion warranted by several letters dis- covered at Boghaz-Keui. One emanates from the Egyptian Queen, Naptera. She writes to “her sister,’? the Hittite Queen Pudukhepa, heiress to the land of Kizwadana, whom Khattusil respected almost as an equal : “* I (Naptera), thy sister, am well and my land is well. As for thee, my sister, mayest thou be well and may thy land be well. Now, I have heard that my sister has written to me to have news of me and that she has written The god Teshub in , : Egyptian dress. Kadesh. bracing the king O Khatti. Fic. 40.—HITTITE AND SyRIAN DEITIES. to me about the situation of true peace and true fraternity of the great king, the King of Egypt, with the great king, the King of Khatti, his brother. May Ra and Teshub raise up thy head. Ra shall grant, for good, peace and true fraternity between the great king, the King of Egypt, and the great king, the King of Khatti, his brother, for all eternity. As for me, I am in the friendship of sisterhood with the great queen, my sister, and I am so to-day for all eternity.’”? The same tone is sounded in a letter sent by Rameses II to the King of Mira (a country in Asia Minor which cannot yet be exactly located): ** Know that the text of the oath which I have sworn for the great King of Khatti, my brother, is laid at the feet [of the god Teshub], and the i mrt et eal he Oe ee, ee 1 Meissner, J.c., pp. 59-60. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 331 great gods are witnesses thereto. Know that the text of the oath which the great King of Khatti has sworn for me is deposited at the feet of Ra, and the great gods are witnesses thereto. I am faithful to this oath and I shall not put it aside. As for thee, believe not the false words thou hast heard [on this subject]. Know that in the true condition of peace and fraternity in which I now am with the great King of Khatti, I will abide therein for all eternity.’” Khattusil pursued the same tactics with his neighbours. He wrote to the King of Babylon, Kadashman-Enlil IT: ““ The King of Egypt and I have contracted an alliance and have become brothers. We give you to know what follows: ‘ We are brothers and we will be the enemies of our common enemy, and the friends of our common SELON Sy cst Then Khattusil shows against what enemy this alliance with Rameses was directed and in what direction he expects to carry the King of Babylon: “I have learnt that my brother has now become a man, and that he is passionately fond of hunting. I am greatly rejoiced that Teshub has rendered prosperous my brother’s posterity. For this reason march and ravage thy enemy’s land. When I hear that my brother has slain his enemy, then shall I say of my brother : ‘ He is a king who knows how to bear arms.’ Let not my brother hesitate, let him march against his enemy’s land. Slay the enemy. ... March against a land in comparison wherewith thou art three times, four times superior,’’® No doubt Assyria is here referred to, but it was a long journey for the messengers who went from Naharina to Babylon, and they had to travel along the Assyrian frontiers ; despatches were often intercepted. And so Khattusil men- tions no names; but each saw clearly into the other’s game. Besides these political relations, commercial transactions were not overlooked. The Hittites possessed mines, and the Hittites were in voluntary or forced relations with those Asianics to whom the Achezans and the Dorians from Europe were bringing iron and then steel, those metals, hitherto almost unknown among Oriental peoples, which were going to revolutionize armaments and industrial equipment and prepare the way for changes in the supremacy. Rameses II, who was fully alive to the importance of such questions, had written to Khattusil to secure iron from the land of Kizwa- dana. Khattusil replies with more or less sincerity : 1 Meissner, /.c., p. 58. 1 700d... |p. 00, 2 loid.,.p. 60. 3832 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST ‘““As for the pure iron about which thou writest to me, I have no pure iron in my magazines in Kizwadana. The moment is not opportune for the manufacture of iron. Nevertheless, I have written ordering the manufacture of pure iron. As yet it is not finished, but, as soon as it is, I shall send it thee. To-day I send thee only an iron dagger.’” Such good relations must, as in the days of the entente with Mitanni, culminate in an alliance by blood. In the thirty-fourth year of his reign (1266 B.c.) Rameses II married one of the daughters of Khattusil, whom the Hittite king conducted in person right to Egypt. Never before had any great king of Asia made such a journey, which surpassed the normal limits of Court politeness and smacked strongly of an act of vassalage. The impression produced in Egypt was profound and is reflected in the official documents. On a great stele in the temple of Abusimbel the god Phtah of Memphis quotes, among the signal benefits which he has accorded to the king, the fact that ‘** the land of Khatti was among the subjects of his palace.’’ ‘“T have put it in their hearts to come themselves with their tribute which their chiefs have levied as first fruits of their own possessions for thy person. His eldest daughter? is at their head to satisfy the heart of Thy Majesty. Mysterious marvel, she knows not the amiable design which I have brought to fruition for thy desire.... Nothing (like thereto) had been heard of since (the time) of the gods. Secret annals exist in the libraries from the days of Ra to Thy Majesty, but that the land of Khatti should conceive its destiny with a single heart with Egypt, that had never been known.’ The full account of Khattusil’s journey* to Egypt is engraved upon the walls of the portico of Abusimbel. Rameses recalls that Khattusil had once demanded a permanent peace (“‘ from year to year’’), and that he had planned to send him presents with his eldest daughter. A papyrus of this epoch describes in poetic style the supposed preparations made by Khattusil. The latter had written to the prince of Kodi (Cilicia) to say : ‘* Make thee ready that we may go to Egypt. The word of the god has been made manifest ;° let us make overtures to Rameses, He gives the breath of life to those whom he loves and so every land is at his disposal and Khatti is in his power alone: if the god receive 1 Méissner,'J.2., p. 61. * Khattusil’s daughter. * Cf. XVII, III, § 410 (Lepsius, Denkmaler, IIT, 194). * The text is unfortunately in a bad state of preservation and inadequately published (Lepsius, Denkm., III, 196, and Bouriant in IV, XVIII, 164; cf. Breasted, American Journal of Semitic Languages (Oct., 1906), p. 8, and XVIII, III, §§ 415-428. * That is, Teshub had authorized the journey and the marriage. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE = 333 not his offerings, Khatti shall not see the water of heaven again; for it is in the power of Rameses.”* Then Khattusil will set on the march with his daughter and his vassals and a whole retinue and a convoy of vehicles. When they arrived at Zahi, the Egyptian administrators wrote to Pharaoh to get instructions: ‘‘ Behold, the great prince of Khatti arrives with his daughter and many presents of all sorts. And behold the prince of Khatti and the prince [of Kodi and the men] of Khatti are bringing them after traversing many mountains and difficult ways to reach His Majesty’s frontiers.’’? His Majesty received this message in his palace with joy in his heart and having heard such strange and unexpected news, he gave orders to his army and princes to receive the visitors in haste. Then he took counsel with himself and said: ‘* Who are these new arrivals? Now, a messenger cannot go to Zahi at this season of rain upon the high mountains in winter !” Then he went to take counsel of the god Sutekhu, him ‘‘ who makes rain and cold on the [mountains].’? The oracle reassured him and soon the Hittite company “‘ arrived safe and sound and marching quick step. The daughter of the great chief of Khatti was marching at the head of the army [of Pharaoh], and all were mingled with the foot-soldiers and the horses of Khatti, and all, Hittite warriors and Egyptian soldiers, [welcomed with feasts] ate and drank face to face without fighting. ... Then the great chiefs of all the lands came and prostrated themselves before His Majesty.”’ The marriage was celebrated forthwith. Rameses gave the princess the rank of great royal wife with the royal cartouche and a solar name. Henceforth she was called ‘© The-great-one-who-sees-the-beauties-of-the-Sun *’ (Urtmau- neferura). At the top of the stele which describes the marriage—a stone marriage notice the text of which spreads over forty-one lines along a length of 100 metres—Rameses, seated on his throne in a naos, is receiving the worship of his new wife, dressed in Egyptian costume, and of the great Prince of Khatti, who has kept the long robe and pointed tiara of his country (Fig. 41). From the marriage of Rameses with the Hittite princess one daughter was born. In a letter discovered at Boghaz- Keui the hope is expressed that Rameses may some day bring her to the Hittites’ land, where she would be given a kingdom.*® We do not know whether this family visit was paid. In any case, an inscription drawn up in the Persian period has preserved the memory of the despatch of a 1 A survival of the belief in the king’s magic power of making rain. 2 Pap. Anastasi, II, Pl. 2, i, 1-5; Maspero, XX, II, p. 404; cf. XVII, IIT, § 426. A description of the Hittite cortége is also given on a stele discovered at Coptos; cf. XVII, III, § 428. 3 Meissner, /.c., p. 63. 8384 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST magician and a god to the land of Bekhten (Naharina?) to cure Bentresh, the royal princess of the country.’ The Prince of Bekhten (he is called the Great Hittite), who has given his eldest daughter, Neferura, to Pharaoh to be his bride, implores the aid of his mighty son-in-law and ally to deliver one of his daughters who had stayed at home from an evil spirit which possessed her. The magician whom Pharaoh first sends loses his science abroad. Then the king sends from Thebes the statue of the god Khonsu with a great retinue. After a journey lasting a year and five months Fic. 41.—TuHeEe HITTITE KING AND HIS DAUGHTER ADORING RAMESES II (ABUSIMBEL). Khonsu is brought before the possessed princess, exorcises the demon, and compels him to flee, though not without eranting him honourable terms of capitulation.” The event was regarded as legendary until the discovery of the Tell-el- Amarna letters. They contained evidence that such inter- changes of doctors, magicians, and healers between the sovereigns of Thebes and Babylon and their Asiatic allies were common occurrences and that at times the deities came in person. In his last sickness Amenophis III had implored that the goddess Ishtar, ‘* the dear lady of Nineveh,”’ might come to him. Questioned by Dushratta, she had graciously said: ** I am willing to go to Egypt, the land which my heart loveth.’? Dushratta accordingly sent her, with the prayer that she might grant his dear friend a hundred thousand years of life.* The stele of Bentresh describes in the guise of 1 Stele of the princess of Bekhten from the temple of Khonsu at Karnak (Champollion, WMotices descriptives, II, 280). 2 Cf. Maspero, Contes populaires, p. 185; XVII, III, §§ 432-437. 3 Cf. Niebuhr, ‘‘ Die Amarna-Zeit”’ (in Die Alte Ortent, 1903), p. 16. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 335 a legend a similar episode in the family relations between the Court of Rameses II and that of the Hittites (cf. Dela- porte, Mesopotamia, p. 284). To recapitulate, then, we may say that for half a century —roughly from 1279 to 1250 B.c.—the entente between the Courts of Thebes and Boghaz-Keui had replaced the Egyp- tian Empire by an Egypto-Hittite condominium which, honestly worked, seems to have established peace in the East. However, the deaths of Khattusil (about 1255 3s.c.) and of Rameses II (about 1284 3B.c.) coincided with a sudden and profound enfeeblement of this hegemony on two sides. Khattusil’s son Dudhalia, and his grandson Arnuanta, were sovereigns without glory, whose authority and possessions crumbled away so completely that after them the Hittite kingdom, in a sense, disappeared from history (1255-1200). The Boghaz-Keui archives cease abruptly after Khattusil’s reign ; it does not look as if this cessation was fortuitous; as in the case of Tell-el-Amarna, it is to be explained by the total eclipse of the royal administration. At the same time the Assyrians, led by Tukulti-Inurta I (1260-1240 B.c.), crushed the Hittites’ ally, the dynasty of Babylon, occupied the old capital for seven years, and began to restore the union of the Semitic peoples in Mesopotamia. To the north and west they set foot in Commagene and on the banks of the Upper Euphrates, attacking the southern Hittite provinces on the flank. However, it was not the Assyrians who struck the first decisive blow at the kings of Boghaz- Keui. Once more the irresistible, but to some extent name- less, power of a vast migration of peoples swept away the attempts at empire and introduced fresh elements into Oriental politics. * G. Contenau, ‘ The Hittites” in Mercure de France (Mar. 1, 1922), p. 386. 336 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST IV Tue PEOPLES OF THE NORTH AND OF THE SEA IN THE EAST It was towards the end of the thirteenth century— roughly from 12380 to 1195 B.c.—that a new wave in the migration of Aryan peoples come from Europe broke upon the coasts and maritime provinces of Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. There are no texts to enlighten us as to the causes or origins of the invasions, but archeological data afford abundant testimony to a general upheaval in the Mediterranean world. During the course of the thirteenth century the Achzans, equipped with iron weapons and im- plements, arrived in the Peloponnese and the isles from Thessaly. They overwhelmed the Myceneans’ cities, crushed or drove out the AXgean peoples, and, following hot on their heels, hurled themselves across the islands right to the coasts of Syria and Libya. From Marmarica to the Bosphorus a whirlwind of human masses raged hither and thither for half a century ; whole peoples migrated, long-established popula- tions were expelled, newcomers established themselves often by successive colonizations in sites comparatively remote from their starting-point. The consequence was the end of the Mycenzan hegemony in the Mediterranean, the ruin of the Hittite Empire, the incurable decadence of Egypt, not to the advantage of the new intruders, but rather to the profit of peoples already organized—the Assyrians and_ subse- quently the Persians. The detailed examination of the cataclysm in the Medi- terranean belongs to M. Glotz’s book in this series; here we shall only consider its general consequences from the point of view of the empires of the East and of Egypt in particular. From the beginning of the XI Xth Dynasty the storm had been threatening the coasts of Egypt, but at a point which for centuries had caused Pharaoh no serious anxiety—the north-west frontier on the coast of Libya. It is evident that by the end of the fourteenth century the shores of Libya had been assailed by Mediterranean pirates and invaders, who had driven the African tribes before them to the assault on Egypt.? Seti I had had to repulse two attacks on the Delta 1 The triumphal hymn of Thothmes III already names side by side the Libyans and the Utenau ‘‘ come from the Isles’”’ (supra, p. 279). THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE _ 337 by the Libyans.' Rameses, in his turn, defeated them, and was surprised to capture among their ranks numerous “‘ Shar- dana, come from the midst of the Sea,’’? whom the Egyptians had encountered in the ports of Syria in the time of the XVIUth Dynasty (vide supra, p. 290). He made use of these barbarians, enrolling them among the Egyptian militia, where they fought valiantly in the campaign against the Hittites (supra, p. 813). As for the Libyans, Rameses could not prevent their peaceable intrusion into the Delta, where they installed themselves as half-sedentary tribes round Memphis and Heliopolis as well as in the oases.? They Libyan. Assyrian. Fic. 42.—T wo New ADVERSARIES OF EGyPT. remained in contact with the migrants of the Mediterranean, whom the Egyptian texts will henceforth call ‘the Peoples of the North ”’ and ‘‘ Peoples from the Sea.’’ The Peoples of the North and of the Sea attempted an invasion of Egypt on two occasions. The first time was almost immediately after the death of Rameses II, in the fifth year of his son and successor, the already ageing Pharaoh Merneptah (1229 z.c.). In a time of perfect peace a torrent of peoples coming from Libya flooded the western frontiers of the Delta. Among them the Egyp- tian texts mention the Lycians and the Shardana, whom we 2 XVII, III, §§ 122-139. 2 loid., § 491. 3 /bia@.; § 570. 22 338 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST know well, and who reached the shores of Africa from the coasts of Asia Minor; then for the first time in history appear the names of the Achzeans (Akawasha)' and the Etruscans (Twrsha), the one come from Thessaly, the others probably sprung from the Tyrseni of Lemnos, who travelled from Asia to Italy with the Siculans (recognizable under the name Shakalasha, from Sagalassos in Pisidia). With the Acheans we see what we call the European races entering upon the stage of world history.” In addition to their physical type, markedly different from that of other Orientals, the dis- tinguishing marks of the newcomers were their iron swords and tools, their body armour, and their metal greaves,° which make the warriors ev«v7/pdes—well greaved. The Egyptians proudly enumerated such trophies among the spoils taken on the battlefield. Just as the peoples from the Troad had attached them- selves to the Hittite organization, so the Achzans, Etruscans, Shardana, Siculans, and Lycians had been incorporated in a Libyan army for this war against Merneptah. In it we recog- nize the names of old tribes, the Temhu and the Mashuasha, already employed as mercenaries by Rameses Il. But we see the genuine Libyans (Libu) also appearing, tall bar- barians with white skin, fair hair, and blue eyes, whose northern origin is betrayed by these physical marks. They had the same armament as the Egyptians and, like them, used the horse and the war-chariot. Their names and those of their chiefs exactly recall those of the Numidians of classical history. There is no doubt that an invading stream coming from the Atlas region, and possibly Europe, swept along in its wake a certain number of Berber clans.* This intelligent and sturdy race came to take command of the heterogeneous mass which the Mediterranean had just cast up upon the shores of Libya. About the month of April, 1229 s.c., Merneptah at 1 With the mention of ‘‘ Akawasha of the sea’’ (XVII, III, §§ 508-601), and ‘‘ Twrsha of the sea’’ (/.c., § 129). 2 Maspero, XX, II, pp. 430 #.; Hall, XIX, 376. An excellent historical account of our knowledge of these peoples is given by Hall, ‘‘ The Peoples of the Sea’? in the Recueil des Etudes égyptologiques dédiées a J]. F. Champollion (1922). 8 The Achzans, the Shardana, and the Philistines, possessed such iron Weapons. ‘ Maspero, XX, II, 430. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 339 Memphis learned that ‘‘ the King of the Libyans, Meryey, was coming from the land of Tehenu with his archers and a coalition of ‘ Peoples of the North,’ composed of Shardana, Siculans, Achzans, Lycians, and Etruscans, bringing the pick of the warriors of each country.’’ His aim was to attack the western frontier of Egypt in the plains of Perir.! The danger was all the graver since the province of Palestine was itself affected by the disturbance. Indeed, it looks as if the Hittites had been embroiled in the turmoil, although Merneptah had continued his good offices on their behalf, ** sending them wheat by his ships at the time of a dearth, to make the land of Khatti live.’? Pharaoh went to take advice from the image of Phtah; the god sent him an en- couraging dream and advised him to attack. The battle lasted six hours, during which the Egyptian archers inflicted great slaughter upon the barbarians. Meryey fled at top speed, abandoning his arms, his treasures, and his harem. On the picture the artist has entered among the slain 6,359 Libyans, 222 Siculans, 742 Etruscans, and Shardana and Acheans by thousands; more than 9,000 swords and pieces of armour and a great booty were captured on the battlefield. Merneptah engraved a hymn of victory on the walls of his mortuary temple at Thebes, in which he described the panic among his enemies. ‘‘ Among the Libyans the young men said one to the other of the victories, ‘ We have had none since the days of Ra,’ and the old man said to his son, ‘ Alas! poor Libya!’ The Tehenu have been consumed in a single year.’’ And the other provinces outside Egypt were also reduced to obedience. ‘*‘ Tehenu is laid waste, Khatti is pacified, Canaan is pillaged, Ascalon is despoiled, Gezer is captured, Yenoam is annihilated, Israel is made desolate and has no more any crops, Kharu is become like a widow (with- out support) over against Egypt. All the countries are unified and pacified.’”® We must not take Merneptah’s words at their face value, for shortly after his death (1224 B.c.) Egypt fell into a state 1 XVII, III, §§ 579 7. 2 Ibid., § 530. * Fl. Petrie and Spiegelburg, Six Temples at Thebes, Pls. XIII and XIV; cf. XVII, III, §617. This is the famous Stele of Jsrael where, for the first time as far as we know, the name of Israel appears in an Egyptian text. 340 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST of utter anarchy, which a contemporary document describes in the following terms: ‘‘ The land of Egypt was abandoned, and every man in it was robbed of his rights, and there was no longer any (supreme) head for many years until other times arrived. The land of Egypt was in the power of the great ones and rulers of the cities, each slaying his neighbour, great or small. Other times came thereafter, years of distress when Iarsu, a Canaanite (kharu), fulfilled the function of a prince. He held the old land before him under his sole command; he kept his partisans united and ravaged the goods (of others).’”? In these troubled times the frontiers of Egypt were badly guarded; at least, in the Delta we see moving about freely those Libyan and Asiatic tribes for whom Egypt in her moments of weakness was always such a tempting prey. There were also in the land, numbered by hundreds of thousands, prisoners of war brought from Syria, Palestine, and Libya, engaged in heavy labour in the mines or stone quarries. In such political circumstances they would revolt, plunder the country, or return to their own lands. According to traditions gathered by the Greek historians, some Baby- lonians captured by Sesostris (Rameses II?) rebelled and built themselves a city near Memphis, in which they were masters and which they called Babylon; so some Trojan captives founded the city Troiu (Turah) in the same region.’ Some Israelites found themselves to the east of the Delta under similar conditions; they, too, seized the favourable moment for escaping from the persecution of their con- querors, and this was the Ewodus. Many historians place it at the epoch of Merneptah.’ However, the stele quoted above, which mentions Israel in Canaan in the days of that Pharaoh, provides an argument in favour of an Exodus com- pleted by the end of the XVIIIth Dynasty, at the moment when the Khabiri (Hebrews?) of the Amarna letters were joining their forces with those of the Hittites to undermine Egyptian power in Palestine.* The royal power was not re-established in Egypt till the beginning of the XXth Dynasty with the accession of 1 Great apres Papyrus, Pl. LXXV, ll. 2-5; XVII, IV, § 398. 2 Diodorus, I, 56; cf. Maspero, XX, II, p. 441. 3 XX, Il, pp. 442 ff. ‘ On this see Hall, XIX, 403 7. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 341 Rameses III (1200-1169 B.c.). This prince was the last of the great Pharaohs. He strove to imitate his great ancestor, Rameses II, in all his actions, and most especially in the arduous task of restoring, if not the empire, at least the prestige of Egypt. Rameses III soon had occasion to show his valour as a soldier. In the fifth year of his reign (1195) the Libyan invasion recommenced. The Libyans and the Mashausha, led by the same chiefs as in the days of Merneptah, were massed on the western frontier of the Delta ; new tribes from the North reinforced them. ‘ The Peoples of the North were all restless, the Philistines (Pulestiu) and the Zekal among the rest : they made war at once by sea and on land.’?! The Philistines, wearing cuirasses like the Acheans and the Shar- dana, came from Caria. After having sojourned in Crete, they ventured upon the coasts of Libya; later we shall meet them again in Palestine with the Zekal (perhaps Siculans), who also came from Caria or Cilicia, and who had also travelled by way of Crete.? Their adventure succeeded no better than before: Rameses III inflicted a great slaughter upon them and enumerated more than 12,000 carcasses belonging both to Libyans and men of the North. In the eighth year (1192) the southward pressure of migrations from Europe was intensified ; this time the flood burst upon Syria. The cataclysm assumed formidable pro- portions. ‘* The Peoples [of the North] were restless in their isles, disturbed among themselves at one and the same time. No land could withstand them; the land of the Hittites, Kodi, Carchemish, Arvad, and Alasya were ravaged. They made them a single camp in the land of Amurru . . . and came with fire prepared before them towards Egypt. Their main supports were the Philistines, the Zekal, the Shaga- lasha, the Danzxans, and the Uashasha.’ All these peoples 1 Inscription of Medinet-Habu; cf. XVII, IV, 44. * Hall, ‘“‘ The Peoples of the Sea” in Recueil Champollion (1922). 8’ The Shavdana who also formed part of the invaders are not the tribes already acclimatized as mercenaries in Egypt, but a fresh contingent coming “‘from the sea’? (XVII, IV, § 129). The Uashasha (in whom it has been proposed to recognize the Oscans, but who are more likely natives of Caria —XX, II, 464, n. 5) are also “ from the sea” like the Shardana (XVII, IV, § 403). The Danegans came “ from their isles” (J.c., § 403). On all these peoples see the discussions of Weill in XI (1922), and Hall ‘‘ The Peoples of the Sea” in Recueil Champollion (1922). 342 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST were united and had laid their hands upon the land as far as the Circle of the Earth. Their hearts were confident and full of ambition.’?! The Egyptian bas-reliefs show us sketches drawn from life of these formidable masses in move- ment. ‘There we see the Philistines, recognizable by their swords, their armour, and their plumed turbans, forming convoys on disembarking from their ships with their clumsy chariots with solid wheels and drawn by four oxen, on which G4 AY 5 ye WE. &y/ on \ WA AS S PASS x Wage MN te “KEE 7Y Sy Lb KER ed i {ors ify a Ws SS Ss SS a, Ty, QE NE A pe ACE. Ml Yr. HN Fic. 43.—A PHILISTINE CONVOY ATTACKED BY THE SHARDANA. are piled higgledy-piggledy children, women, furniture, pro- visions—all the squalid baggage of a migrant people (Fig. 43). By land and by sea, too, this confused horde gravitated slowly towards Egypt. Rameses III hastened to prepare his army. ‘“ He strengthened the frontier of Zahi, put the ports in a con- dition for defence, protected them, as with a wall, by war- ships and transports filled from prow to stern with valiant warriors.” Then he took command of the troops. The Egyptian fleet and army fell upon the Peoples of the Sea gathered simultaneously on land and sea in some indeter- minable port in Syria. ‘‘ Those who have violated my frontier have no more grain, their heart and their soul are 1 Brugsh, Thesaurus, pp. 1207 7f.; XVII, IV, § 64. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 348 ‘dNY’J OL VAS FHL AO SATAOUG AHL AO SLUWNALLY AHL ASINdAA AWAY AGNV LAATIY NVILdADY AH L— pF “914 844 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST perished for ever. As for those of them who were massed upon the sea, a devouring flame came before them in the harbours, and on the shore a wall of iron encircled them.? They were slaughtered, overthrown upon the beach, and their vessels, capsized, let their riches fall out into the waters.’ Egypt therefore miraculously escaped the invasion, and the Peoples of the Sea were for the most part driven back upon the isles and Italy. As to the Hittites and the Amorites, who had been swept in their wake into Palestine, they had to be driven back northwards. This was the object of the campaign on the Orontes, in which Rameses III attacked a certain number of towns in Amurru and pushed on as far as Shabtuna,? a few miles below Kadesh. In general Pharaoh’s enemies are called ‘‘ Asiatics’’ (Settiu), but sometimes the defenders are Hittites. In the lists of the conquered inscribed on the walls of the mortuary temple of Rameses III at Medinet-Habu the names of Carchemish and Mitanni* are to be read, but it may be questioned whether these are not just copied from the bas-reliefs of Rameses II and historically valueless as applied to the present reign. On the other hand, in Palestine appear names such as Jacob- El, Joseph-El, and Levi-El,’ which indicate the presence of Israelite tribes in Canaan. The date of this campaign is doubtful; probably operations were drawn out from the eighth to the eleventh year of Rameses III. We do not know what was the practical effect of these victories upon the Peoples of the North and of the Sea. By putting affairs in order Rameses was enabled for a few years to recover possession of Canaan, which included the Shep- helah and Zahi; in the Great Harris Papyrus occurs a refer- ence to a joint temple to Rameses III and Amon, erected in a city of Zahi, Pe-Canaan.° But this southern province, which alone survived to recall the heroic days of the Egyptian Empire, was to a large measure occupied by those of the Peoples of the Sea and of the North who had accepted Pharaoh’s service while retain- * These are metaphors of Oriental style; the devouring flame means the ardour of the Egyptian fleet, the wall of metal is the Egyptian army drawn up facing the invaders. * XVII, IV, §§ 65-66. * Thid., § 181. * Lbid., §§ 116 7. ° lbtid., § 181. ° Lbid,, § 219. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 345 APPROXIMATE SYNCHRONISMS BETWEEN REIGNS FROM 1350 TO 1180 B.C, B.C. EGYPT 1350 Horemheb, 1345-1321 1340 1330 1320 Seti I, 1319-1300 1310 1300 Rameses II, 1300-1234, 1295, Battle of Kadesh 1290 1279, Hittite treaty 1280 1270 1266, Marriage with Hittite princess 1260 1250 1240 Merneptah, 1235-1224 1230 1229, Libyan INVASION 1220 1210 1200 Rameses III, 1200-1169. 1195, Libyan invasion 1193, Invasion by Peoples of the Sea 1190 1180 KHATTI Mursil, 1360-1330 Mutallu, 1330-1290 Khattusil IT, 1290-1255 Dudhalia, 1255-1230 Arnuanta, 1230-1200 ? Decadence of the Hittite empire ASSYRIA | Shalmaneser I, | 1290-1260 Tukulti-Inurta, 1260-1240 Decadence of the Assyrian dynasty | BABYLONIA Kadashamn- Turgu Kadashman- | Enlil, 1285-1277 End of the Kassite dynasty, 1185 346 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST ing possession of the lands and ports. Thus the Pulestiu established themselves in the Shephelah and the coastal towns —Gaza, Ascalon, etc. This whole region was thereafter called Philistia, from which we have made the word Palestine, a term which is not strictly accurate till the settlement of the Philistines after 1200 before our era (Fig. 45). On the coast of Zahi the harbours from Carmel to Dor gave shelter to the vessels of the Zekal ; during the succeeding century they were masters of this coast. Still farther north the Semites main- tained their hold from Arvad to Tyre, and subsequently recovered the ports occupied by the Zekal. In the following centuries the maritime towns were going to burst forth into splendid commercial activity throughout the whole Medi- terranean region, and to carry far and wide the renown and the industrial products of the Phcenicians of Tyre, Sidon, Berytus, Byblos, and Arad. On the ruins of the Egyptian power rose the Philistines and the Phcenicians. Their pro- gress was all the quicker since the Hittite power no longer existed in the hinterland, the Assyrian power was itself under a cloud, and the Cretan and Mycenezan fleets were no longer mistresses of the waves. The invasions of peoples of the North had wrecked the whole military, diplomatic, and political edifice so skilfully planned and so laboriously reared by Rameses II and Khattusil. Hither Asia now belonged to new peoples who had to work out their own destinies. The independence Palestine soon won over against Egypt is graphically described in a report drawn up towards the end of the XXth Dynasty by an Egyptian royal messenger, Unamonu, despatched to Byblos in the fifth year of Rameses XI (about 1117 B.c.) to collect the wood needed for the construction of a barque for Amon. Unamonu, setting out from Tanis, touched at Dor, *‘ a city of the Zekal,’’ where he was robbed, and then at Tyre and Byblos. Despite his official character, he was very badly received. The Prince of Byblos refuses to deliver any wood without payment, and declares that ‘‘he is not Pharaoh’s servant.’? After the delivery of the wood in exchange for an equivalent in mer- chandise, the Prince took the Egyptian to see the tomb wherein some envoys of Pharaoh Rameses IX were laid to rest; they had been detained for seventeen years at Byblos and had died in captivity. Unamonu himself stayed many THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 347 weary days at Byblos, for the Zekal pirates infested the seas with strong squadrons and were holding the merchantmen to ransom. Such were the relations between the Pharaohs, the Phoenicians, and the Zekal at the end of the twelfth century.’ In the direction of Libya the catastrophe had been no less far-reaching. In the eleventh year of Rameses III the Temhu, the Mashuasha, and the Libyans returned to the charge* and carried a furious attack as far as Heliopolis. The Peoples of the North do not seem to have been allied with them ; apart from Africans, the texts only speak of some indeterminate mountaineers (khastiu),*? who were, perhaps, ~ 1p» Ug Ba pa : — ND) ra 5 act WT * “Qe ‘tr saa ah iy = f ¢ = : ~ Wn! : LLP . x aan Cy te “Et © : : ‘ me . qY Fic. 45.—PHILISTINE PRISONERS. only denizens of the desert. Rameses III promptly checked the invasion, slew over 2,000 men, and captured the principal chiefs, but here, as on the Syrian coast, the success was only temporary and nominal. While the desert between Gaza and Raphia had been a sufficient barrier to exclude the Philistines from fertile Egypt, the immediate contact between Libya and the valley favoured the immigration of the barbarians. Rameses III only purchased peace at the price of tolerating a veritable pacific occupation of the borders of the Delta by Libyans and Shardana.* Rameses III reckons such bar- barians among the elements of Egypt’s population; they are ** countless ’’ and live either as soldiers in the fortresses’ or 1 Maspero, Contes, 217 ff.; cf. XXVIII, 225, and XIX, 390. 2 XVII, IV, §§ 86 #. 3 [bid., § 106. « XX, II, 765 #.; XIX, 438. 5 XVII, IV, $§ 402-403. 348 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST as settlers in the rural and urban districts. ‘‘ The Shardana and the Kehek (a Libyan tribe) are in the towns on holiday, lying on their backs; they are no longer afraid, having no enemy coming either from Kush or from Syria; their bows and their weapons are deposited in the arsenals, for they are contented and intoxicated with joy. Their wives are with them, and their children abide at their sides.’’!- In fact, these mercenaries made themselves at home in the Delta; they will give proof of that on a day that is approaching, when these members of Pharaoh’s bodyguard will lay hands Fic. 46.—ASSYRIAN INFANTRY AND CHARIOTS IN MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRY ON THE COASTS. on the palace and give the crown of Lower Egypt to one of their own number, Sheshong I (942 B.c.). About the same time a period of relative quiet came to Hither Asia after the disturbances of the Peoples of the North and of the Sea. Tiglath-Pileser I was reorganizing the military forces of Assyria. Conquering the degenerate Hittites, he seized in Carchemish the keystone of the vault of the Fertile Crescent, crossed Lebanon, and reached the Mediterranean at Arvad (Fig. 46). Like Sargon and Hammu- rabi in the distant past, he esteemed it a point of honour to embark upon the sea to take possession thereof, and he carved a stele in his name on the rocks of the Nahr-el-Kelb 1 Jc. § 410, THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 349 beside that of Rameses II.' The King of Assyria was, in fact, the heir to the Egyptian power. Pharaoh himself seemed to admit that, for he sent him as presents a crocodile and a hippopotamus, which were led as exotic trophies in the triumphal procession of Tiglath-Pileser on his return to Nineveh. Once, after the battle of Kadesh, it had been Thothmes III who received presents from Assyria; now, at the beginning of the eleventh century, everything is reversed; the historic role of leader of peoples passes to other princes. For a few centuries the Semites won back from the Egyp- tians and the Indo-European barbarians the supremacy in the Ancient East. V FRoM THE PEOPLES OF THE SEA TO THE PERSIANS The commotion caused by the Peoples of the Sea and of the North lasted nearly five centuries. For details of the events of the period we refer the reader to the volumes in the History of Civilization dealing with the Assyrians, the Jews, and the Persians. Here we shall merely sketch the evolution of the kingdoms and the empires down to the moment when the Persians established their dominion from Iran to Egypt. The raid of Tiglath-Pileser I upon the coasts of the Mediterranean was not repeated. For three centuries Assyria remained paralysed by dynastic quarrels, revolts, and the hostility of her old rival, Babylon; on the other hand, she was exposed to the threat of Aryan peoples on the east. Egypt was still weaker, the end of her national unity was come, two realms divided her between them. ‘That of the North was in the hands of the Libyan mercenaries. The Pharaohs’ true lineage had taken refuge at Thebes in the South and then in Upper Nubia. An auspicious moment had therefore arrived for the smaller nations of the Fertile Crescent; in their turn they came forth into the world of political life and won their independence. In North Syria (what had been Upper Lotanu) emerge two groups sprung from Semitic populations long established 1 XIX, 394; XX, II, 656 (vignette). 350 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST in the land—on the coast the Phoenicians,' in the hinterland behind Lebanon and Hermon the Arameans, offspring of the Nomads of the Syrian Desert. The flood of Peoples of the Sea of the North had left some AXgean elements among them, but the bulk of the population was composed of those same Semites who had utilized the peace of Egypt and the Egypto- Hittite entente to enrich themselves by agriculture and inter- national trade. Through contact with the Egyptians they had also been concentrated in towns and had been initiated into city government and diplomatic relations. What they had learnt from their masters increased tenfold their aptitude for business and politics.2, Egypt’s former naval bases became their commercial ports—Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and Arad. Upon the sea, free since the decay of the Egyptian fleet, the Phoenician ships darted hither and thither and transported colonists and merchants to lands where the Acheans had not yet arrived—to Spain (Gades, Tartessus), to Africa (Utica and Carthage), and even beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Wherever the Peoples of the Sea, repulsed from Syria and Egypt, had been stranded from Sicily to Italy, the Semitic merchants followed them or had even preceded them. Henceforth the eastern basin of the Mediterranean is in constant communication with the western. The riches of the old Orient—cereals, wines, spices, fabrics of silk, wool, and linen, precious stones, gold, silver, and copper, coming from far China and India in the holds of Phcenician vessels— reached the greedy hands of the barbarians. With wealth, art and civilization also developed luxuriantly and radiated to the most distant peoples. By 1000 B.c., through the simplification of the linear hieroglyphies, the Phoenicians had created an alphabetic writing, a swift vehicle for thought and a marvellous instrument for commercial intercourse. 1M. C. Autran has tried to prove that the Phoenicians were not Semites but A’ geans (“‘ Phoenicians ” in II, Mémotres, 1920): This thesis, despite the ingenuity of the argument and the wealth of its documentation, has not won general acceptance. * One of the petty kings of Zekal who received the Egyptian messenger, Unamonu, so roughly (supra, p. 346) confesses that Egypt had been Syria’s instructor. The author of the story puts these words in his mouth: ‘‘ Amon extends his power over all lands. ... But he possessed Egypt in the first place. It is thence that civilization and instruction have gone forth to reach even this spot where I am. . .” (IV, vol. XXI, p. 87; cf. Maspero, Contes, p. 2:24). THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE § 351 In the hinterland along and beyond the ranges of Lebanon the Arameans had become the dominant people. On the shores of the great sea of sands, ploughed by convoys, Damascus, Kadesh, and Hamath, ports of another Phoenicia of the desert, received caravans as Tyre and Sidon gave shelter to ships. The valleys, once the battlefields of Amorites, Hittites, and Egyptians, became Edens through commerce and agriculture. Three States were founded— Hamath, Zoba (on the Upper Orontes), and Damascus ; their strength may be judged from the fact that for three centuries they kept the Assyrians at bay. Masters of the land trade routes between Eastern Asia, Europe, and Africa as the Phcenicians were commanders of the seaways, the Arameans forced themselves on the Orient as mercantile intermediaries. They had adopted a practical script derived from the Phe- nician. This Aramaic alphabet, propagated by commerce, will also conquer the whole East and will gradually replace hieroglyphic and cuneiform signs. From the eleventh to the seventh centuries B.c., Phoenicians and Arameans, taking advantage of the eclipse of Egypt and Assyria, proceeded to arrogate to themselves commercial supremacy and the hegemony in a veritable Empire, but an economic Empire, in the Eastern Mediterranean. In the south of Syria (formerly Upper Lotanu) the division between coast and hinterland made itself felt equally. The coast was in the hands of the Philistines and the Zekal, that fraction of the Peoples of the Sea and of the North which Rameses III, being unable to exterminate, had installed on the approaches to Egypt as a vanguard of mercenaries between Raphia and Joppa (Philistines) and round Carmel (Zekal). While the Zekal only aspired to a life of piracy, the Philistines attempted to establish themselves permanently in five cities—Gaza and Ascalon on the shore, Gath, Ashdod, and Ekron inland from the coast. These Augean peoples were not slow to come into conflict with the Hebrews (Khabiri). The latter had been slowly filtering into the Shephelah since the time of the Egyptian Empire (supra, p. 307); under Mer- neptah, after the Exodus, they already formed a people— ** Israel ”’ (supra, p. 840). Installed by tribes on either bank of the Jordan, they imposed their sway on the surrounding mixture of 852 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST Canaanites, Amorites, and Hittites, especially after the victory of Taanach about 1200 B.c. Brought in contact with the Philistines, they were embroiled in chronic hostilities, with varying fortune. About 1100 B.c. the Philistines pushed their way to the banks of the Jordan, captured the arch, and reduced the Hebrews to servitude. This defeat revealed to the vanquished the need of uniting their divided tribes, and Saul founded the kingdom about 1000 s.c. Though Saul fell in combat with the Philistines, David at least delivered Israel, was anointed sole king, and made Jerusalem, the Canaanites’ last fortress, his own capital. All Palestine was for a while subject to Jerusalem; the Aramean States did homage, the Phoenicians made an alliance with David and Solomon. About 970 the latter was a great sovereign, who dominated the western horn of the Fertile Crescent from the Euphrates to the Isthmus. The King of Egypt gave him his daughter in marriage, the Phoenicians’ ships and the Ara- meeans’ caravans brought him the tribute of the Euphrates, of Arabia, and of India. It looked as if a new Semitic empire was to be founded in Syria, North and South being reunited. The counter-attack of the great powers was looming on the horizon. If Egypt, divided, was incapable of reconsti- tuting the empire, Sheshong I nevertheless took Jerusalem by storm (about 925) and contributed to the downfall of Israel’s hegemony. In the middle of the eighth century a still more terrible danger was threatening from the north- east; the kings of Nineveh recovered the land between the Euphrates and the Orontes which commands the routes through the Fertile Crescent. Then the ports of Pheenicia fell into their hands. Despite a long and desperate resistance, Damascus became the prey of Tiglath-Pileser III (782). The Assyrians possessed the military forces and the administra- tive science which alone can give an empire; the Hebrews, on the contrary, were weakened by the schism (after 9380 B.c.) between the kingdoms of Israel (Samaria) and of Judah (Jerusalem). When Damascus no longer covered the approach to the Jordan, Samaria succumbed (722). Jerusalem escaped Sennacherib, who failed likewise in an ill-prepared attack on the Delta, but Esarhaddon conquered Egypt in 671 B.c., and Ashurbanipal sacked Thebes in 668. THE EGYPTO-HITTITE ENTENTE 358 The whole Orient from Chaldea to Elephantine was occupied by the Assyrians. This empire was founded upon force and terror; the massacre of prisoners, the destruction of cities taken by storm, the wholesale deportation of populations, were its methods of domination.! Only after orgies of brutal force was the administration of the conquered countries organized upon the sage methods of the Babylonians. The Oriental world had only accepted with horror the force of Assyria, which formed such a brutal successor to the *‘ peace of Egypt.”’ The Pharaohs were the first to free themselves from the Fic. 47.—How THE ASSYRIANS TREATED THE CONQUERED. yoke (about 650). Then the tide of invasions or migrations of peoples, which had been suspended for a moment, flowed on, eroding from the north to the east the frontiers of the Assyrian Empire. Some Semitic nomads, the Chaldeans, occupied Babylonia, which was thenceforth called Chaldza. In concert with the Scyths from the North and the Aryans of Iran (Medes and Persians), they assailed the detested Assyrians. Nineveh fell in 606 B.c., and was razed from the surface of the earth amidst the joyous shouts of the liberated captives (Nah. iii, 19). For three-quarters of a century (606 to 539 B.c.) the Chaldeans took the place of the Assyrians; Babylon, after the lapse of more than a thousand years, became again the capital of the Semitic world. But this empire lacked both * On this, see Delaporte, Mesopotamia, Part II. 23 854 FIRST EMPIRES OF THE EAST adequate strength and moral unity. Its greatest sovereign, Nebuchadrezzar II, could destroy Jerusalem in revolt (596) and carry the population off captive to Babylon on the Assyrian plan; neither he nor his successors imposed their sway upon the disparate States of the East. Medes and Persians were already occupying the plain of Assyria. When Cyrus had wrested from the grasp of Croesus, King of Lydia, the keystone of the vault of the Fertile Crescent (546), he became the master of the destinies of the Orient; Babylon fell in 589 B.c., Cambyses occupied Egypt in 525. Once more the Semites were checked by the Indo-Euro- peans. To the latter fell the historic mission of giving the Oriental world the unity and peace which it had not known since the destruction of the Egyptian Empire. In that task Darius and his successors, Alexander and the Cesars, were successful as long as they had the strength to repel from their frontiers the eternal aggressors against the civilized Orient—those nomadic and migrant peoples who reappear under the names of Scyths, Parthians, and Arabs. CONCLUSION THE aim of this study was to describe the oldest human institutions. We have found them in the Ancient East. Far back though the monuments of Egypt and Chaldea may take us, they are neither old enough nor sufficiently continuous to allow us to retrace the history of mankind’s first institutions from its beginnings and without any serious gap.* We have had to make use of the comparative method. We have sought in the field of ethnography to see whether social organisms exist, still more primitive, the origins of which might be more or less known and which might lead the observer up to the point at which we find the oldest inhabitants of Egypt and Chaldea. In Egypt the first historical monuments, anterior to 4000 B.c., reveal a society organized in clans; the latter still possess some of the characters of totemic clans, but they are already dispersed over territorial divisions. Some centuries later, about 3300 s.c., Menes founds the centralized monarchy and establishes the divine right of kings. In Chaldza before the year 3000 the land appears divided into ** cities of royalty ’’; it was then acquainted with centralized monarchy and territorial groupings. Such a political and social condition is certainly not “‘ primitive.’’ How shall we imagine it in a stage, if not primordial—we shall never reach that—at least earlier? To answer that question according to the present state of ethnographical research has been the aim of the first part of this book. Among the uncivilized peoples which serve as term of com- parison the first social organization is not the family, but the clan; all the clansmen believe themselves related, not by blood, but as the result of a mystic communion of all with one totem. In the latter resides the source of a sacred power, of a universal authority, which the Melanesians call mana. ? We postpone to our book on the Nile a discussion of the desiderata at the moment suggested by the study of Egypt as well as of the principal lacune in the historical documentation; as far as the other States of the Ancient East are concerned, consult the volumes in this series devoted to the several States. 355 356 CONCLUSION But this authority is diffused among all the clansmen, this régime is equalitarian and communistic. The clan chooses for itself a name and an emblem; it cannot take the name of a chief, since as yet no ‘‘ chief’’ exists, nor the name of a locality, since life is still nomadic. Subsequently the clans settle down in stable villages and form territorial groupings: it is at this moment that power begins to become individualized. The mana is concentrated in a council of elders, those whom age, experience, wealth, and magic knowledge single out. Groups of clans with federal councils may exist. Still later, by a parallel evolu- tion, the mana comes to animate to a more special degree a fetish, who becomes the god of the clan or of groups of clans, and sovereignty, undivided among the elders, is concentrated in the person of a chief who monopolizes the mana and emblems of the totems. How does this absorption of the totems by a man come about? It is through the interplay of multiple factors and also of rites, of which the potlatch societies offer very instructive examples. Within the developed clan ‘‘ confraternities ’’ are formed, in which a social hierarchy is manifest for the first time within the clan. A man who is strong, rich, expert in magic, can by largesses, in which all the clansmen participate, purchase successive grades of initiation, which raise him by degrees till he in- carnate the totem or god of his clan. Such chiefs may exist in greater or less number: the system is then of the feudal type, or culminates in an assemblage of federal kingships. The term of this evolution is kingship concentrated in a single individual and recognized throughout a whole country. In this case the king absorbs the gods of the entire country and inherits their magic power and their wealth, but is held responsible for life and nouns tags by the men who have become his subjects. Are all the features of this sy, nee social organization to be found actually or as survivals in Egypt or Chaldeea ? It would be vain and far from scientific to expect it. The comparative method does not imply an artificial parallelism between the primitive inhabitants of the Ancient East and the uncivilized peoples of modern times. And so in the second part of this book we have contented ourselves with presenting objectively the historical facts parallel to the ethnographic facts without forcing the comparison. The CONCLUSION 357 exposition given by M. Davy confirms an interpretation propounded by us twenty years ago as to the “ religious character of Pharaonic kingship,’’? according to which the Pharaoh believes himself an incarnate god upon earth, heir of the gods, and professes himself responsible for the life and nourishment of his subjects. How are we to imagine the evolution of the clans in Egypt and the birth of centralized power? That will be better understood in the light of the facts revealed by ethnography. Without forgetting that we are here in the domain of hypothesis, we must know how, when occasion demands it, to use hypothesis supported by well-attested facts to bring together the membra disjecta of protohistoric monuments. The god-king has developed the Egyptian kingdom; we shall describe that in our work on the Nile. The scope of the present volume is restricted to an account of the relations between peoples which have led from kingdoms to empires. These increments of power are, indeed, caused sometimes by the individual ambition of the sovereigns. Most often the latter do but obey geographical and economic necessities. Egypt and Mesopotamia are two oases very similar in nature at the two extremities of a ‘‘ crescent ’’ of routes and valleys; both surrounded by desert and mountainous regious infi- nitely less fertile and populated by nomads always in quest of food, the two valleys have been perpetually exposed to raids or migrations. For the Pharaohs, as for the Patesis, it was a vital necessity to pursue the pillagers to their haunts in Nubia, Syria, or Elam; thus Greater Egypt and Greater Mesopotamia were begotten. Chaldea and Egypt are rich in cereals, but possess no minerals. To the one the copper mines of Sinai and the gold mines of Nubia, to the other the deposits of Elam, Anatolia, and the Taurus, seemed indispensable to the economic life of the community. Hence the expeditions of conquest which attracted the Pharaohs to Sinai from the Ist Dynasty and the Babylonians to Anatolia from the third millennium. Caravans and ships united the ‘‘ king’s mines’? to Memphis and Babylon. The kings alone could meet such expenses of exploitation and transportation, and so the mines and long- distance trade were at first and for many centuries State monopolies. And so economic policy evolved; it led the 358 CONCLUSION Patesis and the Pharaohs to seek access to the sea in diverse directions and also to that sea of sands, the centre of the Fertile Crescent. The corridor of Syria-Palestine and the junctions of routes between the Euphrates and the Taurus were henceforth much-coveted territories. For 8,000 years Semites, Egyptians, and Aryans con- fronted one another in Syria and strove for the possession of its ports and trade routes. Now, a policy of military and commercial expansion only succeeds in the hands of those who have prepared the means thereto—trained soldiers and well-equipped ships, reserves of gold and materials for payments and exchanges, adminis- trators to exploit the conquered territory. A Hammurabi, an Amenophis, a Solomon created the appropriate institu- tions; they raised their national militias and their foreign mercenaries, they promulgated laws on commercial relations, and educated administrators and diplomats. Egypt in par- ticular about the fifteenth century was perfectly equipped for a policy of wide sweep. Before the Egyptians the Semites had tried to create an empire. Sargon the Elder and Hammurabi had in turn dominated the Asiatic East; every time the overflowing tide of nomads or peoples in migration (Gutium, Hittites) had swept away their cunning political edifices and overwhelmed Babylon. Then in successive waves rolled on the eagre of the Kassites and the Hyksés; it overflowed even upon Egypt, spreading from Shinar to Thebes, and left the empire in the hands of barbarians, astonished at their own success, but ignorant and incapable of any organization. This was the moment for the Egyptians to try their fortune in Asia. To put themselves beyond the reach of another invasion they had to occupy the whole corridor of the Orontes and the Jordan as well as the battlefield of Naharina between the Orontes and the Euphrates. Thothmes III purchased this success at the cost of twenty wars. After destroying the barbarians’ empire, he had to reconstruct another; that he accomplished despite the tur- bulence of the Syrians, the rivalry of Mitanni, the greed of the Nomads, the jealousy of Babylon, and the arrogance of the Hittites. The excellent administration of Egypt suc- ceeded in creating that type of suzerainty which we had CONCLUSION 359 thought quite a modern invention—the protectorate; few Egyptian troops or officials maintained her sway, but the local resources in men and materials were employed in such a way as to make the indigenous elements neutralize one another. Egypt made herself loved and was able to maintain peace in all Asia, not so much by force of arms as by resource and diplomacy. We had long believed that diplomacy was an invention of the astute politicians of the Renaissance; that illusion is dispelled when we glance through the des- patches interchanged between the Pharaohs and the kings of Babylon, Assyria, Mitanni, and Khatti. Treaties of offensive and defensive alliance, commercial conventions, political marriages; such are the State papers from the archives of Tell-el-Amarna and Boghaz-Keui, which yield up to us the secrets of the concert of nations in the fifteenth and four- teenth centuries before our era. When the migrations of peoples in Anatolia drove the Hittites southwards and shook the foundations of the Egyptian Empire, we have seen with what political common sense Egypt replaced the alliance with Mitanni by the Hittite alliance, and how Rameses II and Khattusil were able to establish an Egypto-Hittite entente against Assyria and the Peoples of the North. But a new cyclone bursts upon the coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean : the Peoples of the Sea ravaged the Syrian provinces and put an end to the Egyptian Empire. The Oriental world did not enjoy security again; the Assyrians brought it only the horrors of war. It is the Indo-Europeans—Persians, Greeks, and Romans—who will reap the heritage of the Rameses for the world’s peace. In appearance there is nothing in common between these vast empires, extending from Napata to the Indus and peopled by millions of men, and the miniature cells wherein social life began in Egypt and Shinar. Nevertheless, the same mystic conception that animated the clan still gave spiritual life to those colossal human groups. In each of the realms of the East the divine dominates everything. In Egypt the king is only the living image upon earth of the old royal clan’s god, the Falcon Horus. In Shinar dynastic gods—Enlil at Nippur, Marduk at Babylon—make and unmake the kings. In Assyria the royal tribe, the capital, and the realm are confused in the person of the god 360 CONCLUSION Ashur. In Palestine, Israel is at once a god and a people. In relations with foreigners the divine element is no less dominant: the wars are conflicts of Amon against Baal, of Ashur against Enlil, of Israel against Dagan. Conquests and victories display the personal exploits of the gods; Amon brandishes his sword and plies his bow at Pharaoh’s side in the combat. The sign of its defeat to a country comes when the victor carries off the idols of the gods of the conquered in captivity. No treaty is valid if the great gods of the contracting parties do not approve it, sign it, guarantee it as witnesses. This necessary intervention of the gods in political and international relations might, however, oppose an obstacle to the perfect harmony among the peoples of an empire. How should the intimate union of men, already differing in language, customs, and colour, be achieved without the worship of international gods? We have seen that the Pharaohs and their rivals in the East had solved this problem by the cult of the sovereign common to all peoples. By proclaiming themselves gods of empire, Sargon and Rameses wished to realize in their own persons that mystic or religious unity which once constituted the strength of the clan, which still maintained the unity of the kingdom, and which could alone form the tie between all the peoples of an empire. Alexander the Great, the Ptolemies, and the Cesars will, in their turn, impose upon their subjects the worship of the sovereign, not so much out of vanity as to consolidate moral unity. We have noted that under Amenophis IV a more exalted conception, but one too far in advance of the times, marks the apogee of the Egyptian Empire. Pharaoh proposes to found an international cult in honour of the great benefactor of all men without distinction, of the animator of life in all countries—the Sun (Aten), whom he himself incarnates upon earth. Akhenaten, sovereign of diverse peoples, felt that neither the force of arms nor economic necessities nor material interests could cement together the elements of an empire. The tie must be religious. In seeking this tie outside the person of the sovereign in a superhuman Providence he was still acting in obedience to tradition. And so through its mystic principle the Clan has survived in the Empire. BIBLIOGRAPHY PART I ADAM, “‘ Stammesorganisation und Hauptlingstum der Tlinkit Indianer Nordwestamerikas,” Zeitschr. f: cass Rechtswis., 1913, vol. xxix —— A similar study of the Haida, d7d., 1914, vol. XXxv —— ‘‘Stammesorganisation und ape der Wakash- stamme,”’ zb7d., 1919, vol. xxxv Année sociologigue, Paris, Alcan, 12 vols., 1898-1912 BACHOFEN, Miitterrecht, 1861 Boas, ‘“‘ The Social Organisation and Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians,” Report of the U.S. National Museum, 1845, Washington, 1896. ; BoucLe, Legons de sociologie sur V évolution des valeurs, Paris, 1922 BRowNn (G.), Melanesians and Polynesians, London, 1910 CODRINGTON, The Melanesians, Oxford, 1891 ; CUNOW, Die cata amie aediai der Australnegern, Stuttgart, 1894 . —— Die wkonomischen Grundlagen der aa 1897. 8 Davy, La Fot jurée, Paris, 1922 : : DurKHEIM, La Division du travail social, 2nd ed., Paris, 1902 —— Les régles de la méthode sociologigue, 7th ed., Paris, 1919 —— Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse, 1914 (English translation, Elementary Forms of Religious Life, London) Dussaup, /ntroduction a histoire des religions, Paris, 1915 . Fauconnet, La Responsibilité, Paris, 1920 FRAZER, Totemism and Exogamy: a Treatise on certain early ores of Superstition and Society, 4 vols., London, 1910 HarTLANnD (Sidney), Primitive Paternity, London, 1909 —— Primitive Society: the Beginning of the ae and the Reckoring of Descent, London, 1921 : Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, London, 1904 HuBert and Mauss, Mélanges de V histoire des religions, Paris, 1909 KEANE, Man, Past and Present. New edition revised by Haddon, Cambridge, 1920 KRAUSE, Die Tlinkit Indianer, Jena, 1885 LrEvy-BruHL, Les fonctions mentales dans les soctétés inférieures, Paris, 1910 ; : La Mentalité primitive, Paris, 1922 (English translation, Primitive Mentality, London, 1923) x 361 XXIII XXIV 362 BIBLIOGRAPHY McLENNAN (John Ferguson), Studies in Ancient Society, com- prising a Reprint of Primitive Marriage (1865), an Enquiry into the Origin of the Form of sore in Marriage Ceremonies, London, 1876 : ; : : XXV Lowvik, Primitive Society, New York, 1920 : ; ‘ XXVI MAINE (Sumner), Ancient Law, London, 1861 ; : : XXVII Notes on the History of Ancient Institutions, London . . XXVIII Dissertations on Early Law and Custom, London, 1883 . XXIX Man: a Monthly Record of Anthropological Science, ge 3 the Royal Anthropological Institute, London . XXX MarreETT, Zhe Threshold of pasha: 2nd enlarged destson London, 1914 ; . ; : : XXXI Psychology and Folklore, London, 1920 : : . XXXII Mauss, see Hubert and Année sociologique . : : . XXXIII Moret, Mystéres égyptiens, Paris, 1918... ; : : XXXIV —— Au temps des Pharaons, Paris, 1908 . : ; : XXXV —— Rois et dieux d@’Egypte, Paris, 1911 . ‘ : a XXXVI MoraGan (Lewis H.), Ancient Society, 1877 . ; : . XXXVII PARKINSON, Dreissig Jahre in der Sudsee, Stuttgart, 1907 . . XXXVIII Preuss, ‘‘ Der Ursprung der Religion und Kunst,” Glodus, Ixxxvi, 1904, and Ixxxvii, 1905 . : . ; : XXXIX Rivers, The History of Melanesian eae 2 vols., Cambridge, 1914 ; : ‘ XL SCHURTZ, Lie éecebeee a der Kultur, heiptig 100: ; ; XLI —— Alterklassen und Mannerbinde, Berlin, 1902 . : ms XLII SmiTH (William Robertson), Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, new ed., London, 1914 . ¢ ; , : : XLII SPENCER and GILLEN, The Native Tribes of Central Australia, London, 1899 : ; ‘ : : . : XLIV —— —— The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, London, 1903. : ; , ; ; : : XLV SPENCER (Baldwin), Mative Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia, London, 1914 . ; ‘ : ; : XLVI SWANTON, Soctal Conditions, Beliefs and Linguistic Relationship of the Tlinkit Indians (Bureau of Ethnol. Bull. 26, 1908) . XLVII Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida (vol. v, Part I of the Memoirs of the Amer. Mus. of Natural History, Jesup North Pacific Exped.), New York, 1905 . ‘ i oo eo LES VinoGRADOF, Outlines of Historical Jurisprudence, Oxford, 1920 . XLIX WEBSTER, Primitive Secret Socteties, London, 1908 . : : L WESTERMARCK, Zhe Origin and i sat! of Moral Ideas, 2 vols., London, 1912 : ‘ LI — The History of Human Marriage, 8 vols., te oe 1921 ' LII BIBLIOGRAPHY PARTS II AND III A.—PERIODICALS Annales du service des Antiquités de l’Egypte, Cairo Mémoires et Bulletin de l'Institut frangais d’archéologie orientale, Cairo , Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris . Recueil de travaux relatifs 4 la philologie et a fet aeiagia égyp- tiennes et assyriennes, Paris : ‘ ‘ h Revue archéologique, Paris Revue assyriologique, Paris Revue critique, Paris Revue égyptologique, Paris ‘ : : Revue de Vhistoire des religions (Annales du Musée Guimet), Paris Sphinx, Uppsala and Paris Syria, Paris ; : Zeitschrift ftir ke Bile te und Altertumskunde, Leipzig . The Journal of Egyptian Archeology, London : Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archeology, London . Egyptus, Milan . B.—GENERAL WORKS James H. BreastepD, A History of Egypt, London, 1906 —— Ancient Records of Egypt, Chicago, 1906, 5 vols. R. Dussaup, Les civilisations préhelléniques dans le bassin de la oiiterranie. 2nd ed., Paris, 1914 H. R. Har, The Ancient an nae of the Near East, renaees 1913 G. MaspPERO, Histoire ancienne des peuples de Orient oaiben Paris, 1895-1897, 3 vols. ; Epuarp MEYER, Geschichte des Altertums, 2te Aufl., ties ae Berlin, 1909, Erster Band, 2 vols. : : : —— Histoire de Pantiquité (French translation of the 8rd edition by A. Moret, vol. ii), Paris 1913 . —— Chronologie égyptienne (French translation ft A. Moret), Paris, 1912, 1 vol. (Annales du Musée Guimet, Bibliothéque d’études, vol. xxiv, fasc. 2) ‘ : : . Sir W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, A ee ae of aie (vols. i-ili), 3rd ed., London, 1899, 6 vols. : : 2 363 XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIill XXIV 364 BIBLIOGRAPHY C.—SPECIAL WORKS JaMES H. BREASTED, The Origins of Civilization Si ee from the Sctentzfic Monthly) Jean Cappart, Les débuts de Part en eve ate Brussels, 1909 ALEXANDRE MORET, Au temps des Pharaons, 3rd ed., Paris, 1922. Rois et Dieux d’Egypte, 3rd ed., Paris, 1922 . : : — Mystéres égyptiens, 3rd ed., Paris, 1922 — Du caractére religieux de la A as aera tee Paris, 1903 . J. DE Morcan, Prehistoric Man, Tenaen. 1924 —— Recherches sur les origines de TEgypte, Paris, 1896-7, 2 vols. Cray, The Empire of the Amorites, New Haven, 1919 P, S. P. Hanpcock, The Latest ae on Bible mkt may 1918 . ‘ W. L. Kine, A History of Sumer and Akkad, eee 1910 EpUARD MEYER, Reich und Kultur der Chetiter, Berlin, 1914 XXV XXVI AXVII XXVIII XXIX XXX XXXI XXXII XXXIII XXXIV XXXV XXXVI INDEX Aaxw (Egyptian moon-god), 259 Abraham, 219, 240, 251 Abydos, 120, 187, 152, 155, 171, 209, 233, 934, 308 Achzans, 310, 331, 338 ; tian texts, 338 Adam, 93 Aigean peoples: relations of Egypt with, 177, 233, 267, 279, 307, 310; ’ dispersion “of, 336, 350 Agade, 203, 207 Age and power societies, 65, 69 Age groups, theory of, 23 Agriculture : discovery and diffu- sion of, 120, 125, 164, 166, 198 200, 209 ; influence on social organization, 112; kings and, 107, 147; women and, 106 Ahmes i 958-260, 266 Akhenaten. See ’ Amenophis IV Akkad, 203, 205 Alasya, 280, 292-3 Alatunja, 65, 68-9 Aleppo, 963, 276, 307, 312, 321 Alliances: E gypt and Mitanni, 290 ; Teal Hittite, 327; Hit- tites and Babylonians, 324 Alphabet, invention of, 201, 358 Altjira, 29, 78 234, 246 in Egyp- in primitive Amenemhat, 221, 228, Amenophis a 260, 266; III, 280, 286-295, 303, 305, 334; IV, 280, 286-292, 297-300, 305, 307 American Indians, customs of, 29, 32, 46, 59, 68, 81, 90, 97, "106. Seo also Haida, K wakiutl, Tlin- it Amorites, 193-4, 197, 212, 240, 251, 261, 305, 351; racial type of, 192; in Mesopotamia, 215 Amu (Asiatics), 169, 176, 218, 227, 229, 245, 249 Ancestor worship, 44 Ancestors and gods, 77, 80 Animals, sacred, 7, 46, 128, 130, 140; punishment of, 150 Anzanite language, 199 Arabia, climate and geography of, 187-8. See also Yemen Arameans, 1938-4, 325, 351 Aristocracies, ancient, 58 Armament: of Asiatics, 191-2, 231, 274; of Hittites, 238, 304; of bar- barians, 251, 313, 338, 341 Armenians, 192, 238 Art: Agean, 177, 234, 288; cave, 116, 118; Egyptian, 137, 210, 295 ; Mesopotamian, 155, 210, 288 : Syrian, 283, 350 Arunta (Australian tribe), 18, 20, 27-8, 65, 70 Aryans, 87, 234, 240, 264, 275, 282, 336, 349, 353 Ascalon, 262, 324, 339 Ashur (god), 197 Ashurbanipal, 352 Asiatic invasion of Egypt, theory of, 122, 155, 164 Asiatics, early portraits of, 183, 191 Assemblies, tribal, 64, 67, 77 Assur, 215 Assyrians, 160, 1938, 197, 264, 324 348, 349; and Hyksds, 248; and New Kingdom, 277, 289 ; in Cap- padocia, 242; westward advance of, 335, 351- g Asylum among Australian natives, 66 Aten. See Solar disc Atreus, 37 Australian aborigines, customs of, 10, 18, 24, 29, 32, 46, 56, 64, 71 Authority originally diffuse, 51, 65, 71, 78, 143, 356 Avaris, 247 ihe 252, 259, 310 Aziru, 305 Baal, 253, 256, 296 Babylon: foundation of, 192, 205, 212, 216, 217; sacked by Hittites, 236, 239 ; relations of : with New Kingdom, 277, 280-1, 287-9; with Hittites, 324, "331; with Assyria, 331, 349 : revival of, 353 Bantu, 112 Barbarian empire, 253-4 Barbarian invasions and raids on Egypt, 123, 170, 177, 214, 218, 248, 251, $37- 342 ; on Mesopo- tamia, 205, 212, 234, 353 Barley. See Grains cultivated Barter, 170, 179, 198 Battles. See Kadesh, Megiddo Beduins, 169, 191, 193, 209, 250, 260, 295 Beni-Hassan, 248 Blood-brotherhood among Semites, 197 Blood-feud, 13, 50, 130, 197 paintings at, 245, 365 366 Blood, sanctity of, 17, 45, 51 Blue-eyed people on Egyptian monuments, 167, 192, 338 Boas, 29, 33, 59, 88, 96, 100, 105 Boghaz- Keui, 281, 294, 303, 305, 311, 326 Brick architecture in Egypt and Mesopotamia, 155, 200, 210 Brother-and-sister mar riage, 144 Brown, G., 102 Bull- -roarers, 45 Burial rites, 120. mids Buto, 131, 135, 140 Byblos, 177, 181, 209, 233, 305, 310, 811, 329, 346 ; ships of, 1e7 228, 262, 977, 294” See also Pyra- Calendar, invention of, 133; Baby- lonian, "210 Canaanites, 190, 209, 214, 250, 261, | 262, 287, 352 Candolle, ‘161 Cannibal spirits, 101 Cannibalism, significance of, 106 Cappadocia, 236, 242. See also under Hittites Caravan traffic, 165, 170, 173, 179, 198, 351 Carchemish, 266, 276, 283, 307, 348 Carmel, Mount, 214, 262, 270, "346 Carnarvon, Lord, 258 Chalcolithic remains, 119, 199 Chaldea. See Mesopotamia Chaldeans, 194, 353 Challenge, ‘principle of, 86, 93, 96 Chiefs: in primitive societies, 64, 85, 90, 94; in Ancient East, 130 Chronology : ’ Beyptian, 127-8, O47 : Mesopotamian, 202-3 Churingas 19, 45, 66, 78. See also Bull-roarers Cilicia, 233, 239, 270, 279, 292 Song formation of, 198, 203, 209, 6 Civilization: Egyptian, 120, 122, 123-5, 129, 133, 155, 163-4, 222 ; Mesopotamian, 201, 208, 939 : Palestinian, 209, 262 ; Syrian, 209, 230, 262, 351 4 TOON BaD = racial type of, 192, Clan: Egyptian, totemic, 20 ff., 50, 143; vague- ness of, 25 Clan chief, 94 Classes, matrimonial, 32 ff. Clay, Albert, 195 Climate: Mediterranean, 116; Hither Asia, 188, 200 Coalitions, ancient, 311 Coats-of-Arms. See Crests Codrington, 47 een uate! of phratries, 21, 80, 9 Collective responsibility of clan, 14 of INDEX Commerce. See Caravan traffic, Exports, Imports, Maritime trade, Trade Communism, primitive, 5, 14, 71, 111, 144 Conception, primitive notions of, Conceptional totemism, 28, 43, 70 Confraternities, &6, 99 ‘ff. ; "356 Consanguinity contrasted totemic kinship, q.v. Contract, primitive ideas of, 86, 92 Cradle of Semites. See Semites Creation, the, 202 Crenellated walls, 155 to Crests, 33, 61, 87, 90 Crete, "177, 233, 253, 262, 277, 279, 293. 310 Crown of Egypt, form of, 131-2, 136 Cult of the king in conquered lands, 180, 181, 261, 296, 344 Cuneiform script: origin, 201; use of, 237, 280-1 Ciinow, 92. 40 Custom, supr emacy of in primitive societies, 67, 72 Cylinder seals, 155, 210 Cyprus, 163, 171, 207, 278, 293 Damascus: oasis of, 193, 198, 215, 230; State of, 351 Damietta skull, 119 Danezans, 290, 311, 341 Dardanians, 311 David, King, 352 Dawson, 87 Dead Sea, 188 Death of Pharaoh, sequences of, 152 Deification of ‘king, intention of, 211, 296 Deity, idea of, 75-6 Delaporte, L., 202, 235, 241, 287, 303, 335, 355 Democracies, ancient, 58, 63 Desiccation, ‘effects of, 118, 200 Despotism, ‘collective, 111 Dieri (Australian tribe) 12 Diplomacy: Egyptian, 286-292; Hittite, 311, 324 Diplomatic language, 281, 286, 295 Divine dynasties, 128 Divinity of Pharaoh, 134, 143, 153, 296 Domestic animals, origin of, 162, 164 Domestication of animals, 120, 196 Dress of peoples depicted on monu- ments, 155, 168, 179, 192, 238, 294, 313, 338, 342 Durkheim, 12, 14, 18, 20, 22, 23, 28, 39, 40, 45, 49, 56, 61, 75, 80, 83, 111 supposed con- INDEX Dwarfs, 180 Dynastic race, theory of, 155 Eanatum, 206 Economic : factor in personal power, 105, 109, 142; bases of ancient imperialism, 174, 176, 182, 186, 194, 206, 222, 234, 240, 266 Edom, 197 Edomites, B51 Education of princes by Egypt, 282, 293, 297 El-Amarna (Tell) letters, 207, 240 280-293, 305, 334 Elamites, 171, 196, 199, 202, 206, 215, 243 ee councils of, 73, 124, 1380, Elliot Smith, 158 Empire, gods of, 212, 296, 300 Emptor familie, 89 Endogamy, 19, 21, 28, 144 England and the English, 58 Engwara ceremony, 69 mine predynastic, 123, 128, Eoliths, 117 Eridu, 200 Ktruscans, 338-9 Evans, Sir Arthur, 253 European races, 116, 338 Exodus, the, 340 Exogamy, 13, 18 ff., 40 Exploration, Egyptians’ voyages of, 225-6 Exports: Egyptian, 170, 179, 222, 266, 288; Babylonian, 225, 288; Syrian, 181, 228, 233, 266, 283, 350 ; Hittite, 331; Beean, 171, 933, 294. Extradition, treaty, 338 provisions for in Falcon, Pharaoh’s protector, 7, 130, 134, 140, 142 Family, primitive, 13 ff., 55, 196 Fauna, Egyptian native, 161 Federations, primitive, 83 Fetishes, Egyptian, 123, 128 Fetishism contrasted to totemism, 4 Feudalism, 99, 110, 231 Finances, 239, 266 Fison, 22 Flood, the, 202 Flood : Nile, 119, 124, 182; Euphrates, 188, 203 Food, provision of by chief, 105, 142, 147; sanctity of, 106 Tigris- Foreign Office, Egyptian, 280, 305 Foreign policy: Egyptian, 172, 179, 184, 234, 280, 294; Baby- lonian, 218 367 Frazer, Sir James, 14, 16, 18, 26, 28, 36, 45, 49, 61, 64, 81, 87, 94, 107, 124, 132, 147, 149, 151 Frontiers, defence of ‘Egyptian, 177-281, 305 Gad, 197 Gafsa, 117 Gentile organization, 62 Geographical background of his- boEy 115-6, 160, 187, 203, 236, 62 Gerontocracy, 69, 124, 144 Gezer, 208, 258, 339 God: rise of idea of, 79, 133; rela- ee to the society, 49 ; to ‘chief, Gods as signatories to treaties, 205, 296, 312, 328, 331 Ee "Bey ptian riches in, 179, 261, Gr ae cultivated, home of, 161, 64 Gudea, 215 Gutium, 203, 205, 212, 215 Gyneecocracy, 30, 41 Haddon, A. C., 31, Haida (Indian. bribe’ 33, 61, 83, 87, 93 193, 216-218, Hammurabi, 234 Hartland, Sidney, 37-8, 40 Hau-nebu. See Agean peoples Hebrews: origins of, 1938, 194; entry into Palestine, 251, 307-8, 340; kingdom of, 351 Heliopolis, SISo: 182, 337 Her acleopolitan dy nasties, 222 Heresy of Akhenaten, 302 ages -sha, 169, 176, 213, 227, 267, 79 Herkhuf, exploits of, 179-181 Hierakonpolis, 135, 137, 143 King, 218-9, Hierarchic organization, 78," 85, 101 Seeroe spas See Picture-writ- ng Hittites, 193, 195, 234, 290; eae of, 236-8 : early history, "242: Palestine, 240, 251, 352 hoe traits of, 309 ; relations with New Kingdom, 977, 292; empire of, 303 ff. Horites, 209 Horse, ‘introduction of lh, VO 235, 239, 242 Horus, 128, 193-4) 187, 214384182. 185, 226, 279 ; Followers of, 128, 134, 140, 144, 155-6, 268 Hospitality, duty of, 191 Howitt, 22, 56, 71, 80 Fir ozny, 237 368 Hyksés, 247-54, 256, 289 Hymns, Egyptian, quoted, 185, 8 Ideograms. See Picture-writing Imperialism, character of ancient, 176, 179, 206, 264, 281-2, 298, 353. See also Economic bases, War Imports: into Egypt, 137, 170, 171, 177, 181, 226, 233; into Aigean, 294; into Mesopotamia, 206, 215, 88 Incest, prohibition of, 13 Individual, position of in primitive societies, 53, 77, 92 Individualism not innate in man, 1 nace of totem, 29, 33, 40, Initiation ceremonies, tribal char- acter of, 66, 79, 112 Insignia, magic properties of, 107, 132, 135 International relations in second millennium, 295, 311, 324 ff. Internationalism, 298. 300, 302 Intichiwma ceremony, 19, 66, 69 Iron, use of, 163, 171, 238, 251, 313, 331-2, 338 Irrigation, 125, 148, 203 Ishtar, journey of, to Egypt, 291, 334 ; "worshipped in Egypt, 296 Israel, 251, 339-340, 351 Israelites, 190, 240 Jacob, 251 Jerusalem, 240, 262, 300, 305, 352 Joppa, 262, 286, 351 Jordan, 188, 190, 219, 262, ° 308, 51 Joseph, 150, 251 Judgment, magical, 48 Ka, 8, 46, 145 Kadesh, 262, 270, 274, 276-7, 283, 307, 310, "398 ; battle of, 314, 329-7 Kames, King, 258 Karnak, 366. 269, 278, 308, 325 Kassites, 195, 934-5, 939, 243, 287, 307 Keftiu. See Aigean peoples, Crete Khattusil I, 303 Khattusil ct 324-332, 335, 345 Khazanu defined, 282 Kheops, 152 191 Khian, 250, 959-3 Kings: and agriculture, 106, 133, 148; ritual killing of, 150: and weather, 333 Kinship, 11 ff. 27°97. 80 Kish, 201, 203, 206 Kizwadana, 312, 328, 3380 Legislation, 67 INDEX Knossos, 253, 294, 295 Kula traffic, 109 Kush, 168, 923 295 Kwakiutl (Indian tribe), 33, 35, 59, 88, 92, 100, 105 Labour, supply of, 179 Lagash, 205, 210, 215 Lake- dwellings, 166 Land bridges, prehistoric, 116, 166 Langdon, S., 202, 205, 207, 211 Languages: “of Egypt, 156, 158 ; of Hither Asia, 190, 193, 199, 235, 237, 240, 280. See also Aryans, Hittites, Semites Law, primitive, 63, 75, 102 Laws of Hammurabi, 216-7 Lebanon, 163, 181, 183, 188, 207, 231, 262, 275, 304, 308, 348, 350 primitive organ of, Letters: of Hammurabi, 216; of Hittite kings, 325, 331; of Pharaohs, 80, 987-299, 307, 330; of provincial governors, 284. Lévy-Bruhl, 106 Libyans, 167, 173, 178, 184, 2138, 222, 279, 387, 346 Literature. See Hymns, Letters, Poem, Tales Local kinship, 28 Local organization as opposed to totemic, 56, 58, 70 Lotanu, 297, 245, 266, 275, 282, 308 ; defined, 262 Lubbock, iW, Lycians, 290, 311, 337 Magan, 207 Magic: forces, 46, 106; as a factor in personal power, 64, 104; func- tions of Pharaoh, 146 ff., 973 Magicians as kings, 64, 107, 133 Maine, Sir Henry, 58 Mana, eg 75, 106, 355 Manishtusu, 207 Marduk, God of Babylon, 216 Mari, 201, 203, 205-6 Maritime trade, 171; 225 Markets, search for, 206, 222, 266 Marriage: regulation of, 22 #f.; power acquired by, 36, 87; matri- local, 41 Marriage- alliances between early kings, 287, 290-2, 307 Matriarchy witee, "41. See also Uterine Matrilinear. See Uterine Matrilocal. See Marriage Mauss, 46, 48, 91, 98, 102 Mazaka. 242 Mazoi, 168, 174, 258, 265 McLennan, Le, 39 INDEX Medes, 235 Medicine-men, 64, 68, 72 Mediterranean : region, description of, 115-9; race, 124-5, 158, 166-7 Megiddo, 208, 262, 270, O75; battle of, 272-4 Melanesia, 31, 46, 102, 108, 355 Memphis, "134, 136, 146, 218, 248, 259 Memphite dynasties, 177 ff., 218 Menes, King, 128, 137, 152, 173, 174, 207, 210, 355 Men’s society, 79, 103 Mercenaries : employment of, 170, E7S, 222, 311 313; ‘as king- makers, 348-9 Merinau, "240, 275, 282 Merneptah, King, 249, 337-340 Mesolithic remains, 119 Mesopotamia: climate and geo- graphy, 188; ethnology, 200-2, 212, 215, 235 Metallurgy, discovery of, 120, 155, 174, 200, 238. See also Iron Meyer, Eduard, 130, 144, 152, 196, 38 Migrations of Semites, 194, 212 (see also Abraham); of Philis- tines, 342 Militarist spirit in Egypt, 265 Mineral resources, control of, 163, 206, 236, 240, 242, 266, 331 Mitanni, 193, 234, 264, 269; 275, 279 ; ethnology, 240-1; relations with Kgypt, 289-294; decline of, 303 ff. Moieties, 16. See Phratries Monopolies, State: mines, 175, 227; long-distance trade, 181, 226 : land, 148, 148 Monotheism and imperialism, 300 Morgan, J. de, 119, 199 Mummies, M7: 257° Murder, ritual. See King Mursil, King, 310, 312 "336, 345 Mutallu, King, 310-3, 314, 320, 324, 345 Mutemuia, Queen, 291 Mycene, 294 Mystic nature of clan, 12, 46, 48 Mysticism, 51 Mythology as reflection of history, 67, 70, 75-6, 101, 105 Nabateans, 194 Naharina, 241, 264, 267, 270, 276, 303, 307, 311 Names: inheritance of, 33, 35, 90, 93; magic force of, 108, 140 Napata, 149, 260-1 Naram- Sin, King, 207, 210 Narmer, King, 136, 173, 210 Narrinyeri (Austr alian tribe), 30 Nationalism, Egyptian, 153, 264 369 Naval warfare, 207, 214, 344 Navigation, 123, 165, 171, 177, 228, 294, 350 Negada, 120, 140, 152, 155, 209 Negroes and Egypt, 167, 172, Lis; 223, 296 Nekheb, 132, 140 Neolithic remains, 190, 208 Nippur, 201-2, 205, 216 Nomads, characters Of, aloe ed, 170, 172, 196, 204 Nomadism, effects of, organization, 51 Nomes, 123, 130 Nubians, 168, 172, “118; 2227258; 266, 279 on social Oligarchy in primitive societies, 86 Omaxtalale, legend of, 105 Orontes, 188, 190, 192, 219; 230, 240, 262, O75, 310 Oscans, 341 Osiris, 6, 133, 153 Paleolithic remains, 116, 118 Palermo Stone, 131, "145, "148 Palestine, 164, 184, 186, 188, 190, 193, 195, 201, 219, 215, 218, 297° 240, 245, 951, 259° Parents-in- law, privileges of, 31 Parkinson, 102 Patriarchal family, 38, 86; among Semites, 196-7 Patrilinear kinship, 28, 34, 70; PoE une uterine, 27, 30, 33, 35, 8 Patriotism of Egyptians, 185, 222 Peace, desire for in fifteenth cen- tury, 296 Pepi T 170, 213, 218, 299; II, 179, uf Petrie, Sir Flinders, 120, 152 Pharaoh, character. of, A 5, 143 3 meaning of name, 142 note Philistines, 341, 346, 351-2 Phoenicians, 226, 939, 251, 350 Phratry, 15, 19, 93, 62, 80, 83, 94 Picture-writing, 125, 901, 237° 303 Pinnaru, 72 Piracy, 336, 347 Poem of Pentaur quoted, 314, 323 Policemen, 169 Potlatch, 86, 90 ff., 356 Pottery : Egyptian, 119-123, 156; ffigean, 171, 293; Minoan, 233, 293 ; of ‘Susa, 199” Priest kings, 135 Promiscuity, alleged, 39, 53 Property, real, rise of, 108, 142, 196 Protectorates, system of, adopted by Egypt, 181, 284-6 Pumpelly, 200 370 Punishments, use society, 65, 73 Punt, Land of, 155, 225, 279 Pyramids, meaning of, 152 in primitive Quaternary epoch, 116-8 Quibell, 120 Ra (sun god), 128, 138, 155, 182, 249, 2538, 257, 270, 296-7, 316 Racial types: Egyptian, 124, 157; of Hither Asia, 191, 199, 235, 237, 241, 264, ” 350; of North Africa, 167-9 : Peoples of the North, 338 Rameses II, 290, 307, 310, 312-335, 337; ITT, 841-5 Regalia. See Insignia Reincarnation of ancestors, 78 Rejuvenation of Pharaoh, 151-2 Religion: as basis of power, 68, 101, 109; as support for im- perialism, 180-1, 211, 261, 296, 300; connection with trade, 108, 184: totemic, 17, 45, 49, 25 ve social origins of, 49, "52, 66 Representative gover nment primitive societies, 73 Republics in Syria, 282 Respect, principle of, 95 Revolution, religious, 216, 297 Rivers cited, 31, 79 Rome, sur vivals of uterine kinship at, 35 Sahara, 115, 118 Sanctions, for breach of taboo, 16, Sardes, 242 Sargon of Agade, 193, 206 Saru (Council of Elders in 124, 130 Sayce, A. H., 237 Schurtz, 22 Schweinfurth, 161, 164 Scorpion, King, 136, 148 Script: Egyptian, 158; Elamite, 199; cuneiform, 201; Aramaic, 351. See also Alphabet Soret societies, primitive, 46, 92, Sed festival, 151 ff. Segmentation of clan, 55 Semites, 176, 190 ff., 901, 234, 239, 250, 264 ; unity of, 193- 5; cradle of, 196 ; nomadic, 196-8 Semitic influence in Egypt, 158, 161, 182 Senusert, King, 221, 232-3, 245 Seqininra, King, 249, 256 Sergi, 125, 166 Seth, 186, 247, 253, 279 Seti I, 308-310, 326, 336 Sexes, separation of, 21 in f., 210 Egypt), INDEX Shakalasha, 311, 338 Shardana, 290, 311,313, 337, 347 Shechem, 245 Shemsu-Hor. See Horus, Fol- lowers of Shinar. See Mesopotamia Ships. See Byblos, Navigation Shubbiluliuma, 292, 303, 307, 311 Sidon, 209, 989 Sieges, 183, 259, 274, 324 Simeon, tribe of, 259 Sinai, mines of, "174 ff., 207, 227 Sinope, 242 Sinuhet, tale of, 228-233 Smerkhet, 175, 191 Snefru, 178, 181 Socialism in Egypt. polies, State Solar : cult, 182; disc, 1385, 297; name, 6, 333 ; or igin of Phar aoh, 296 Solomon, King, 352 Sothic cycle, 134 Spencer and Gillen, 14, 18, 28, 31, 65, 68, 78 Spencer, Herbert, 17, 53, 111 Spirits, 79, 93, 100 Strategy, p yart played by in ancient warfare, PD See Mono- Strehlow, 28, 78 Sumerians, 156, 195; race and language, 200; history, 201-5; 212, 216, 239 Sun. See Solar Sunrise caused by Pharaoh, 147 Susa, 199, 215 Swanton, 33, 87, 95, 98 Syria. See ’Naharina, Pheenicia, Zahi Taanach, 270, 281, 352 Taboo: nature of” Egypt, 149 Tactics. See Battles Tales: popular, 228, 249, 256, 285; mariners’, 228 Tanis, 251, 253 Tarquin, 36 Tello, 155, 215 Territorial groups, 17, 72; in formation of, 26, %, 58, 86, 89, 93; in Egypt, 130 f. Theban monarchy, 170, 221-234, 246, 252, 256 Thinite monarchy, 163, 173-7, 210 Thomson, 200 Thothmes I, 249, 260-1, 266, 276; TII, 261, 269-279; IV, 280, 290 Tiglath-Pileser I, 348; TII, 352 Timber, search for, 163, 206, 215, 233, 338 Tlinkit (Indian tribe), 33, 83, 87, 92, 95 137-142, 154, INDEX 371 Toleration, religious, in Egypt, 296 | Totemism: nature of, 28 ff., 44, 75; decay of, 97, 86, 101; as religion, 80; survivals in Egypt, 4, 6, 143-4, 353 Trade, at first connected with religion, 92, 108-9; beginnings of, 137; as factor in diffusion of ideas, 183. See also Economic, Exports, Imports, Maritime, Monopolies Trade routes, command of, 171, 225, 240, 242, 262 Treaties: Hittites and Egypt, 292 ; text, 326-8; Hittite, 312; com- peter Egypt, and Babylon, 88 gue paid to Egypt, 181, 268, 8 Troad, peoples from, in Syria, 311 Troglodytes, 169, 176, 184, 195, 223, 225, 227 Tukulti-Inurta, 335 Turin Papyrus, 126, 131, 247 Turkestan, 200, 235 Tutankhamen, 302, 307 -Tyre, 209, 282-3, 310, 346 Unification of Egypt, 131, 137 147; of Babylonia, 216 Unity, gods as principles of, 205, 300 Ur, 201, 203, 215, 219, 240 Uterine: clan, 39 ff.; kinship, 20, 24, 28-9, 33, 37 ff., 70; in Egypt, 123; at Rome, 35; uncle, 32, 34, 38, 40, 42 =) Van, 195, 243 Varuna, 241 Vicinity, effect of, 51 Village: relation to clan, 59, 62, 64, 94, 180, 197, 356; chief, 94 War: effect on social organiza- tion, 112; in _ predynastic Egypt, 180; defensive or offen- sive, 146, 169-70, 172, 176, 177 Be 183, 207, 218, 223, 246, 259, Warramunga (Australian tribe), 69, 91 Weapons. See Armament Webster, 102 Weill, 249 Wheat. See Grains Wite, position of, 70 Winckler, 326 Women: position of, 17, 30, 40, 42; sanctity of, 17 Words, magic force of, 181 Writing, 125, 135, 158. See also Alphabet, Cuneiform, Picture- writing, Script Yemen, 156, 163-4, 187, 193, 223 Zahi, 264, 275-6, 291, 302, 333, 343 Zalu, 269, 276, 309, 314 Zariku, 215 Zekal, 341, 346, 351 Zoser, 150, 178, 181 pet ee ee ee ee PRINTED iN GREAT BRITAIN BY BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND ESHER, : PAE EISTORY OF CIVILIZATION A COMPLETE HISTORY OF MANKIND FROM PREHISTORIC TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY IN NUMEROUS VOLUMES DESIGNED TO FORM A COMPLETE LIBRARY OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION Edited by C KVOGDEN of Magdalene College, Cambridge Published by KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., Ltd. BROADWAY HOUSE: 68-74, CARTER LANE, LONDON MEPAMSSEEMWSCANEDE EAMES EPMO MNESSAMNIDEEMNEDC EMME AMIDE EAMES PM WDE EMNSBEEASD j Thi a) ne 4 esc iy ve %, “9 “WOUES SHV" i a up ae ey ey : ae. e: rec diiastibe Wey. real edna s- Madl Tyas FAT OT CANTY HOTELES A CTT (2H BOe IMI aks RIO OF CIE _ SBI. ace (AABAI:! aaa : er ap a alae ch SARS. et aa s : ‘y e } , y Ke t Cj nae ios , | eextiwkh ls x7 %, Sh Subokagith ~ " i oe » -_ .< ors 4 «< 1 p> age? Brie< A We G | - 4 3 : P } , om | : Sm phos sh iaahiel, fa A | rate Oo: i RAL. a HOMaRT AM AE vom Ss, pease ee Pa: a Kae | , Nee sy aa ha of j a? ‘ , . , bd AP Thee | ‘ , . os ed Mine 14 < ih i Meare lee i cP a, THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION HIS series marks one of the most ambitious adventures in the : annals of book publishing. Its aim is to present in accessible form the results of modern research and modern scholarship throughout the whole range of the Social Sciences—to summarize in one comprehensive synthesis the most recent findings and theories of historians, anthropologists, archeologists, sociologists, and all consci- entious students of civilization. To achieve success in this stupendous undertaking, the arrangement of the series, has been entrusted to the experienced editorship of C. K. Ogden, M.A., of Magdalene College, Cambridge. The new French series, L’ Evolution de Humanité, in which the leading savants of France are collaborating with the Director of the Bibliothéque de Synthése Historique, M. Henri Berr, is being incorporated. Distinguished historians, both European and American, are contributing volumes in their several departments. Above all, while detailed and very special monographs have been avoided, no attempt to “ write down” to a low level has been made. The field has been carefully mapped out, as regards both subjects and periods; and, though the instalments will be published as they are ready, the necessary chronological sequence will be secured by the fact that the volumes of the French collection will be used as a nucleus. Each work will be entirely independent and complete in itself, but the volumes in a given group will be found to supplement one another when considered in relation to a particular subject or period. The volumes are uniformly bound in a fine art-cambric cloth, with specially designed gold lettering and emblem, royal octavo in size, and usually illustrated. THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT devoted a leading article to the first four volumes, in which the series was described as being ‘‘ composed by all the talents ”’. THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN wrote that “ the experiment is one of great interest. Its difficulty is also great. The intention is to provide something more than an encyclopedia or a series of mono- graphs. The aim is to preserve a certain community of plan while 3 giving a free hand to each author in his own section. It is an heroic attempt, which will be sympathetically watched, to bring some light into the vast mass of ill-organized knowledge which we owe to modern research and so make it available in the end for the guidance of the world ”’. NATURE, the leading scientific journal, in a six-column review, provides a striking summary of the aims and objects of the series: “The History of Civilization promises to be perhaps the most important contribution so far undertaken towards the task of organization and systematization of the social studies. A glance at the prospectus makes us anticipate a library of masterpieces, for the best workers of France, Great Britain, and some other countries are contributing from their own speciality and are attempting to bring it into line with the con- tributions from neighbouring fields and with the results of general sociology. Including all the volumes of the important French collection, L’Evolution de ? Humanité, the English library contains additions and improvements which will place it above its continental counterpart. The volumes already issued bear out our best hopes. Arranged so as to include all manifestations of human culture, the series follows roughly a combined historical and geographical plan. Starting from the most comprehensive picture, the empty earth in the midst of the empty universe awaiting the arrival of man, it passes then to the gradual development of organic life and the early history of mankind, accom- panied by a series of introductory works which give an account of the various aspects of human culture: social organization, language, geographical and racial factors, man’s political evolution and primeval domesticity. The story then begins at the traditional cradle of culture, the ancient East, on the holy banks of the Nile, the Euphrates and Tigris, and on the shores of the Mediterranean, where the origins and history of the early Empires and their civilizations are described. After having been shown the growth of the Aégean civilization and the formation of the Greek people we study the history of Greece in all its wonderful cultural achievements. Next, hegemony has to be surrendered to Rome with its laws, politics, and economic organization. This brings us to the vast areas occupied by the Teutonic peoples to the North, the Persian, Indian and Chinese civilization to the East, and the Mongol cultures of Central Asia. ‘These will be studied in a series of monographs. . . . The second division will contain volumes on Christian religion, on the break-up of the Roman Empire, on the religious imperialisms of Christianity and Islam, on the political, social, 4 economic, and intellectual evolution in the Middle Ages and modern times. The English library contains, besides, several special sections, one on the histories of various subjects, such as medicine, money, costume, witchcraft, etc. ; a section on Oriental culture; on historical ethnology ; and a few more sections not yet exhaustively announced, dealing with modern history. ‘This summary does not do full justice to the merits of the plan and of the achievements of the series, so far as they have been laid before us ae The following plan, comprising upwards of eighty titles, though not definitive, will serve to convey a general notion of the nature and scope of the enterprise :* A. PRE-HISTORY AND ANTIQUITY I IntTropuctTion AND Pre-Hisrory *Social Organization W SH Reakigers The Earth Before History E. Perrier Prehistoric Man F. de Morgan *The Dawn of European Civilization V. Gordon Childe A Linguistic Introduction to History JF. Vendryes A Geographical Introduction to History L. Febvre Race and History EL. Pittard *The Aryans V. Gordon Childe From Tribe to Empire A, Moret *Woman’s Place in Simple Societies F. L. Myers *Cycles in History F. L. Myers *The Diffusion of Culture G. Elliot Smith *The Migration of Symbols D. A. Mackenzie II Tue Earty Empires The Nile and Egyptian Civilization A. Moret *Colour Symbolism of Ancient Egypt D, A. Mackenzie The Mesopotamian Civilization L. Delaporte The Aigean Civilization G. Glotz III Greece The Formation of the Greek People A. Fardé *Ancient Greece at Work G. Glotz The Religious Thought of Greece C. Sourdille The Art of Greece W. Deonna and A. de Ridder Greek Thought and the Scientific Spirit L. Robin The Greek City and its Institutions G. Glotz Macedonian Imperialism P. Fouguet * An asterisk denotes that the volume does not form part of the French collection, L’ Evolution de ? Humanité. 5 IV Rome Ancient Italy The Roman Spirit in Religion and Art Roman Political Institutions Rome the Law-Giver Ancient Economic Organization The Roman Empire *Ancient Rome at Work The Celts V Bryvonp THE Roman EMPIRE Germany and the Roman Empire Persia Ancient China and Central Asia *A Thousand Years of the ‘artars India *The Heroic Age of India *Caste and Race in India *The Life of Buddha as Legend and History L. Homo A. Grenier L. Homo F. Declareuil F. Toutain V. Chapot P. Louts H. Hubert H. Hubert C. Huart M. Granet E. H. Parker (Ed.) S. Léivt N. K. Sitdhanta G. S. Ghurye E. H. Thomas CHRISTIANITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES I Tue Oricins or CHRISTIANITY Israel and Judaism Jesus and the Birth of Christianity The Formation of the Church The Advance of Christianity *History and Literature of Christianity IL Tue Break-up oF THE EMPIRE The Dissolution of the Western Empire The Eastern Empire Charlemagne The Collapse of the Carlovingian Empire The Origins of the Slavs *Popular Life in the East Roman Empire *The Northern Invaders III Reticiovus IMPERIALISM Islam and Mahomet The Advance of Islam Christendom and the Crusades The Organization of the Church 6 A. Lods C. Guignebert C. Guignebert C. Guignebert P. de Labriolle F. Lot C. Diehl L. Halphen F. Lot (Ed.) P. Boyer N. Baynes B. S. Phillpotts E. Doutté L. Barrau-Dihigo P. Alphandéry R. Genestal IV Tue Art or THE Mippue AGEs The Art of the Middle Ages P. Lorquet *The Papacy and the Arts E. Strong V Reconstitution or Monarcuic Power The Foundation of Modern Monarchies C. Petit-Dutarllis The Growth of Public Administration E. Meynial The Organization of Law E. Meyntal VI Socrat anp Economic EvoLurTion The Development of Rural and Town Life G. Bourgin Maritime Trade and the Merchant Gilds P. Botssonnade *Life and Work in the Middle Ages P. Botssonnade *The Life of Women in Medieval Times Etleen Power *Travel and Travellers in the Middle Ages (d.) A. P. Newton VIL Inrev_tectuaL Evo.uTIon Vill Education in the Middle Ages G. Huisman Philosophy in the Middle Ages E. Bréhier Science in the Middle Ages Abel Rey and P. Boutroux From tHe Mippie Aczs to Mopern ‘Times Nations of Western and Central Europe P. Lorquet Russians, Byzantines, and Mongols (Ed.) P. Boyer The Birth of the Book G. Renaudet *The Grandeur and Decline of Spain C. Hughes Hartmann *The Influence of Scandinavia on England M. E. Seaton *The Philosophy of Capitalism T. E. Gregory *The Prelude to the Machine Age D. Russell *Life and Work: Fifteenth to Eighteenth Century G. 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A THOUSAND YEARS OF THE TARTARS By E. H. PARKER, Professor of Chinese in the Victoria University of Manchester. With 5 illustrations and maps, I2s. 6d. net. “Professor Parker takes us back to a period roughly contemporaneous with that of the foundation of the Roman empire, and shows their history to be, like that of the Northern barbarians and Rome, a constant struggle with China. With an unfamiliar subject the book is not an easy one to read, but the author has done all that was possible to enliven his subject and has certainly succeeded in giving us a most valuable text-book.” —Saturday Review. CHINA AND EUROPE: ‘their Intellectual and Artistic Relations in the Eighteenth Century By ADOLPH REICHWEIN. With 24 plates, 12s. 6d. net. ‘¢ Among the volumes of the monumental History of Civilization, this study of the influence of Chinese art and thought on the European art and thought of the eighteenth century will find not the least popular and distinguished place. The chapter headed ‘ Rococo ’ will be of especial interest to connoisseurs. The illustrations are numerous and beautiful.” —Sunday Times. THE DAWN OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION By V. GORDON CHILDE, B.Lrrr: With 198 illustrations and 4 maps, 16s. net. “‘ Higher praise of Mr. Childe’s book, which forms a volume of the monu- mental History of Civilization could scarcely be given than to say that it isin all respects worthy of the volumes which preceded it.””—Sunday Times. Io “He has done a very great service to learning, and given a clear and reliable outline of the earliest civilization of Europe. His book ‘ fills a gap ’ indeed.” —WNation. ‘A very fine piece of work.””—Manchester Guardian. “A work of supreme importance . . . places the writer in the very front rank of European archeologists.” —Glasgow Herald. MESOPOTAMIA: the Babylonian and Assyrian Civili- zation By L. DELAPORTE, Professor in the Catholic Institute of Parts. With 60 illustrations and maps, I6s. net. The first general survey of Assyrian and Babylonian life and history to embody the results of post-war researches. Thus Babylonian is presented for the first time with its true historical background. Through the Jews the Babylonians have profoundly influenced Christendom ; the Code of Hammurabi was the basis of Mosaic legislation, the Flood and other stories from Genesis originated in Babylonia, and the commercial law of the third millenium antici- pates modern practice. THE AEGEAN CIVILIZATION By G. GLOTZ, Professor of Greek History in the University of Parts. With 95 illustrations and maps, 16s. net. The ancient and elaborate Aegean civilization first revealed by Schliemann and more fully disclosed by the excavations of Sir Arthur Evans in Crete dating from 1900, is described in a style of amazing richness, informed throughout by sound scholarship. This people, who lived so long in luxury and peace, who cultivated the arts with such a developed esthetic sense, who finally passed so much of their heritage to ancient Greece, play an important part in history, while their civilization provides numerous striking similarities with modern religion, fashion, sport—in fact, with modern life in general. THE PEOPLES OF ASIA By L. H. DUDLEY BUXTON, M.A., F.S.A., Lecturer in Physical Anthropology in the University of Oxford. With 8 plates, 12s. 6d. net. A comprehensive account of the people of Asia, which welds together the numerous scattered researches and shows the most conspicuous gaps in our knowledge. Special attention has been directed throughout to the biological as opposed to the cultural aspect. In addition to chapters dealing with the bigger racial problems, special sections are devoted to the study of different regions, Western Asia, India, Japan, China, and Indonesia. II The following publications are nearing publication. They are arranged roughly in the order in which they will appear. Their place in the scheme of the whole series may be discovered from the list : RACE AND HISTORY: an Ethnological Introduction to History By E. PITTARD, Professor of Anthropology in the University of Geneva. With 9g illustrations and maps, about 21s. net. This volume is intended to serve as a companion to Febvre’s Geographical Introduction to History, which estimated the value of “environment ” as a factor in history. The present volume considers the “ racial ” factor, the anthro- pological reality which depends on somatic characters, build, height, colour of hair and eyes, craniological and facial form, etc. This the author carefully distinguishes from such artificial entities as peoples, nations, civilizations, or language groups. THE MIGRATION OF SYMBOLS, and their Relations to Beliefs and Customs By DONALD A. MACKENZIE, author of “ Ancient Man in Britain’. Illustrated, about 12s. 6d. net. The author deals comprehensively with the Swastika Symbol, the Spiral Symbol, Ear Symbols, and Tree Symbols. His book begins by showing the connexion of certain symbols with the Sun and the Nile, considers the “ Doctrine of Cardinal Points”, then its relation to the Doctrine of Mummification. Next an explanation is given of the problems of animals, etc., placed in heraldic opposition, and we are led to the Flying Disc symbol of Egypt. The work will throw much light on the theory of the diffusion of culture from Egypt. LIFE AND WORK IN MODERN EUROPE, Fifteenth to Eighteenth Century By G. RENARD, Professor at the College of France, and G. WENTERSSE, Professor at the Lycée Carnot. Introduction by Dr. EILEEN Power. With 2g illustrations, about 16s. net. “It is to fill a notable gap in the books available for English readers that this book has been translated. Beginning with the great revolutions which were changing the face of society in the sixteenth century, it ends with the I2 beginning in England and France of the great revolutions in the nineteenth. The authors deal in turn with the great economic powers of the period. They trace the chief characteristics of labour and social life from 1500 to 1800, the gradual disappearance of medieval survivals, the development of a national economy, the evolution of new economic classes, and the increasing interference of government in economic life.”—From the Introduction. TRAVEL AND TRAVELLERS IN THE MIDDLE AGES : a series of Essays Edited by Proressor A. PD. NEWTON. With 8 illustrations, about 12s. 6d. net. A contribution to the history of travel which throws much light on medieval life. ‘The contributions include : The Conception of the World in the Middle Ages, by Prof. A. P. Newton ; the Decay of Geographical Knowledge (300-500 A.D.), by M. C. W. Laistner ; Christian Pilgrimages (500-800 A.D.), by Prof. Claude Jenkins; the Viking Age, by Prof. Alan Mawer ; Arab Travellers and Merchants (1000-1500 A.D.), by Prof. Sir T. W. Arnold; Land Routes to Cathay, by Eileen Power, D.Lit.; Communication in Eastern Europe (800-1200 A.D.), by Baron A. F. Meyendorff ; Travellers’ Tales, by Prof. A. P. Newton ; Prester John, by Prof. Sir E. Denison Ross; Ocean Routes to the Indies, by Prof. Edgar Prestage ; etc. THE ARYANS By V. GORDON CHILDE. Illustrated, about 12s. 6d. net. The startling discoveries of the Ancient East and the great progress made in the study of the prehistoric civilizations of Europe (and especially of Greece) seem to make the moment propitious for a fresh survey of the fascinating question as to the origin and diffusion of those languages to which we, in common with the Ancient Greeks, Romans, and Hindus, are heirs. In fact, no full discussion of the Aryan question has appeared in English for the last twenty-five years. ANCIENT GREECE AT WORK: an Economic H1story of Greece from the Homeric Period to the Roman Conquest By G. GLOTZ, Professor of Greek Htstory in the University of Paris. With 4g illustrations, about 16s. net. A comprehensive account of life and labour in ancient Greece, considered by periods, the Homeric, the Archaic, the Athenian, and the Hellenistic. The whole economy of ancient Greek life comes under consideration, and the author deals in a scholarly and vivid fashion with such subjects as the Family, Slaves and Craftsmen, Agriculture and Industry, Piracy and Trade, Money, the Classes, Colonization, Socialism and Citizenship, Wages, including a special chapter on Sparta. 13 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS, with spectal reference to their Magic and Religion By RAFAEL KARSTEN. About 16s. net. Based on close personal contact with the natives of South America for five years, the book gives a detailed account of their life, in which, of course, magic and religion play a dominant part. Chapters are devoted to Ceremonial Body- Painting ; Customs relating to Hair, Nails, Head, and Skin; Feather and other Ornaments ; Mutilation ; Psychology of Ornamental Art ; Animal and Plant Spirits ; Spirits of Inanimate Objects ; Ideas of Generation and Conception ; the Male Child-bed ; Magical Sacrifice ; Taboo and Mana; etc. FROM TRIBE TO EMPIRE : Social Organization among the Primitive Peoples in the Ancient East By A. MORET, Director of the Musée Guimet, and G. DAVY, Professor of the University of Dijon. With 47 illustrations and maps, about 16s. net. A study of political organization in the Near East, showing how the claims of social life encroached on the freedom of the individual, so that by degrees totemic groupings gave way to tribes, kingdoms and empires. This view is carefully exemplified in the history of ancient Egypt, Babylonia, and the Near East, whose organization is compared and contrasted with that of primitive Australian Bushmen and North American Indians. THE FORMATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE By A. JARDE, Professor of History at the Lycée Lakanal. With 7 maps, about 16s. net. Based on the latest findings of archeology, geography, anthropology, and philology, this volume gives a clear outline of the nature of the Greek spirit and the influences which led to its formation. Attention is paid to political and social life, colonial expansion, and intellectual and moral character, in order to show the unity of the Greek spirit in its disunion. THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT AND DEMONOLOGY By MONTAGUE SUMMERS, editor of Congreve, Wycherley, Otway, etc. With 8 full-page illustrations, about 153s. net. The author includes in his definition of Witchcraft, sorcery, black magic, necromancy, divination, satanism, and every kind of malign occult art. He 14 shows how important a part Witchcraft has played among not a few of the most powerful and cultured peoples of the human family, tracing its history from the earliest times. A copious Bibliography will be included THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE, from the time of the Pharaohs to the end of the Eighteenth Century By C. G. CUMSTON, M.D., Lecturer on the ‘History of Medicine and Medical Philosophy in the University of Geneva. With a chapter on the Study of the History of Medicine, by F. G. CROOKSHANK, Vi ERS CCE, About 15s. net. This book has been written for the general reader and, as anintroduction tothe © history of his chosen profession, for the student of medicine. It contains an account of the chief medical schools, theories, and discoveries, and will contain much material not to be found in other works. While all unnecessary details have been excluded, the book gives a clear and comprehensive history of the evolution of the healing art. Other early volumes, of which detatls will be announced later, include : ART IN GREECE By A. pt RIDDER, Director of the Louvre Museum. GREEK THOUGHT, and the Origins of the Scientific Spirit By L. ROBIN, Professor in the University of Parts. MACEDONIAN IMPERIALISM, and the Hellenization of the East P. JOUGUET, Professor in the U niversity of Parts. PRIMITIVE ITALY, and the Beginnings of Roman Imperialism By LEON HOMO, Professor in the University of Lyons. ANCIENT ROME AT WORK: an keonomtc Htstory of Rome By PAUL LOUIS. 15 THE ROMAN SPIRIT in Religion, Thought and Art By A. GRENIER, Professor in the U niversity of Strasburg. ROMAN LAW By J. DECLAREUIL, Professor in the University of Toulouse. THE LIFE OF BUDDHA, in Legend and History By E. H. THOMAS, D.Lirt., Assistant-Librarian in the University Library, Cambridge. ANCIENT PERSIA, and Iranian Civilization By PROFESSOR CLEMENT HUART. LIFE AND WORK IN EUROPE, from the Fifth to Fifteenth Centurtes By P. BOISSONNADE, Professor in the University of Poitiers. a ae a .-; ta aie ~ mn tu a ahs ¥ fay a wid sa a) i * ie di _ biniyy peat ii Aa 4 a r si rib} hf, | a ah Y, 2 : EAN 4 ii i uy Renn? Rigs melee Ya) ri) shi ’ sb oe WAP a A By ks ie ion ; 1 Tae Mh hes hi ‘ine = . 4 Fe Tint BY oy o> ¢ : ci _ ok WU Pat A? eee eee ee Ee Ae y pie TK g me Oy 4) ‘9 i cea rae | a et twit , ‘ Crh Saal ® is te arr Winey a) go ey Mn oy me! is yen Neo, hts 4 et te Date Due = Sane ee ; fag x | , A fart A ep) SIM LINEAL ‘ 7 Hea aan ey se i ae aba ie by ay y gi a by i GAY TA Ui ‘a Bie . We an oh i, if NH rita A ae ae SAS Dan Ys ‘ ¥ ae t Ww Day ® wd eee A Le ’ ia on ]