THE MONUMENTAL HISTORY OF EGYPT, AS RECORDED ON THE EUINS OF HEE TEMPLES, PALACES, AND TOMBS. BY WILLIAM OSBURN, R.S.L., AUTHOR OF " THE ANTIQUITIES OF EGYPT," " ANCIENT EGYPT, HER TESTIMONT TO THE TRUTH," "ISRAEL IN EGYPT," ETC. VOL. II. LONDON : TRiiBNER AND CO., 12, PATERNOSTER ROW. NEW YORK : D. APPLETON AND 00. Digitized by tine Internet Arcliive in 2015 Iittps://arcliive.org/details/monumentalliistor02osbu CONTENTS. CHAPTER L PA 01 Famiit of Menes. Division of History. Change of Calendar. Ancient Astronomy. Length of Year. Its Correction. Sothic Cycle. Two longer Periods. Twelfth Dynasty. Tablet of Abydos. Amenemes I. His Names. Length of Reign. Names of his Son. Meaning of Name. Prosperous Reign. Conquests in Nubia Long War. Tombs of Beni-hassan. The Chief Amenemes. Con- secration of his Tomb. Reign of Amenemes IL Tomb of Nahrai. Properties of Nahrai. Name of Beni-hassan. Endowed Schools. Sesortosis IL Mistakes in Greek Lists. Jebusite Slaves. Palace of Sesortosis IL Sesortosis III. His Character. Amenemes III. Amuntimaeus. Shepherd Invasion. Its Mys- tery Explained. The Lower Egyptians recover themselves. Motives of the War. The Labyrinth. Described by Herodotus. Ruins cleared by Lepsius. Amenemes IV. Prosperity of Egypt. 1 CHAPTER IL THE SO-CALLED SHEPHERD KINGDOM. New Solution of Difficulty. Dynasties XIII. — XV. Indications of Fraud. Shepherd-Kings. Meaning of their Names. Opprobrious Epithets. Hieroglyphic Names. Mutilated Tombs. Chamber of Karnak. Succession there. Othoes. His Reign Prosj^erous. Amenemes IV. Saites. His War Religious. liingdom of the Delta. Meaning of Saites. His Reign Wise and Energetic. Mummy of Osiris. All the Dead to Abydos. The Dead-Boats. Future Resurrection. Saites takes Abydos. Changes his Name. Lists at Abydos and Karnak. Moeris. Son-in-law of Saites. VOL. II. B 2 iv CONTENTS. Monuments of Moeris. Native Forced Labour. Shrine of ilceris and Phiops. Capture of JMeghara. Death of Saites. Skeniophris. Reign of Mccris. Aphophis the Shepherd. Monuments destrojed- Name at Abydos. Triple Co-regency. Length of Eeign. The Patron of Joseph. Slave-Trade with. Egj'pt. Joseph at Hcho- polis. Egyptian Titles. Names and Titles of Joseph. Reign of Aphophis. Name of Memphis. Joseph Prime Minister. Chro- nology. Egypt under Aphophis. His Constructions. Immigration of Israel. Goshen. Its Meaning. Joseph's Internal Policy. Princes in Old Egypt. Their Power curtailed. The Priest's Office. Redistribution of the Land. Melaneres. His Pyramid. Chamber of Karnak. Cemetery of Memphis. Jannes. Asses. His Works — Palace — Era. The So-called Shepherds. Their Monuments destroyed. Their Magnificence. Chronology. ... 47 CHAPTER III. The Bible. Shepherds and Thebans. Turin PapjTus. An Historic Myth. Kings at Karnak. Menthesuphis II. His Devotion to Sa. Lake of Ethiopia. Known to Greek Tradition. Its Discharge. Cause of the Plenty and Famine. An-angement of Kings. Men- cherian Kings. Sechemetes. Sabacon L Nameless Kings. Amosis. Shepherds in Upper Egypt. The Sarcophagus. Sons of Melaneres. .Alliances and Inter-marriages in L^pper Egypt ... 121 CHAPTER rV. Two Lines of Kings. Bm'sting of the Lake a Cause of Peace. New War of Religion. Phutite Marriages. War easily excited. A Crusade. Amosis. His Names. Insult to Phtha. Era of Amosis. Prince Amosis. Worship of the Crocodile. Burial of Mummies. Fall of Memphis. Captiu-e of Tanis. Shepherds. Arvad. Na- harain. Avaris. The Delta. Xoite Kings. Quarry-marka Chebron-Amenophis. Error in Lists. Chebron a Warrior. Monuments of his Reign. Queens of Amenophis. Began Temple of Karnak. His Successor. ]\Icsphres. His Monuments. Reign glorious. Wars in Ethiopia. Works of Utility. Honours. Achencheres. Son of Mesphres. Name in Lists. Crown of Lower Egj^ot. Palace of ]\Icdinct Abou. Temple of Asasif Queen Amenses. Overwritten Rings. Their Explanation. Queen Amenses omitted. Beauties of Karnak. Ombos. Cleopatra's Needles. Queens of Ameuenthes. Chi'ouology .. 149 CONTENTS. V PAGE CHAPTER V. End of Chamber of Kamak. Worship of Sephres. Conqueror of Memphis. Xoite Kingdom. Father Kings at Kamak. Kings in lliddle Egypt. Tombs of Essiout. Diagram of Chamber. Thothmosis. Six Descents from A.mosis. A Great King. Re- mains in Nubia. History in Manetho. On Monuments. In- scriptions at Karnak. Southern War. Arvad and Moab. Spoil of the Expedition. Memphis. Sheba. Nod. Rings of Gold. Hermon, Sidon and Arvad. Their Commerce. Settlements in Egypt. Hermon. Arvad. Their Meaning. Return to Thebes. Slaves of the Temple. Difficulties of Interpretation. Alilk for Shew-Tables. Heliopolis. Avaris. Name of Eastern Delta. Kingdom of the Delta. Death of his Father. Parentage of ITiothmosis. Amount contributed. Sebennytus. Hermopolis in the Delta. Peramoun. Migdol. Alkam. Siuph. Horse- roads in the Delta. Greek Notice of them. Slaves sent to Karnak. Eastern and Western Delta. Siege of Migdol. Victory and Triumph. Bronze of Babylon. Queen of Thothmosis. Gaps in the History. Granite Sanctuary of Karnak. Analysis of its Title. War at Ghizeh. Memphis again taken. 30th year of Thothmosis. Athribis. The Enemy Shepherds. Identity of Athom with Adam. Collection of Tribute. Naharain. Shepherd in Hieroglyphics. Revolt of Hittites. Waters of Naharain. Ba- rash. Power of Heth. State of Egypt. Power of Xoite Kingdom. Tomb of Ros-she-ra. His Offices. Phenne. Its Mines. Sheba. Its Tribute. Lower Egypt. Arvad. Brick -makers. Slaves. In- scription on Doorway at Heliopolis. Parentage of Thothmosis. Religious Ceremony. Length of Reign 200 CHAPTER VI. Chronology. List of Kings. Length of Time. Acherres. Con- founded with Memnon. Works of Acherres, Poem at Amada. State of Egypt. Length of Reign. Armais. Confusion in the Lists. The Great Sphinx. Its design and Worship. Pillars at Alexandria. Turbulent Reign. Religious Civil War. The young Amenophis. African Descent. Disc-worshippers. The King a Priest. Name of Amun erased. Religious Defacements. Tem- porizing. Tel-el-Amarna. Origin of Middle Egypt. Revolution at Thebes. Ai, the Disc-worshipper. Reign and Monuments. Chebres, the Hater of Amun. Tomb of Prince Hai. King's vi CONTENTS. PAGE Name erased. Amenophis-Memnon. Palace of Luxor. Queen Tai. Her Wise Policy. Memnon at Luxor. Monuments. Con- tribution at Thebes. State of the Arts. Munificence of his Princes. Dates of his Eeign from Muthis. Horus. Son of Memnon. Origin of his Name. His Fanaticism. Deified while alive. Art. Monuments. Devotion to Amun. Length of Reign. 18th Dynasty. Comparison with Lists. Manners. Increase of Commerce. Causes. Luxury. Culture of Gardens. New Trees imported. Collections of Animals. ... 304 CHAPTEE VIL Designs of Sons of Amosis. 19th Dynasty. Name of Ramsea Destroyed Disc-worship. Sethos. Speos Artemidos. Hall at Karnak. External WalL Strings of Captives. Human Sacrifices. Southern Border at Peace. Sethos in Nubia. Equivocal Writing. Captives from the North. Tanis. On. Bubastis. Xoite King- dom weak. Stations in Desert. Zuzim in Canaan. Picture of the War. Taking a Fort. Hadasha. Defeat of Heth. Moab and Ammon. Cruelties to Captives. Gods of Thebes. Motive of the War. Timber-fellers. Defeat of Zuzim. Embassy from Tyre, and Eetm-n to Egypt. Date. Pithom was Damietta, Proof. Monadic Amun. Decline of Xoite Throne. Times of Sethos. War in Canaan. Names of Cities. Mode of Inscribing Them. Geogi-aphy Imperfect. Names on Prefaces. Pohtics. Fusion of Gods. Tomb. Monuments. Bigotry for Amun. Length of Reign 380 CHAPTER YIII. Sesostris. Name in Lists. On Monuments. Number of Monu- ments. Traditions vague. Fii'st War. War in Lybia. Tablets of Victory. Herodotus deceived. Conquests. Version of Dio- dorus. Stories compared. Marks of Fraud. Version of Tacitus. Compared with the rest. Obvious Falsehood of the Three Versions. New Palace at Luxor. The Meninouium. Great Si^eos at Abou-Simbel. Death of his Father. Preface to History. Beginning of Campaign. Motive of the War. Pi-ogress of Ramses. Phenne. Its Siege and Embassy. Battle of Kadesh. A second Embassy. Shasu or Zuzim. The Two Rabbahs. Zuzim and Sheth. Jebusites. Site of Kadesh-Baniea. City of Pelusium. Battle before it. Chai-iots of ShetL Ai-t. Great Wai* of the Reign. An inconsiderable one. The Sallier Papyrus. CONTENTS. vii PAOE War with Lower Arvad. Tablets on the Lycus. Sethos never left Egypt. End of Wars of Sesostris. Dug Canals in Delta. Apportioned out the Land. The Sesoosis of Diodorus. Delta liable to Invasion. Fortified the Frontier. Sesostris at Thebes. Chain of Forts. Forced Labour. Character. Liberal Policy. Worship of Phtha. Success. Foreign Policy. Extreme De- pression of Xoite Kingdom. Sesostris restores Mem^jhis. Final Treaty with Shcth. City of Ramses. King of Sheth. Strife between the gods. Egypt at Peace with Moab. Slaves supplied by Moab in Reparation of Wrongs. Names of Cities. Union of gods. Astarte. Terms of Treaty. Delta belongs to Ramses. Israel in Egypt. Canaanites in Egypt. Perfidy of Moab. Se- sostris and his Works. Wars inconsiderable. His Captives. Site of Ramses. Annexation of the Delta. Fall of Xoite Throne. The Oppressor of Israel. Birth of Moses. Queens of Sesostris. Dated Monuments. Length of Reign. ... ... 429 CHAPTER rX. Son of Sesostris. Hieroglyphic Name. Works. Thouoris. Siphtha. Sethos 11. Hieroglyphic Names. How they came to be co-regent. Tombs of Sethos II. and Thouoris. History in Tombs and Names. Vice-regency of Thouoris. Mother of Moses. Cha- racter of Thouoris. Uncertainties in Lists. Moses in Egypt. Refuses the Crown of Egypt. Designs of Queen Thouoris. Education of Sethos II. Moses slays the Egyptian. Death of Thouoris and Siphtha. State of Tomb of Sethos. Return of Moses. Aggi-avation of Bondage. Designs of Sethos. Plagues of Egypt. The Exodus. Ramses and Succoth. Numbers of Israel. Route to the Red Sea. State of the Delta. Successors of Sesostris. Later History. Pursuit of Israel. Use of Chariots. Memory of Sethos II. Account of Manetho. Revolt of the Lepers. Osarsiph was Moses. Flight into Ethiopia. Invasion of Solymites. Immigration from Canaan. Expelled from Egypt. Ramerri. Stite of Art. Heth. Hamath. Damascus. Names in Egypt. Sequel of History. Decline of Egypt. List of 19th Dynasty. Division of the Histoiy. Chronology of the Sojourn. Near Approximation. Length of Sojourn. Difiiculties in the Question. Modes of meeting them. Vague Use of Words. Pedigi-ee of Joshua. Triple Division of Egypt. Duration of Monarchy. Conclusion 550 LIST OF PLATES, &c., IN VOL. II. Amenophis and his Mother (see p. 175) ... Frontispiece. Canaanites and Lower Egtptiaks ... ... To face p. 86 Map. — Egypt aot) the Lake of Ethiopia ... „ „ 133 THE MONUMENTAL HISTORY OF EGYPT. CHAPTER I. MANETHO. — CO-REGENT MONARCHS. — QUEEN THODORIS. — KINGLY POWER HEREDITARY m THE FAJIILY OF MENES. — ABRAM. — EXACT SCIENCE. — YEAR OF 365 DATS INVENTED IN EGYPT. — DYNASTY XII. — TABLET OF ABYDOS. — KINGS Df UPPER EGYPT. — CONCORD BETWEEN THE HIEROGLY- PHICS ANT) THE LISTS. — AMENEMES I. — DERIVATION. — EXTENSION OF THE KINGDOM. — HIS SON. — SESORTOSIS. — SA. — PROSPEROUS REIGN. — MOUNTAIN SEPULCHRES. — CONQUEST OF THE CUSHITES. — DURATION OP WAR. — AIVIEN- EireS' TOMB. — AMENEMES II. — REIGN PEACEABLE AND PROSPEROUS. — TOMB OF NAHRAI. — HIS POSSESSIONS. — SESORTOSIS II. — REIGN INGLORIOUS. — SESORTOSIS ni. — REIGN WARLIKE. — AMENEMES III., OR AMUNTIM^US. — SHEPHERD INVASION A CIVIL WAR. — SHEPHERD-KINGS EGYPTIAN PHARAOHS. — ARTIFICIAL LAKE MCERIS. — THE LABYRINTH. — A SPLENDID REIGN. The first volume of our work contains the same portion of the History of Egypt as the first volume of the lists of Manetho. We adopted the division because it was a convenient and obvious one. In this first volume are related the planting of Egypt, and the events that befell in the course of the settlement of the religion and policy of the future kingdom. During the whole period the throne of Egypt was openly or secretly in dispute between different families of the race of Menes. The VOL. 11. B 2 FAMILY or MENES. [chap. 1. merging of the two principal of these pretensions in the person of Amenemes, the issue of the marriage of the son of Usercheres II., of Abj-dos, with the daughter of Onnos, of Memphis, was the occurrence which brought this epoch to its termination. The period included in Manetho's second volume is distinguished by a similar peculiarity. It is the histor}^ of Egypt under the monarchs of the 12th to the 19th dynasties inclusive ; and during the whole of this interval two lines of kings, of the race of Menes* were reigning in Egypt at the same time, both always pretending to * The ring or frame which enclosed the names of the kings of Egypt denoted they were of the race of Meses. It is the ground- plot of a cattle-pen, made of wicker hurdles ^ J. The name of Mejtes mn-ei, signifies "a maker of hurdle-pens." The word mn, "a cattle-pen," remains in the Coptic texts (uooue, ''pascua"). It is written initially, and therefore does not denote " a hurdle," but that which is formed with hurdles. We have else- where noticed the power of ^ ei, when thus compounded with other words. It corresponds with the Coptic grammar forms, A, Ai, " make," " manufacture." This notion that every king of Egj-pt must of necessity be one of the sons of Menes was, doubtless, of the utmost service in the primitive times. It eflFectually excluded all but the members of one family from the j^retension to the throne. So sacred was the condition held, that, at the end of the Pharaonic kingdom, the priests made the relationship. If their accounts are to be believed, Cambvses was the natural son of Amasis II., whom he expelled from the throne of Egj-pt. Alexander the Great also, was, according to them, the fruit of an illicit intercourse between Nec- TANEBO, the last of the Pharaohs, and OljTupia, the M-ife of Philip of Macedon. By these fictions, they endeavoured to reconcile to the usages of the kingdom the circumstance that both these conquerors of Egypt enclosed their names in hieroglyphics in the ring of Menes. 1^^ Cambyses. Alexaxdek the Great. CHAP. I.] DIVISION OF HISTORY. 3 the whole monarchy, and often at war with each other. The dominions of the older pretension lay principally in the Delta, and on the eastern hank of tlie river. For distinction's sake, we name this line of kings the Lower Egyptian or Memphite Pharaohs. Their rivals reigned in Upper Eg}'pt ; and their district was chiefly on the western bank. AYe, therefore, name them Upper Egyptian or Theban Phai'aohs. The struggles of these two families for the crown of all Egypt, and the various success that attended them, constitute the history of the kingdom during the whole epoch. Influenced by the motives we have already amply exposed, the com- pilers of Manetho's lists make these two co-regent families into dynasties reigning over all Egypt, the one after the other. We have, nevertheless, rightly ex- plained their motive in arranging this epoch in one volume. Queen Thouokis, the last of the Memphites, in whom the line itself became extinct, is also the last monarch named in the second volume of the lists. The present division of our work will for these reasons contain the history of Egypt from the visit of Abram to the death of Sethos II., the nephew of Thouoris, and the last monarch of the 19th dynasty; in Hebrew history, to the Exodus. A period the duration of which approximates to 600 years. The pacification between the various contending factions, which ended the first volume of the History of Egypt, was promoted by the counsels of the patriarch Abram, who was at that time sojourning here. This tradition of the Jews was repeated to the Egyptian priesthood by Josephus, the Jewish historian, in a 4 CHANGE OF CALENDAR. [chap. I. defence of his own people, and they could not deny it. The fact is, therefore, well established. Abram, at the same time, taught the Eg}^tians astronomy and arithmetic, of which before they were in a great measure ignorant. This fact, also, is stated on the same authority ; and there is monumental evidence of it. We have elsewhere explained* that dates of the years of the reign of Pharaoh, and the names of the months, first appear on the monuments of Amenemes, who was a party to the pacification of Abram. The nature of the changes introduced by the patri- arch into the mode of computing time, and of the knowledge communicated by him regarding the motions of the heavenly bodies, must now be briefly considered. The first settlers regulated time by the direct observa- tion of the crescent, the half moon, and the full moon. Their year began with the first full moon after the dog- star (Syrius, the brightest star in the heavens visible in Mesopotamia) rose just at sunset. All these pheno- mena were directly observed and noted. Their accumu- lated observations had supplied them with no data whence to compute their occurrence beforehand, save the veiy imperfect one that 10 days was somewhere about the interval that separated each of the three phases of the moon of which they took note ; and, therefore, the lunation {i.e., from full moon to full moon), was divided into three weeks of 10 days each. The extreme imperfectness of this mode of computing time appears clearly enough both in itself and in its results. They do not seem to have kept any registry * Vol. i. p. 378. CHAP. I.] ANCIENT ASTRONOMY. 5 « of the lapse of years. No single occurrence of a date has yet been met with on any of then' monuments. The progress of exact science regarding the celestial phenomena, and the regulation of time by them, had been far more rapid on the plains of Mesopotamia during the five hundred * years that had no\;^ elapsed since the Mizraites had emigrated from thence. Abram, who had just left that country, had acquired there the knowledge which he communicated to the Egyptians. There can be no accurate registry of the lapse of time until the precise length of the year has been defined. This essential preliminaiy never could have been decided by mere direct notices of the appearances of the heavens and the eai'th, such as the monuments show to have been the only modes of computation resorted to by the Mizraites and their immediate descendants. The calendar which Abram taught the Egyptians supplied this deficiency. It made the year to consist of 12 moons, or months, of 30 days each.f This settlement of the length of the year enabled the Egyptians of the subsequent epochs to date their monuments; which, as we have shown, would have been impossible before. The year of 360 days is artificial. It does not cor- respond with the times either of the sun or the moon. The sun returns to the same apparent place among the fixed stars in about 365 days. The moon completes * Josephus, Antiq. Jud. viii. § 1, 2. + This calendar is the same as that in use among the Patriarchs, as appears from the Bible. This identity would be accepted as a triumphant proof of the truth of the tradition, had Abram been one of the heroes of Herodotus. In its existing association it merely serves to raise incessant clouds of deep and dusty dispute. 6 LENGTH OF YEAR. [chap. I. twelve revolutions round the earth in about 354 days, — 360 is the mean between the two numbers. The two extremes, therefore, must both have been ascertained before striking this average. According to the tradition of Josephus, it was invented by the Chaldeans. These dwellers in Mesopotamia were noted for their knowledge of astronomy by all antiquity, sacred and profane. Their wise men (probably their priesthood) devoted themselves to it as to a profession ; and such a devotion could alone have determined the two periods whence the number 360 arose. These pursuits, moreover, would be much more congenial to those who remained in the old country, like the Chaldeans, than to wanderers going forth to plant colonies, like the Mizraites and the rest of the descendants of Noah. It appears from the notices of the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia, in the Greek authors, that the year of 360 days was in universal use among them.* This proves the truth of the tradition that it was invented there. The same year was also as well known, and as invariably used, by the descendants of Abram. This appears from the Bible. Abram, then, had learned it in Chaldea, the land of his birth ; and he taught it to the Egyptians during his sojourn with them. It is scarcely possible for an ancient fact to rest on stronger evidence. The Chaldeans and the Patriai'chs merely numbered the twelve months. The constant variation, therefore, of this artificial year from the true solai- year of 365 days, was corrected without inconvenience by repeating the 12th month every 6 years.f In Egypt they gave a * Lepsius, Einl. p. 9. + This was the "nxi (Veadar) of the later Hebrews. CHAP. I.] ITS CORRECTION. 7 name to each month denoting its place in the three seasons into which their year was divided.* It was this circumstance which suggested an improvement upon the Chaldee arrangement. They divided the 30 days of the extra month by 6, and affixed the quotient (5 days) to the end of each year. Dr. Lepsius has rightly pointed out that these 5 days are mentioned on a monument of the second successor of Amenemes.I It is, therefore, highly probable that the 5 days of the epact were in- vented in Egypt, and that the Chaldeans afterwards adopted them from thence. That a discovery should be made in one country, and improved and perfected in another, is no uncommon occurrence in human affairs. It would, however, be a great error to assume that these computations were made with any approach to the accuracy of modern times, or even with the theoretical knowledge of somewhat later epochs. A remarkable proof of their want of exactitude is still in existence. When the calendar was made, the month Thoth was the first moon after the overflow, which at Memphis would fall about the middle of our December. This is evident from the hieroglyphic name of the month . But when the Greeks of Alexandria first began to cultivate astronomy (200 b. c), the month Thoth had gone back in the calendar six months and more, for want of regular correction to true time. This new place of Thoth, which it has since retained, is about the period when the dog-star rises lidiacally, that is, just at sun- rise, which can only be computed, as the star is of course invisible. Whereas, when Thoth fell on the -'^ Vol. i. p. 144. t M. s. p. 155. It is the tomb of Nahrai, at Beni-hassan. 8 SOTHIC CYCLE. [chap l moon at first intended, the dog-star rose cosmically, that is, just at sunset, -which is easily observed. The Greeks, however, knew nothing of hieroglyphics ; and the Egyptian priests were too proud, as well as too ignorant, to set them right on such a point. So that the computations of the Sothic cycle,* by the Greek mathematicians and astronomers, are all based upon the mistake that the Egyptian year began when the dog- star rose with the sun ; whereas, its real commencement was 6 months earher, when the dog-star rose at sunset. The disturbing cause which occasioned this enormous error in the Egyptian calendar is not far to seek. The actual length of the solar year is 365^ days. The calendar provided for 365 days only. Its framers knew nothing of this extra quarter of a day, for which the modern leap-year compensates. Indeed, at so early a period, with so few observations before them, and without artificial aids for making them accurately, how could they? The opposite assumption, which is main- tained by modern philosophy upon the authority of the Alexandrian Greeks of the first and second centuries,! appears to us utterly extravagant in itself, and to be sufficiently refuted by the fact we have just stated ; viz., that when the Egyptian calendar first came under the notice of the Greeks, it erred from true time to the greatest extent possible. This could not have happened * The Sotliic cycle is a year of the quarter-days at the eud of each solar year, i.e., 365x4=1460 years. It was a figment iuvented by the Alexandrian Greeks, w ho also altered the dates in the history of Egypt, real and fabulous, in order to make them Sothic cycles, thus giving it the sanction of antiquity. t Lepsius, Einl. pp. 165 — ISO. CHAP. I.J TWO LONGER PEEIODS. 9 had the framers and keepers of it been so famihar with the theory of the heavens as the knowledge of this quarter of a day would require them to have been. Besides this year of 12 months of 30 days, and the 5 days of the epact, two longer periods seem, from the monuments, to have been used in Egypt at this epoch. 1. The Apiac cycle; that is, the duration of the life of the bull Apis at Memphis. The priests slaughtered the animal on a certain day, and then proclaimed that a new Apis was born. This festival is mentioned in the tomb of Amunei, at Beni-hassan, one of the officers of the son of Amenejies, " the /-^ year of the birth of Apis." A H ^ S ^^^Oi The interval after which the festivals of this solemnity took place is said by the Greeks to have been 25 years;* that is, 309 lunations, within an hour; and, in the course of them, the phases all return to the same day and hour as at the beginning. 2. The p^^jXl sf, panegyry; that is, " the festival recurring every 30 years, f This was a year of moons. It consisted of 360 or 305 lunations. The festival at the end of it w^as called st (Copt., cat, " tail," "ter- mination"]:), because it was celebrated in the last moon of the period. This interval first appears on the monu- ments of the 12tli dynasty. Thus, it will be seen, time in Ancient Egypt was mea- sured and regulated as far as possible by the moon only.§ * Plutarch de Iside, c. 56. Herod, iii. 27, &c. t Rosetta, Greek, line 2, vol. i. p. 53. X The group is determined by the tail of an animal. § For the Egyptian Calendars, see Appendix A. AOL. TI. C 10 THE TWELFTH DYNASTY. [chap. I. DYNASTY XII. The succession of the kings of this dynasty is liappily preserved to us on many monuments, as well as in the Greek lists; so that this portion of the Histoiy of Egypt is very satisfactorily recovered. We commence with the Chamber of Karnak, our first and highest authority. On it the 12th dynasty stands, as our readers are aware, in plane B of our Diagram. Two of the names (B 11, 12), are defaced. They, how- ever, ai'e happily supplied from another genealogy, the history and description of which have often been written. Mr. William Banks, an English traveller in Egypt, discovered, on the wall of a temple at Abydos, three long rows of royal names, each in the usual enclosm-e. This was in the year 1818, when the study of hiero- glyphics was just beginning to attract general notice. Several coj)ies of this monument were taken then and afterwards. One of these was seen by Champollion, who ascertained it to be the genealogy of Eamses II., of the 19th dynasty, one of the most eminent of the Pharaohs. This discovery directed the public attention strongly towards it. The moment the news of its value reached Egypt, it was broken to pieces by one of the rascal adventurers in the seiTice of the late pacha, in an attempt to saw it off from the wall. A fragment or two were sent to Paris, where they were bought for the British Museum. They now form part of that collection. It is the monument known to describers of curiosities from Egypt as the Tablet of Abydos. The succession of the same family of kings is also recorded there ; but, like that at Kai'nak, it is much CHAP. I.] THE TABLET OF ABYDOS. 11 mutilated, though, happily, in another part of the series, so that the one supplies the deficiencies of the other. The defaced names (B 11, 12)", are filled up from thence. The succession stands thus on these two authorities : Karnak (plane B), Abydos (plane B), 12, a . D 39. It will be observed, that the second and third names of this succession, defaced at Karnak, are extant at Abydos (36, 37); and that where one king only is re- corded at Karnak (13), two appear at Abydos (38, 39). This is a displacement in the former genealogy the cause of which we shall hereafter consider. We have many other monumental authorities for this succession. No history can be better authenticated. The kings of this line were, as we have elsewhere explained, Pharaohs in Upper Egypt, the lineal de- scendants of Mencheees, and the fierce partizans of his reforms. They, therefore, wrote their names in two rings, after the example of their ancestor Menthesuphis. They likewise assumed certain epithets or titles, which, though not inscribed in their rings, were, nevertheless, strictly peculiar to them, and a part of their names. We give here the full names of the whole of them in this order of their succession, beginning with Amenemes, the founder of the dynasty. X9 LIST OF TWELFTH DYNASTY. [CHAP. I. CHAP. I.] AMENEMES I. 13 The lists of Manetho preseut a remarkable accordance with this hieroglyphic succession. Years. Dynasty XI. Thebans. — Amenemes (the last king) reigned... 14 Dynasty XII. Thebans. — Sesortosis, bis son ... ... 46 „ „ Amenemes (slain by bis own euniicbs) 38 „ ,, Sesortosis ... ... ... 48 „ „ Lacbares (built the Labyrinth) ... 8 „ „ Ameus (Amun timseus) ... ... 8 „ „ Amenemes .. ... ... 8 It will he noted that in all these names there is a visible resemblance to the hieroglyphic originals whence they were copied more than 2000 years ago. They have undergone no subsequent collation or correction ; but, on the other hand, the lists have been transcribed by ignorant persons, incapable of correcting mistakes, many times over. The coincidence between the copy and the original, after such and so long-continued a process, is far greater than might have been anticipated. Amenemes I. The history of this founder of an illustrious house belongs in great part to the former volume, and we have there recorded it. We have, however, reserved for this place a few particulars which bear especially upon the fortunes of his sons and successors. Amenemes seems to have been the first Pharaoh who held his regal state in the Upper country, treating Lower Egypt as a conquest or dependency. We have explained that in the chamber of Karnak his son appears in the lower plane (A 9) as the conqueror of Memphis, and again immediately over his father, among u HIS NAMES. — THEIR DERIVATION, [CHAP. I. the kings of Lower i ; . ill that city. C. 10, \ \ Amenemes built Eg}'pt, as his viceroy prince viceroy. a palace, whicli was named after him, in the vicinity of Beni-hassan.* This locahty, in common with the whole country to the south of Memphis, was in his time considered as Upper Egypt. The southern capital of Amenemes appears to have been Coptos. As in the case of his predecessors, the transaction whereby that city came to be thus inaugu- rated is commemorated in his name. His ring in Lower Egypt reads, ra sa-hotp-het, i.e., " Pharaoh (sun) whose heart is one with Sa." Our readers are aware that -Sa was the male half of the goddess Neith, the tutelary of Sais, in the Delta, whence the name of this citv. t His upper Egyptian name, Amenemes, i.e., fjl'^^^ 'v amn-mhe, "the bringer in (introducer) of Amun," refers to the same trans- action. He removed the statue of'Sa from Coptos, and enshrined it in the original temple of Neith, at Sais. Hence his name in Lower Egypt. He then took the image of Ham, or Amun, from its temple, at Pera- moun, and enshrined it in the temple of Neith, in Upper Egypt, which his predecessor, Senucheres, of the 11th dynasty, had built. Hereby he appears to have re- united Ham to Neith, or Neveth, who had been his wife when living; from which circumstance the city of Senucheres came to be called Coptos, i e., kgbt, " union." Some prosperous event most probably befell Amen- * lascription of Nahrai, c. GG. t Vol. i. p. 365. cuAr. I.] LENGTH OF lllS KEIGN. 15 EMES shortly after this act of devotion to Amun, which encouraged him to another display of his reverence for this idol. He dedicated another temple to Iiira at Luxor, about 15 miles south of Coptos ; and like it also on the eastern bank of the river. This site was imme- diately over against Thebes, of which metropolis it afterwards formed a part. Amun in this temple was under the same form as the Coptic Amun. His wife Avas merely his female half /ci Tamiin. These transactions had a highly important bearing upon the subsequent history of the monarchy. Amenemes prosecuted the work of colonization to the southward, which had been begun by his prede- cessors. His is the most ancient royal name that appears on the rocks of Assouan, or Syene, which is on the extreme southern border of Egypt Proper ; so that under him the kingdom reached the utmost limits to which it ever extended. The duration of the reign of Amenemes is said in the lists to have been 16 years. Its dated monuments are too few to enable us either to verify or to contradict them. They only supply us with one additional cir- cumstance. Late in it (probably in its 14th year*) he associated his eldest son with him on the throne as king in all Egypt. This (to modern notions) scarcely comprehensible arrangement began, as we have seen, with the monarchy itself; and was based upon its division into two kingdoms, and upon its fundamental law, that the sons of Menes only could be kings in * The tablet on which this is recorded is mutilated, so that the date is scarcely legible. It is iu the Louvre. 16 NAMES OF HIS SON. [chap, l Egypt. The compact between the two co-regents was altogether of a friendly character; and must be cai-e- fully distinguished from the rival pretensions of other branches of the family of Menes : such were the Heracleopolitan kings, of the 9th and 10th dynasties, at Sebennytus, in the Eastern Delta. These continued to reign there during the entire epoch now under con- sideration. In the times of Amenemes and his son, their power was at a very low ebb. The transactions at Sais and Peramoun were most probably the fruits of victories over them. II. The Son of Amenemes. The name of this monarch in Lower Eg}'pt we have already found to mean, " formed of the substance of the ^^^^ " ((Z) ILJ[ h-u-Jcr-rer This is a probable allu- sion to one of the great works of his reign, which was the building of large additions to the temple of Athom, i.e., the sun, at Heliopolis. Our readers are aware that this city was in all probability his by inheritance, through his mother, the daughter of Onnos. The statue in the Vatican, already described, formed one of the decora- tions of this temple. One of the obelises before the propylea is likewise still upright, and in its place. Should sufficient interest ever be excited in the subject to induce some European government to excavate ex- tensively at Matarea (the site of Heliopolis), doubtless many more historical data will be found concerning these vast constructions, which gave to so illustrious a king his name in Lower Eg}-pt. « * Vol. i. p. 400. CHAP. I.J MEANING OF NAME. 17 (3 The name of the son of Amenemes in Upper Egypt, ^^-si is ordinarily written Osortasen in Roman ^ letters. This is, however, a mere reading of convenience, having no known meaning, and, there- fore, in the highest degi-ee unsatisfactory, by the ad- mission of all students of the subject. We have already found the group composed by the three first characters, and read it user, meaning " watcher," " vigilant." Of the remaining characters, we believe the first and /wv\ last to be the feminine demonstrative, , Coptic, Ten, " this," which is here used derisively, like the corres- ponding Hebrew word, ht, " this." The middle char- acter, t=oc=a , the bolt of a gate, is here introduced into the system, for the first time, as the homophon of the yoke, to which its use is closely aUied. The bolt is as obvious a symbol of " union" or "junction" as the yoke. We have seen that ^ was the name of the male half of Neith, as well as .U the sound s. The bolt was substituted for it in this instance as a lower, meaner symbol of the same idea.* The expulsion of Sa from Coptos, and his introduction by Amenemes into Sais, had, doubtless, given offence to the partizans of the old religion, and a war or tumult had been the consequence. It was the quelling of this tumult, and the means adopted to prevent its recurrence, that were the occasion upon which the son of Amenemes took this name. It means " watcher over this Sa," the name of the god being degraded both by the meaner symbol that denoted it, and the grammar form that accompanied * Turjn quoque sensu. VOL. II. D 18 PROSPEROUS REIGN. [chap. I. it. It was probably pronounced sa-usr-ten, whence the Greeks made the words Sesorthros and Sesortosis. We shall presently see that this abominable idol was soon afterwards the occasion of a great war, wherein Eg}-pt suffered many disasters. The change in estimation undergone by Sa in the interval between Amenemes and his son is very common in the annals of all idolatries. Another extant cotemporary work of the son of Amenemes in North Egypt is the obelise at Cro- codilopolis, in the Faioum, which we have described in the former volume. It is remarkable for the im- portant and deeply interesting character of its mythic allusions. It at one time adorned the entrance to a stately temple built by this monarch to Seba, or Sebek, the crocodile. The tombs of the prince and nobles of the coui't of Sesortosis I. which yet exist, and the tablets and other fragments that have been discovered at Abydos and elsewhere, all tell of great internal prosperity during his reign. That of one of his generals, Amenemes, at Beni-hassan, is a noble vault forty feet square, with a triple-vaulted roof. It was completed in the forty- third year of the reign of Sesortosis. The history embodied in the inscriptions on the door-posts will presently require our attention. The custom of burying the dead in tombs excavated in the mountains that hem in the valley immediately to the northward of Abydos, was evidently suggested by the strange superstition which followed upon the completion of the* bold design of Mencheres to re- CH.\r. I.] CONQUESTS IN NUBIA. 19 construct there tlie mutilated mummy of Osiris. Every mummy in Egypt must be brought to Abydos, inasmuch as the Busirides of the whole kingdom had been de- secrated. It became, therefore, a point of convenience that the journey back should be shortened. It was, doubtless, also deemed desirable that the final resting- place of the aspirant to a future resurrection should be as near as possible to Abydos, where was the sacred shrine which contained the mummy of the god and king of the resurrection. Therefore it is, that at this point the mountains on both sides the Nile for thirty miles together in a place where the valley is very narrow, are honey-combed with tombs to an extent which is abso- lutely without parallel anywhere else in the world. Among the few points in this range of sepulchres which have escaped mutilation, Beni-hassan holds a highly distinguished place. The tombs there are, from causes we shall hereafter have to investigate, in a state of preservation very superior to those in any other place in the entire range. This internal prosperity of the kingdom of Sesoktosis 1. would, probably enough, suggest to him the prosecu- tion of the scheme of his ancestors in the extension of his southern limits. Accordingly, at Wady Haifa, which is far south in Upper Nubia, a tablet was found, commemorating the expulsion of the negro Cushites from the whole of the district which we comprehend under this name, and which was named in hieroglyphics, , lit., " the waters and the land of the unstrung bow." Eight different races or tribes of these Cushites are said on it to have been subjugated by Sesoetosis, 20 A LONG WAR, [chap. r. and made the slaves of Egypt. This is denoted by a picture. Monthra, or Mars, leads in cords eight negroes, with their arms bound behind them, and in brick dun- geons on which the names of the tribes they represent With that strange mixture of fear and reverence, of hatred and dread, which characterizes all idolatry, and which so often renders incomprehensible to right reason the motives of the worshippers of false gods, he com- memorated this his conquest by dedicating there a shrine to Sa, the male half of Neith, the god whom he reviled and mocked in his second or Upper Egyptian name. To those who are familiar with idolatry in any age or country, this procedure will present nothing remarkable; though in any other affair of human life it would be mere idiocy. The Cushites never recovered the district whence they were expelled by these conquests of Sesoetosis I. Nubia remained a dependency on Eg}pt from thence up to the time of the destruction of the monarchy. The war which made this large addition to the territory of Eg}'pt was of long duration. There are inscriptions on the rocks of Assouan or Syene (the extreme southern limit of Egypt Proper), wi'itten by officers of his army in the thirty-third and forty-first years of the reign of Sesoetosis I.* These acts of adoration of the local god seem always to have been. are written in hieroglyphics, doubtless, the furthest point to quests of Sesoetosis extended ^ Wady Haifa was, L^l which the con- E to the southward. * Lepsius, Abt. ii. pi. 118. CHAP. I.] TOMBS OF BENI -HASSAN. 21 made during a casual halt on a march. In the forty- third year the war seems to have been brought to its termination. One of the monuments which commemorated its successful issue yet remains almost uninjured. It is the vast hall excavated by the chief Amenemes in the rock of Beni-hassan. The beauty of these tombs can scarcely be conveyed, either by description or illustra- tion, to those who have not seen them, so fair are their proportions, and so lovely is the harmony of colour in the tout ensemble of the rich and elaborate pictures that decorate their walls. The amount of human drudgery applied- to the hewing out of these huge vaults in the solid limestone rock, and of skilled art in chiselling the pillars, the massives, the arches, and the doorways, and in covering them throughout with paintings and engraved inscriptions, set all modern calculation at defiance. The amount of forced labour at the command of their excavators must have been immense. There can be no doubt that the whole of the inhabitants of Nubia were liable to this service, according to the invariable practice of ancient con- querors ; * and that the tombs of Beni-hassan are the fruit of the victories over Cush, of Sesoetokis, his father, and his successors. The tomb of Amenemes is conspicuous, amid the vaults that surround it, for its magnificent porch, and the elaborate finish of its interior decorations. The porch, or entrance, opens entire upon the perpendicular face of the rock ; and which is hollowed horizontally to * See 1 Kings ix. 20—22, i-c. 33 THE CHIEF AMENEMES. [chap. I. the depth of about 15 feet. The roof of this porch is groined parallel to the face of the rock ; and the architrave is supported by two octangular massives, hewn, like all the rest, vivo saxo, and displaying gi-eat proficiency in the mason's art. The doorway is entirely covered with hierogh-phic inscriptions, a specimen of the highest and purest style of engraving. The inner vault, or hall, which we have already described, has a triple-groined roof; the two architraves of which are supported each by two Doric fluted columns, being by far the earliest example of this pillar in existence. A few hints at the history of this superb mausoleum may be gathered from the long inscription on the door we have just mentioned. It was excavated by the ancestors of Amenemes, a young man of 25, who had, nevertheless, attained to some considerable command in the army of Sesoetosis. Its dedication took place in the 43rd year of Sesoetosis, on the 15th day of the month Phaophi ; which we can scarcely err in assuming to have been the date of the termination of the war with Cush, and of the entii'e subjugation of Nubia. The inscription is an account of the ceremony, but so grievously deficient in perspicuity, that it is no easy matter to follow it. Amenemes takes the title, ^ ^ , rapha-lie, " chief • physician,"''' which seems to '*^=a '®=f^ have been purely honorific, and not necessarily connected with the prac- tice of the healing ai't. It was universal with the courtiers of this line of kings, but scarcely to be found either before or after their times. He had besides this * Hebrew, K31, rapha, " to heal." CHAP. I.] CONSECRATION OF HIS TOMB. 23 several ecclesiastical and civil titles. He appears to have returned from Nubia at the conclusion of the war; probably bringing the treaty with the conquered enemy to the king, with whom he had an interview at Coptos. The king presented him with an ample amount of the spoil taken from the enemy. At the command of the king, Amenemes then proceeded down the Nile, with a fleet of many ships, to Abydos, where he embarked the mummies of four hundred soldiers of his regiment, who had perished in the war with Cush, and six hundred of the regiment of his younger brother, who had an appointment in the city of Coptos, and was one of the king's fan-bearers, being named after him Sesortosis; so that this tomb was inaugurated by the deposit of no fewer than one thousand mummies in its spacious vaults. Large offerings accompanied each ; amongst which, signet rings for each, having the first name of the king, hii-Jcr-re, engraven on jasper of the desert, and set in gold, are especially noticed. The entrance to the mummy pits beneath the floor of the great hall has never been found; and, we trust, never will be, until Egypt has a government able and willing to restrain the barbarism of the Turks and Arabs, and the rapacity of the curiosity-collectors of Cairo. It seems highly probable from hence that they contain consider- able treasure. Four living captives are mentioned as a valuable item among the offerings presented by Amenemes to the tomb. They were, doubtless, slaves of the tomb ; and kept always at work cleaning and repairing it. Besides these, many channels of irrigation, and plots of land, were devoted to the maintenance of 24 REIGN OF AMENEMES II. [chap. I. the attendants upon it, and of the periodical feasts, which took place in the great hall. The reign of Sesoetosis I. lasted for 46 years; so that he seems to have survived three years the conquest of Nubia. Amenemes II. The name of this monarch in Lower Eg}'pt is signi- ficant of no action more considerable than the dedica- tion of a portion of gold, either in bullion, or wrought into images, to the temple of Athom, at Heliopohs, yr:^-^^|-j|-j>j nh-h-u-re, lit., " portions of gold to the \CJ / 1 \ LJ ^ sun." In Upper Eg}"pt he took his. grandfather's name. Amenemes II. was probably made viceroy of Memphis on the death of his grandfather, though this fact is not commemorated at Karnak, through the displacement of his father's name (A 9). It seems, however, to have been the custom of his family. He was associated with his father on the throne, as king in all Eg}"pt, in the 42nd year of the reign of the former. A frag- ment of stone, inscribed, found apparently at Abydos, and now in the museum at Leyden, records this cu'cum- stance. His son was on that occasion installed in the office of viceroy of Memphis, which he thereby vacated (Karnak, B ]0, C 11). The reign of Amenemes II. seems to have been long, peaceable, and prosperous. He appears, on the monu- ments, to have been without the warlike propensities either of his father or his grandfather. His name remains inscribed upon constructions wherewith he adorned his kingdom, and added to its material pros- CHAP. I.J TOMB OF NAIIEAI. , 95 perity. At Debod, for example, in Lower Nubia {see Map), he seems to have built a palace. The tomb of one of his nobles at Beni-hassan, Nahrai, the son of Nuhophthis, gives likewise many important particulars concerning the internal government of Egypt in his reign. The title which he assumed 9f>umi ro ystos cc^,fi.oi. CHAT*. I.] SHEPHEED INVASION. 37 The king or chief of this horde was named Salatis or Saites. He reigned at Memphis, but he also con- structed a fortified camp, where he kept a vast army on foot at a place called Avaris, in the Sethroite nome, which is on the eastern bank of the Bubastite mouth of the Nile. With this he laid all Egypt under tribute. This Salatis died after a reign of nineteen years. He had many successors, and Egypt groaned under this foreign invasion of Canaauite Phenician Shepherds for 511 years. Let us now seek on the monuments for the memorials of the reign of the unhappy king who underwent these terrible reverses. Our surprise is not to be concealed. Amenemes in., or Amuntim.eus, was the most munifi- cent and successful monarch whose history has yet been presented to us by them. His memorials are spread over a wider range of countiy and are inscribed on statelier monuments than those of any of his predecessors. His reign was a long one. Tablets are still extant which were engraven in the 40th, the 42nd, and the 43rd years of it. If the indication of the monuments is in any degree to be relied on, it was likewise pre-eminently prosperous. His conquests in war extended the borders of his kingdom' to the utmost limits of all that had ever been called Egypt, both to the southward and the eastward. He maintained the outposts of his father at Semneh, on the debouchure of the great Lake of Ethiopia. The granites of Syene, the sandstone of El Kab, the porphyries of El Hamamat, the gold, the emerald, and the copper mines of Megliara and Sarabout el Qadim, 38 ITS MYSTERY EXPLAINED. [chap. I. on the coast of the gulf of Suez, were all extensively ■worked by -prisoners of war in tlie reign of AMUNTnL^:us. His works of peace were on a similar scale of magnifi- cence. He built at Howara, in the Faioum, the gorgeous palace known to the Greeks as the Labyrinth, concerning which Herodotus* tells us that was a greater wonder than the pyramids ; leaving us assuredly to infer that it far surpassed all that he had seen at Hehopohs, or Memphis, or any other city of Egj^t he had visited. Its ruins, which have been entirely disinterred by Dr. Lepsius within these few years, bear out completely the account of the father of history. It wa§ a suite of vast halls, such as no other building on the eailh can parallel. The investigation has also elicited the fact that from its corner-stone to its head-stone it was altogether the work of Amuntiivleus. Yet, assuredly it was during the reign of this monai'ch that Memphis was taken by Salatis the shepherd. Our surprise and perplexity will experience no diminu- tion when we proceed to examine the name of Salatis. He was not only a native Pharaoh, but the native Pharaoh, the rightful heir to the throne, the ^- ^ descendant from Mexes in the direct line. He was, in a w'ord, the Heracleopolitan or Sebennyte king of Lower Egypt, the son of the last monai'ch of the 10th dynasty, who, as we explained, reigned in the Delta cotemporaneously with the 12th dynasty. We have, at length, found the key to the whole mystery of the shepherd invasion. It is a gross fabrication. It is the narrative of an adverse event by the defeated faction. CHAP. I.] THE LOWER EGYPTIANS 39 wherein the conquerors are made as hateful as possible to the reader. It is a precious piece of partizan writing, like the history of our commonwealth by a cavalier, or the account of a tory administration of the last century from the pen of a whig. We must, therefore, endeavour to get at the truth by comparing it with the indications of the monuments. The circumstances of the case are by no means hard to understand. While the Diopolitan Pharaohs of the 12th dynasty were, as we have seen, occupying themselves chiefly with the improvement of the fertility of the Faioum and the lands adjacent to the canal they had conducted thither, and with the extension by conquest of the southern border of Egypt, it would be a consequence absolutely inevitable at this early time that their northern border would be comparatively neglected. Memphis we find to have been governed by viceroys, and in every instance wherein we are able to identify them, they prove to have been very young princes, and, therefore, equally inexperienced in the arts of government and defence. At the same time, the Heracleopolitan or Sebennyte Pharaohs in the Delta were gradually recovering them- selves from the state of deep depression in which we left them at the end of the last volume. At the com- mencement of the 12th dynasty this prostration seems to have been at the lowest. Heliopolis as well as Memphis was in the possession of their rivals, and the first Amenemes and Sesortosis ransacked the shrines and remaining Busirides of the Delta at their pleasure. 40 KECOVER THEMSELVES. [CH.\J. 1. making with the spoils thereof new gods and unions of gods as their fancy or their pohcy dictated. It was, doubtless, by them that the mummy of Osiris was completed at Abydos, and thereby his worship con- centred in that city for all Eg}-pt. As, however, the 12th dynasty proceeded, their power in the Delta visibly diminished. We hear no more of mythic changes in- dicated by their royal names. Heliopolis also seems to have been lost to Upper Egypt on the demise of Sesortosis. None of his immediate successors have inscribed their names there. The decline of their power in Lower Egjpt is clearly indicated hereby, and we have found the sufficient cause of this diminution. The Sebennyte Pharaohs in the meanwhile were not merely recovering gradually the ground whence they had retreated, but also strengthening themselves for aggression upon their conquerors by the careful de- velopment of the productive powers of their territory. They likewise encouraged liberally the immigration and settlement in the Delta of the Canaanite traders and shepherd rangers of the desert of Suez, making treaties of amity with their petty kings and princes, and even forming matrimonial alliances with them, as Mexes himself had done with the Phutite princess whose father he had dispossessed of the site of Memphis. By the steady pursuit of this policy, the clear indications of which will abundantly appear hereafter, the Sebennyte Pharaohs had grown once more into strong and for- midable potentates in the course of the century that has elapsed since they last came under our notice.* * Vol. i. p. 359. CHAl', I.] MOTIVES OF THE WAR. 41 It does not appear that any war actually broke out between the two rival pretensions in the course of this interval. The indignities, however, committed by Ame- NEMES and his son upon tlie shrines of Amun and Neith, and upon all the remaining Busirides, would excite a deep feeling of indignation and smothered resentment, not only among the subjects of the Se- bennyte Pharaohs, but in the breasts of the inhabitants of the whole of the north of Egypt. The capture of Memphis, then, by Saites (in whatever part of the reign of Amuntim^eus it occurred) was an outburst of popular feeling long suppressed. It was an act of vengeance, in which all Lower Egypt joined, against the representatives of those who had profaned their local gods and outraged their sense of religion. Such we have found and shall find to be the characteristic of all the wars of Ancient Egypt. Our proof that we are correctly interpreting the narrative of the first invasion of the shepherds is absolutely unassailable. Every step of our inquiry into this hitherto most unintelhgible portion of the history of ancient Egypt will contribute to its confirmation. The year of Amuntim^us in which Memphis was taken by Saites is altogether unknown, and as sub- sequent events furnish the only data on which our conjectures must be founded, we defer the inquiry until their history is before the reader. We now proceed to fill up, as far as practicable, our outline of the prosperous reign of Amenemes III. He must have had at his command a larger amount of forced labour than any of his predecessors ; whence we VOL. II. G 42 THE LABYRINTH. [chap. I. infer that liis wars with the Cushites were eminently successful. His works in the Faioum were of a char- acter which threw into the shade the constructions of all tlio kings that went before him. It may have been observed in the course of this our history, that each successive group or dynasty of kings seems to have devoted its energies in the internal development of the kingdom, principally in one place ; Menes, for example, to Memphis, the 4th dynasty to the district north of it, and the 5th to that to the southward. In the same manner the monarchs of the 12th dynasty concentrated their efforts on the Faioum. The great work of Amenemes III. in this singular valley was the commencement of a vast tank or artificial lake at the termination of " tlie great canal of the eagle," which was completed afterwards by one of the Pharaohs of the rival pretension, as we shall presently see. The object of this stupendous work was to prevent the disasters arising from irregularities in the annual overflow, by receiving the waters of a superfluous in- undation, and by supplying the defects of a failing one. The Labyeinth which we have already mentioned was a group of palaces in the immediate vicinity of this artificial lake, which was called by the Greeks the lake Moerisr Of this great work Herodotus speaks in terms of enthusiastic eulogy into which he is seldom betrayed. It far surpassed the report he had heai'd of it. Nay, it was a more costly structure than any * A word supposed by Lepsius to be derived from the Egyptian w ord jC^C^ ^*^P*'*^ uupe, "overflow." Its real meaning /sA./^ will afterwards appear. CHAP. I.] DESCRIBED BY HERODOTUS, 43 that had been raised by the Greeks, even than the noted temples of Ephesus and Samos. The pyramids surpassed these, but the Labyrinth was a greater work than the pyramids. It consisted of twelve hypostyle halls with their propyla or porches standing opposite to one another; six facing the north, and six facing the south. Beneath and above these were 3000 lesser halls or chambers, 1500 in each suite of palaces. Many of these upper chambers were explored by the traveller. He wished also to be shown the vaults beneath, but the custodes would on no account permit it, on the plea that the treasures of the kings who had built the Labyrinth, as well as of the sacred crocodiles, were deposited there. Those, however, that he saw, surpassed all the works of man that he had looked upon before. The walls, inside and out, both of the hall and corridors, covered with pictures in coloured relief, and with explanatory texts in hieroglyphics, are praised by him in language whence we may, at any rate, conclusively infer, that which also follows clearly enough from other passages of his account of Egypt, namely, that he did not visit Thebes. A colonnade of pillars of white stone, very beautifully proportioned, surrounded each palace. At one corner of the enclosure around the Labyrinth was a pyramid of forty fathoms {i.e., more than eighty yards) square, insci-ibed with very large hieroglyphics. A subterranean passage led from the Labyrinth to the pyramid.* The ruins of this vast construction have been known for some years. They are in the immediate vicinity * Herod, ii. c. 148. 44 EUINS CLEARED BY LEPSIUS. [chap. I. of the remains of the artificial lake we have already mentioned. Its modern name is Howara. Fragments of the columns of white stone mentioned by the father of history were still to be seen among the ruins twenty years ago.* Since that time very extensive excavations have been made at Howara by the Prussian expedition, under Lepsius. The clearing from the sand, of the walls of many hundreds of vast square vaults arranged - in three masses of regular construction, has borne ample testimony to the general accuracy of the account of Herodotus. These are the vaults in the basement story beneath the pillars of the hypostvle halls. All the rest have disappeared. A canal passes through the midst of these ruins. Lepsius supposes it to be a modern work of the Arabs. We rather think other- wise. It would better comport both with the customs of Ancient Egypt, and with the account of Herodotus, to assume that the canal of the Faioum originally traversed the precinct of the Labyrinth, and that the two ranges of palaces were built on its opposite banks.f The pyramid also still remains. It is of unbaked brick ; but there ai'e visible remains of a casing of hewn stone, on which, doubtless, were engraven the great hieroglyphics mentioned by Herodotus. In front of the pyramid was the usual temple, the remaining fragments of which show it to have been highly adorned with hieroglyphs, reliefs, and architectural decorations. The most important result, however, of the reseai'ches of Lepsius at Howara remain to be detailed. He found in many places inscribed on the stones and bricks both Wilkinson's Thebes, p. 355. t Yorlauf Xacli. p. 6. CHAP. I.] AMENEMES IV. 45 of the vaults and of the pyramid, the name of the founder of these magnificent constructions. It is that of Amenemes hi., as our readers are ah-eady aware. In remarkable coincidence with this discovery, the corresponding name in the list* is written in different copies, Lachaees, Lamaees, and Lampaees ; all evident corruptions of Labaees. allied to the Greek word Aa|3i;pii/6o?. The ruins of Howara are, therefore, hereby restored to certain history. They were the work of a Pharaoh of the 12th dynasty.f The younger brother of Amenemes III., who took his name with but a single slight modification, /'^. ■Sll'v^ seems to have sat with liim on the throne ^'"^ ^ of all Egypt from a very early period of his reign. Several tablets are yet extant, on which they appear as co-regents. In the Chamber of Karnak, however, the name of this younger brother occurs in an associa- tion which plainly shows, that when he succeeded his brother, the so-called Shepherd Kingdom had com- menced (B 13, C 14): so that his history evidently belongs to the following chapter. The illustrious line of kings whose history we have now brought to its close were no mean benefactors to Egypt. The success of their arms carried the borders of Egypt and her dependencies to the utmost limits to which they ever attained to the southward and eastward. Their internal works of utility added the '"■ Above, p. 13. t " Aa^vpitiQos was in all probability a Greek word, denoting a build- ing full of intricate passages " {Litldell and Scott). In this case Labares was merely a title invented by the Greek transcriber of the lists for the builder of the Labyrinth. 46 PROSPERITY OF EGYPT. [chap. I. Faioum, the most fertile spot of the earth, to the productive surface of their country. Their gorgeous palaces and tombs attest to this day their magnificence, and the perfection of the ai'ts in their days. While, upon their admirable reforms of the calendar and the computation of time, even the exactitudes of modem science have but slightly improved. The prosperity which this great and glorious race of monarchs conferred upon Egypt, experienced but a slight interruption from the civil reverses which they experienced, and whereby their descendants were for a time dispossessed of Egypt Proper. Strangely as the statement may differ from the Greek histories, we shall find it, nevertheless, to be perfectly confirmed by the monuments. CHAP, n.] NEW SOLUTION OF DIFFICULTY. 47 CHAPTER II. THE (SO-CALLED) SHEPHERD KINGDOM. THE SHEPHERD INVASION. — DYNASTIES 13TH TO 17tH INCLUSIVE. — THE LISTS OF THEM. — MANY FRAUDULENT ENTRIES. — PROOFS THAT THE SHEPHERD-KINGS WERE NATIVE PHARAOHS. — DESTRUCTION OF THEIR MONUMENTS. — THE SHEPHERDS AT KARNAK. — OTHOES, SAITES. — CAUSES OF THE SUCCESS OF THE SHEPHERD INVASION. — COMPLETION OF THE MUMMY OP OSIRIS. — ALL THE DEAD BURIED AT ABYDOS. — THE REASONS OF IT. — CAPTURE OF ABYDOS BY SAITES. — SAITES CHANGED HIS NAME. — EXPLANATION OF THE TABLET OP ABYDOS. — REIGN OF SAITES. MERIS A CANAANITE, — BIRTH OP APHOPHIS THE YEAR MEMPHLS WAS TAKEN. — MERIS A MUNIFICENT KING. — HIS CONSTRUCTIONS. — THE PRINCESS SKENIOPHRIS. — THE LAST OF THE 12TH DYNASTY. — MONUMENTS OF MERIS ALL DESTROYED. — CO-REQENT ALL HIS REIGN WITH HIS FATHER AND SON. — PHIOPS OR 2VPHOPHIS. — MONUMENTS OP HIS REIGN MUTILATED. THE PATRON OF JOSEPH. — GAVE ITS NAME TO MEMPHLS. — HIS EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL POLICY. — MELANERES. — KING OF UPPER EGYPT ONLY. — CEMETERY AT MEMPHIS REGAINED ITS SANCTITY. — JANNES. ASSES. — MONUMENTS OF HIS EPOCH. We are now arrived at that part of our inquiry in which our conclusions are totally different from those of all who have preceded us. By no student of the history of Ancient Egypt has the uniform statement of the Greek historians, that the expellers of Amuntim^us from Memphis were Phenician shepherds and foreigners, ever yet been called in question. It is, therefore, incumbent upon us very carefully to 48 DYNASTIES XIII. TO XV. [chap n. lay down, in this place, the whole of the reasons which have constrained us to take so bold a step as to set forth a conclusion in the very teeth of all authority, both ancient and modern. ^Ye have no fear of the result with our readers. The account of the shepherd invasion, preserved by Josephus from the histories of Manetho, we have already quoted. His lists of kings for the same period, that which succeeded the 12th dynasty, we now proceed to examine. They are our one remaining authority for tliis part of the history of Egypt. Dynasty XIII. 60 Diopolitan (Theban) kings reigned 453 years. Dynasty XIV. 76 Xoite kings „ 484 „ The city of Xois was situated in the centre of the Delta* {See Map). Dynasty XV. 6 Shepherd kings reigned 284 years. They were Phenician strangers. They took Memphis. They like- vise built a city in the Sethroite nome, whence they sallied forth and oppressed the Egj^ptians. These kings were named as follows : Years of Reign. 1 Saites. The Saitic nome was named after him. He added the five days of the epact to the calendar 19 2 Benon 44 3 Pachnax 61 4 Stan 50 5 Aphophis. In his reign Joseph ruled in Egj-pt. All the authorities are agreed upon this t 61 6 Iannes 50 7 Asses. He added a half-day to each month of the year 49 * ChampoUion — Egypte sous les Pharaom, vol. ii. 211. + Sync. p. 61. CH.\P. II.] INDICATIONS OF FEAUD. 49 Dynasty XVI 32 other Shepherd-kings reigned 518 years. 4.3 other Shepherd-kings. } The Shepherds and the Thebans reigned together 151 years. Dynasty XVII. i i „ m i i • 43 Theban kinn;s. There are many circumstances which render this passage suspicious, to say the least ; even if we choose to forget all that we have learned from our examination of the former portions of the same register. I. By this authority more than 2000 years elapsed between the 12th and 18th dynasties; and above 150 kings reigned in Egypt in the course of it. But, if we turn to the monuments, we can find no single trace of any such duration ; and as to the kings, it is with diffi- culty that the existence of any of them can be identified. According to the Chamber of Karnak, there may have been 8 to 10 obscure successions of kings reigning together, in Upper and Lower Egypt, in this interval. According to the tablet of Abydos, the 12th dynasty was immediately followed by the 18th. This is assuredly a very suspicious circumstance, even were we now, for the first time, giving attention to the lists. Our experience, however, of the former portions of them does not permit us to doubt for one moment that the usual advantage has been taken here of a time of civil broil and disputed succession, by the transcribers of them in later epochs; and that the great bulk of the entries of numbers, in this part of the lists, consists of fraudulent exaggerations. II. Let us now compare together the history of the VOL. II. H 60 SHEPHERD-KINGS. [chap. II. Shepherd invasion in the Hsts, and in the narrative quoted by Josephus. These two versions contradict each other in some points. In others they contradict themselves. The lists say that these kings were foreigners and Phenician shepherds. The history says nothing of the kind; but clearly leaves us to infer that they were Eg}-ptians, whose family had not before sat on the throne of Memphis. The Christian chronographers who compiled the lists have been misled on this point by Josephus, the Jew, who quotes the history. He had a favourite notion that this dynasty of kings was a Jewish family ; and, therefore, he translated the epithet, I'xo-w?, which was applied to them in the temple records, " shepherd- kings," because his forefathers, who came into Eg}-pt, were shepherds. But this was merely an accommo- dative rendering for the convenience of his own theory. The word really means " a vile [ignominious] king," if its import in the language of Ancient Egypt is at all to be considered.* One consideration will suffice to establish the fabulous character of this narrative. These strangers were a race of barbarians. Yet the conqueror of Amuxtim-EUS was also the reclaimer of the Saites nome, and the founder of a dynasty of six successive kings with re- markably long reigns ; one of the succession being the * ;ilUJC, " ignominy, vileness," was the primitive meaning of the word. The secondary imjjort was " shepherd." The foreign allies of this dynasty were called " cattle-feeders" in the hiero- glyphic texts, but not the kings. The Jewish writers confused this distinction. CH.VP. II.] MEANING OF THEIR NAMES. 51 patron of Joseph, under whom Egypt enjoyed unex- ampled prosperity. The same authorities also ascribe the final reform of the calendar to this race of barbarians. Aphophis added the 5 days of the epact to the year ; and Asses brought it still nearer to exactitude by the addition of half a day at the end of each month, which is the nearest approach to true time that it is possible to make with months of uniform length. Here, then, was progres- sive improvement, in the most difficult of all questions, effected for Eg}-pt by these foreign barbarians. The impossibilities wliich are involved here are very pal- pable. III. The names applied to those so-called shepherd- kings are well worthy of attention. They are all paro- namastic perversions of real names into opprobrious epithets, or nicknames. Saites (as the conqueror of Memphis is called in the the lists) means " worshipper of Seth," the author of evil. Salatis (as the same person is named in the history) means "a multiplier of lies," "a great liar;" o-o.v, " lie ; " ATA, " many." Bnon, or Beon, means "a filthy fellow;" etuue, " filthy." Apachnas, or Pachnan, means " a bond-slave " of a low order, or " convict;" ncoiyii, " to be a slave." Stan, if it has been rightly transcribed, was, most probably, " Satan," or " Sathanas." Jannes, or Anan, means " an unmanly [effeminate] fellow," " a coward ; " ahau, awoiji, " soft," "luxurious." 62 OPPKOBRIOUS EPITHETS. [chap. n. Archles means " a foul-mouthed fellow," " an ulterer of filLliy language ; " ApiKo, " to scold ; " ago, " tongue." Aphophis means " liastatiis," "magnuin hahcns virile." Asses means "a low [disgraced] fellow," " one that is often beaten," Coptic, aac, "to heat," "slap." The same name, borne by an earlier king, is written Alces. We are compelled to remark that all this looks very like a jest, invented about the times of Josephus ; and passed off upon him, and the rest of the Jews, for the purpose of mortifying them, and amusing the Eg} ptians and Greeks, in their endless wranglings together in the noisy porches and groves of Alexandria. Both the Jews and Christians of those times were sadly to seek in all learning out of the pale of their sacred books; and were, therefore, easily imposed upon. If such were really the case, the jest was but a scurvy one. It displays the malice of its inventors far more than their wit. The circumstance is, nevertheless, highly in- structive, as an indication of the bitter, rancorous spirit in which the keepers of the archives of Egypt wrote the liistory of this hated race. IV. ^Ye have explained that these names were real names, perverted or distorted into burlesque or op- probrious epithets. There must have been considerable ingenuity exercised in so framing the nickname that the original is still visible beneath it. The identifica- tion of several of them with their hieroglyphic tran- scriptions on the monuments is quite as satisfactory as any that have hitherto occurred to us in the course of our inquiry. The exact coincidence of the name CHAP. II.] HIEROGLYPHIC NAMES. 53 ^^-g— jT-TN with Aphophis, and of /-n _h— h'Ni with Asses \.9L_LjU we ourselves pointed vilzllz— vl out many yeai's ago. A third name also /^^^|\ bears a re- semblance just as indubitable V^"^ I ^ to Jannes.* These hieroglyphic names all belong to the same group, and are evidently those of kings reigning in near suc- cession to each other. V. The places in which these names are found is another point which will further strengthen our proof that the so-called Shepherd-kings were really the native Pharaohs of Lower Egypt. The locality where they principally occur in Egypt itself will first require our attention. The mountains or cliffs of limestone which hem in the valley of the Nile tc the eastward approach very near the river throughout Middle Egypt. At many points they rise perpendicularly from the water's edge, and to the ap- parent height of some hundreds of feet. Between the modern cities of Benisouefif and Keneh, a distance of more than 200 miles, these cliffs are all but everywhere perforated, or rather honej'-combed, with artificial ex- cavations. The amount of human labour which has been expended upon them is wonderful, even in Egypt. Some of these grottoes have been evidently quarries, but the great majority of them were tombs. We do not state this fact without having ascertained it by careful examination at many points. All the legible tombs in this vast range of cemeteries (unparalleled in the world), are of tlie epoch of the dynasty of hitherto unplaced kings upon which we are now engaged, except * Mr. E. S, Pool was the discoverer of this name. 54 MUTILATED TOMBS. [chap. u. at two points. These points are Beni-hassan and Bersheh, just in the centre of the entire range, where the beautiful memorials of the Phai'aohs of the 12th dynasty have already occupied so much of our attention. The group of sepulchres at Beni-hassau differs from the innumerable tombs in the same range of mountains for many miles to the north and to the south of it in another very remarkable particular, also equally mo- mentous to the history of Egypt. ^Miile the grottoes of Beni-hassan are perfect and untouched, save by the hand of modern barbarism, all the tombs belonging to the rival dynasty have been purposely mutilated, and at a very ancient period. The labour that must have been expended in this mutilation approaches that of the original construction, so carefully has the entire casing of the vaults been chipped off. We noticed one a little to the southward of Melawi, at a point called Bar-bar by the Arab guide, which appeared at first to be a quarry, so determinedly had the work of destruc- tion been carried on. The circumstance, however, that the vast massives that supported the roof all stood in lines, and at perfectly regular intervals, exposed the misapprehension. It had been a gorgeous vault of stupendous and admirable proportions, unequalled by any that now exist, even in the tombs of the kings at Thebes. The mutilation had gone so far, that the whole side on the face of the cliff had been hewn out, and huge scales had been chiselled off the massives so as to leave them as rough and irregular as possible. This was also the case with the walls. We left it with the persuasion that it had been the tomb of a king. cnxF. II.] CHAMBER OF KARNAK. 55 On the floor of it, as of other tomhs in the range, we picked up fragments on which tlie remains of hiero- glyphics were yet traceable. At five known points in this vast series of vaults a few tombs have escaped, as it would seem, because the accuracy with which they had been closed concealed them long enough to allow the rehgious animosity in which this wholesale destruction must have originated to pass away. They are, commencing from the north, Souarieh, Souat el Meitun, and Koum Ahmar, to the north of Beni-hassan ; and to the southward of it, Schech Zaid and Chenoboskion." At all these localities are found the tombs of princes attached to the courts of the dynasty of which the three names we have identified as those of Shepherd-kings form a part. It is very apparent that a religious animosity has been the motive for the wholesale destruction of the memorials of this line of Pharaohs. Accordingly, in the Greek tradition, this same succession of kings (three of whose names in hieroglyphics we have already identified) is branded with the opprobrious epithets of shepherds and foreigners. YI. Our last and strongest evidence is yet to come. It is, we need scarcely say, the Chamber of Karnak, that noble monument which has guided us hitherto with such admirable precision through the intricacies of this long succession. We have already established so com- pletely the co-regency of its upper and lower groups of kings, that there is no further occasion for insisting upon it. * See Map. 56 SUCCESSION THERE. [chap. II. The co-regencies of the three successors of Amun- TiM^us stand thus : LOWER EGYPT. 14. 1.0 16. m 15 . n 1.3. 14. ITj. UPPER EGYPT. This entry makes it perfectly clear that the" Upper Egyptian Pharaohs no longer governed Memphis by viceroys at this epoch. It is equally apparent that the independent monarchs who had there the sovereignty of Memphis were kings of the line of Menes, and that Thothmosis the constructer of the Ch-amber was proud to enroll them among his ancestry. Yet were both these jBharaohs Shepherd-kings according to the Greek lists. C 15 is Aphophis, as our readers will perceive, and there never was but one monarch of this name, if the autho- rity of the monuments is to be received. C 14 we shall presently find to be Othoes, his great-grandfather. The proof, therefore, that the Shepherd invasion was a slanderous perversion of the conquest of Memphis by the Lower Egyptian Pharaohs is, we submit, very complete. We will now resume the history of the period before us, which has undergone a change in its great features. CHAP. II.] OTHOES. 67 the nature of which it is very important that our readers should clearly understand. The truce between the rival sons of Menes in Ujiper and Lower Egypt is now at end. The Sebennyte or Lower Egyptian Pharaohs, have rudely broken it by a sudden invasion of the territory of the opposite faction. It was pre-eminently successful. Upper Egypt was dispossessed of Memphis and of the whole of Egypt to the north of it by Saites. The kings thereof from that time, and during the whole epoch now before us, entirely lost the ascendency in the kingdom which they had enjoyed in the former period. Far from ruling Memphis by a viceroy, they became at least as obscure as their rivals had been at Sebennytus in the days of their prosperity. The history of that rivalry will first require our attention. have been the father of Saites. He takes the place of his son in the succession of the Memphite kings, while his son sits in the honourable post assigned throughout the Chamber to the conquerors of Memphis (D 8). We have already noticed an exactly similar interchange between Amenemes (B 8) and his son (A 9). We shall find this indication fully borne out by all our remaining authorities. In the lists his name appears at the head both of the 5th and 6th dynasties in the copies of Eusebius and VOL. TI. I The Lower Egyptian Pharaohs, OR Shepherd-Kings. ■>j Othoes. The position of this king in the Lj Chamber of Karnak (C 14) shows him to 58 HTS EEIGN PROSPEEOUS. [chap. II. African US. It is written Othoes. The strange embroglio in the Ust of the latter dynasty we have described in its place,* and thei^ given the only account of it which seems to meet all the exigencies of the case. Othoes is made the head of a dynasty in both the entries of his name, as we have seen. In both also Aphophis follows him, under the name of Phiops. No pun upon the name of Othoes, moreover, appears in the list of the Shepherd-kings. These circumstances we submit sufficiently confirm the indications of the Chamber of Karnak. Othoes was the last of the Heracleopolitan or Sebennyte Pharaohs of the 10th dynasty, the father of Saites, and, by consequence, the founder of the Shepherd dynasty, which, by some inexplicable con- fusion, appears as the 15th, 16th, or 17th dynasty of the different copies of the lists. The monumental history of Othoes, though scanty, is, nevertheless, altogether confirmatory of the history we have gathered from other sources. He was a bene- factor to his country. He strenuously promoted the internal improvements which rescued his hereditary dominions from the deep depression into which they had fallen. For this purpose he quamed largely the granites and porphyries of El Hamamat, and even the sandstone of El Kab. In both localities the records of his operations are numerous. He followed herein the footsteps of his probably near predecessor Imeph- THis.f All his constructions seem to have perished by the fanaticism of the rival faction, with the exception of a single fragment of a tomb at Sakkai-ah which is * Vol. i. c. vii. p. 352. + u. s. vol. i. p. o5S. CHAP, n.] AMENEMES IV. — SAITES. 59 MMAH inscribed with his name ; fully confirming our interpre- tation of his position in the Chamber of Karnak. In this tomb at Sakkarah* Othoes has the title "the constructer of firm buildings, and of a pyramid." It may be inferred from hence that he had somewhere or other in Egypt dis- tinguished himself for great constructions. The mounds of Sais are as yet deeply buried in sand. When the government of England, or some wealthier or more influential or more willing government, shall disinter them, we shall probably be better able to write the monumental history of Othoes. Othoes is said in the lists to have been assassinated by his own guards, after a reign of 30 years. According to the invariable custom of the Pharaohs of his times, his son Saites was for many years of it associated with him on the throne. The capture of Memphis took place during the lifetime of Othoes. The king of Upper Egypt at this time ^ was Amenemes IV. according to the Chamber of Karnak (B 13). But the entry is merely made to avoid the insertion of the name of Amun- TiM/Eus in the list of the kings of Upper Egypt. This monarch, nevertheless, survived his brother, who seems to have deceased shortly after the fall of Memphis. Saites HJ— \ t , afterwards El' Notwithstanding the obloquy which the priests of * Leps. Mon. Abt. ii. bl. 116 c. The stone is now in the Berlin Museum. 60 IIIS WAR RELIGIOUS. [chap. II. after times heaped upon the memory of this monarch, he is one of the heroes of our monumental histoiT. We have seen the high post assigned to him in the Chamber of Karnak (D 1). He occupies the same position on the tablet of Abydos. The order of succes- sion has been disregarded that the name of Saites may stand in the post of honour at the head of his race. He was, therefore, held in high esteem by Thothmosis and Sesostpjs Ramses, the constructers of these monu- ments, and the two greatest kings of Egj'pt. The religious animosity against him and his race, had subsided in the days of these illustrious Pharaohs. It revived again after their times. The causes both of its subsidence and revival will appeal* in the course of our inquiry. It cannot be too often repeated, that the feud be- tween Saites, in Lower Egjpt, and Amuntim^us, in Upper Egypt, was altogether religious. Saites headed the sect, or faction, who had from the very beginning resisted the changes of Mexchekes, and his aggressions upon the Busirides of Lower Egypt and the Delta.* Their unsuccessful resistance to these reforms procured for them, in the Greek tradition, the epithet of Typho- nians. So utter was the discomfiture of the adherents to the old religion, that they dwindled into a small and powerless nomarchy at Sebennytus, in the north-east of the Delta. Meanwhile, the Mencherian faction pursued vigor- ously the aggressive policy of their founder. The successive monarchs of the 11th dynasty, and the first * Vol. i. pp. 332, seq. CHAP, n.] KIXGDOM OF THE DELTA. 61 two of the 12th, seem to have vied with each other in acts of spohation, committed upon the primitive temples of the Delta, until scarcely a shrine there remained unspoiled of the most precious relics of its god. Far from being able to offer any resistance, the Sebennyte Pharaohs were seemingly glad to save themselves from utter extermination at the price of the statue or rehc of the temple of their own nome. All this has likewise already been explained. This policy of the Upper Egyptian kings, however conducive to the future consolidation of the kingdom, was by no means equally so to its present peace. A deep feeling of resentment against the perpetrators of these successive acts of outrage against their sense of religion possessed the entire population of Lower Egypt and the Delta. This feeling seems to have been exasperated to its height when the son of Amenemes forced the filthy idol of Coptos upon the shrine of Neith, at Sais. A tumult in Lower Egypt, repressed with difficulty, if not a civil war, was certainly the con- sequence of this insolent outrage. The tendency of all this would inevitably be to excite in the whole of that part of Egypt a deep sympathy with the Sebennyte Pharaohs, large emigrations from the adjoining districts into their territories, and doubtless extensive defections and revolts in Lower Egypt from the Upper Egyptian yoke ; so that the power, the influence, and territories of these monarchs would rapidly increase. The monu- mental evidence of this change is very decided, though, of course, indirect. Sesoetosis himself endeavoured to propitiate the idol he had degraded and insulted, by 62 MEANING OF SAITES. [chap. n. dedicating to him his new conquest at Wady Haifa.* Some token of his divine displeasure, in the form of a loss of territory on his northern border, was all but certainly the real motive of this strange act. Accord- ingly, the name of Sesortosts is the only one of the 12th dynasty that occurs on the remains of Heliopolis. It is also the last name of his race that commemorates a forced and insulting change in the mytholog}- of Egypt. For in his reign Heliopolis revolted, and joined the Sebennyte Pharaohs. His successors seem to have ascribed this untoward event to the anger of Re Athom, the local god of Heliopolis ; and, therefore, their names commemorate their endeavours to propitiate him, by offerings of gold and other acts of devotion. The appearance at the quarries of the names of Imephthis and Othoes, who, probably enough, were father and son, is the unequivocal proof of a coiTes- ponding advance in the Sebennyte Pharaohs, and of their resumption of the aggressive against their con- querors. It has appeared, therefore, that the motive of the war had been long cherished; that the subjects of the Mencherian Pharaohs joined the invaders; and that the fall of Memphis was an event as sudden as unex- pected on the part of the Theban kings, and attended with as little trouble to the conquerors as the Greek legends represent it to have been. The name of the conqueror was a nom- y- — de-guerre in the strictest sense. It was his v N 6 LJly war-cry. It meant " good [fair] is the form of Sa." To * Above, p. 20. ciiAP. n.] EEIGN WISE AND ENERGETIC. 63 avenge the foul insult committed against the shrine of Keith by the son of Amenemes was the professed object of his invasion of the Upper Egyptian territory. Yet, strange to tell, he achieves his conquest in the name of the very idol whose introduction had constituted the insult ! It was an absolute canon of this idolatry, that what had been, under any pretext, or with whatever motive, once consecrated to religion, could never be removed, or applied to profane uses afterwards.* The form of the idol Sa was an insult to Neith and to public decency. The symbol wherewith his name was written was apphed to it in derision. Both had, nevertheless, been duly enshrined and consecrated ; and, therefore, the vengeance upon the perpetrator must be undertaken in his name, and in vindication of his very form. Therefore it was that the conqueror had taken at the outset of the war the name of Saites ; upon which the religious rancour of long-succeeding times invented a far from brilliant perversion f~^^j ^-l-t, Salatis, writing the epithet, v '' ^ ^ h ["fair"] in the feminine gender derisively. Saites was a politic and energetic ruler. This ap- pears even in the distorted travestie in which he is represented as a foreign invader. He built a parembole on his north-eastern frontier, wh*ere he encamped a vast army, to defend Egypt against the Canaanites and Assyrians; hereby avoiding the mistake into which his rival had fallen in regard of this border of his dominions. The conquest of Memphis certainly took place late in * The Biblical student will hei-e doubtless call to miud the censers of Nadab and Abihu (Numb. svi. 36—40). 64 MUMMY OF OSIRIS. [chap. it. the reign of AMUNxnLiiius. How long he survived it is not known. He may have perished in the defence. He, or his brother and co-regent, Amenemes IV. (pos- sibly both), made peace with the conqueror. There is no monumental evidence that it was violated during the lifetime of either. The Upper Eg}ptian Pharaohs reigned at Coptos and Crocodilopolis ; while Othoes and Saites kept their regal state alternately at Helio- polis and Memphis ; both of which they seem to have greatly decorated, so that they began once more to assume the rank of royal cities, from which they had been degraded by the disasters attendant upon the wars of Mencheres. It will sufficiently appear from hence, that the conquest of Memphis was a far greater misfor- tune to the Upper Egyptian crown than to the kingdom in general. It may even be doubted whether it was not a signal benefit to Eg}'pt. The war between the two pretensions seems to have broken out again immediately on the death of Amenemes IV. The plunder of the whole of the Busirides of the Delta had been accomplished, and the reconstruction of the mummy of Osiris (if it ever took place) was com- pleted by Amenemes and his sou. This is clearly to be inferred from the evidence of the monuments. On those of their epoch Osiris is first invoked under the double epithet of J ^= ""c:::^ ± i @ ^■=j ric^\ i.e., " Osiris, of the city of Touth [construction] in the west, great god of the city of Abijclos [the resm-rectiou]."* This title, we * Touth, Coptic TOTUJT, " construct," was the place in which CHAP, n.] ALL THE DEAD TO ABYDOS. 65 repeat it, first appears on the remains of the reign of Sesoktosis,* and is absolutely universal on those of all subsequent epochs. It would seem very evidently to follow from hence, that in the reign of Sesortosts, the son of Amenemes, the mummy of Osiris was first re- constructed, and his worship permanently established at Abydos. Our readers are now well aware that however dis- tasteful the change might be, no innovation upon this strange idolatry could ever again be reversed when once the rites of inauguration had been duly performed upon it. We have seen how deeply the Lower Egyptians resented the plunder of their Busirides, and how, after having cherished their resentments for more than two centuries, they at length took vengeance upon the perpetrators of these sacrileges by expelling them from Memphis, and afterwards, as we shall find, from the whole of Egypt. But, nevertheless, the change was made. The Busirides were all plundered, and the sacredness which the presence of a portion of the real body of the king of the dead had imparted to them was transferred to and concentrated at Abydos. All Egypt acquiesced, the Lower Egyptians as implicitly as their brethren in the Upper country ; and from thence- forth, for some centuries, the mummies of all the great men of Eg}^pt, if not of all Egyptians, were carried to Abydos during the process of their mummification. the mummy of Osiris was actually reconstructed and buried. It was probably some remote locality in the desert westward of Abydos (see vol. i. pp. 328, seq.). * In the tomb of Amunei, or Amenemes, at Beni-hassan. VOL. ir. K 66 THE DEAD BOATS. [chap. II. This extraordinary custom accounts for the vast city of the dead we have just described, which honey-combs the mountains of Middle Egypt on both banks of the Nile, and to the northward and southward of Abydos. It is quite impossible that any population in the vicinity of the tombs can have required this succession of sepulchres. The valley is here far too narrow, and even if we include the Faioum, there is too little arable land to have allowed of a great number of inhabitants at any time. Their tenants, therefore, must have been brought from considerable distances ; from other parts of Egypt better fitted to sustain the vast masses of people that have hewn out for themselves graves in these mountains until they are as if eaten with worms. At the period now before us, every corpse must be brought to Abydos before the, in Ancient Eg}-pt, all- important process of mummification could be completed. There dwelt the professors of the embalmer's art in all its higher branches. Some preparatory process, merely to preserve the body temporarily from putrescence, was the only part of the embalming that was performed in any other city. Thus prepared, it w-as then put on board one of the sacred boats that passed periodically, and carried to Abydos, certain members of the families of the dead accompanying them. These boats carried at one draught all the dead of the city in the interval from their former visit; in some instances 400 and 600 at a time.* Thus the funeral rites of aU Eg}pt were celebrated at Abydos. The persons employed therein, their paraphernalia, and apparatus, all were there. As * Tomb of Amunei. CHAP. U.] THE FUTURE RESURRECTION. 67 the city of the king of the dead, as the place where his mutilated corpse had been reconstructed, and in whose limits was the sacred and mysterious thoi^h unknown vault in which it was finally deposited, Abydos became the centre of the whole necrology of Egypt. There was, moreover, another and still more imposing view of the change accomplished by the plunder of the Busirides. The limb or piece of Osiris in each of them had been an earnest and sacred pledge of a future resurrection to all the dead in the cemetery around it. They were assured that it would rise again, for it was a part of him, the father of their race, by whom they had been taught this most consolatory truth. They also believed that by being near his body, they, his children, should rise together with him. But now this their pledge had been removed, and was at Abydos ; and, therefore, the tombs of all Egypt clustered round the sacred city. The comparatively small space for grottoes afforded by the limestone knolls immediately adjacent to Abydos was soon fully occupied by the courtiers of Amenemes a.vA his son, the completers of the mummy of Osiris, and their direct successors of the 12th dynasty. The remains found there abun- dantly testify to this. So confined was it, however, that even in their days men of renown, like Amunei, and Nahrai, and Thoteplithis, were compelled to betake themselves to the rocks on the opposite banks of the river, and there to hew them sepulchres at Beni-hassan and Bersheh, localities, so to speak, in sight of Abydos. At these two points began the vast cemetery which perforates the mountains on both sides the Nile for so 68 SAITES TAKES ABYDOS. [chap. II. great a distance in the vicinity of Abydos. The suc- ceeding generation, which is now before us, buried all thordead in Egypt in this range of mountains. Under these circumstances, the possession of Abydos would, of necessity, be earnestly desired by both the rival kings that at this time pretended to the sovereignty of all Egypt. We are not, therefore, surprised to find that the first action of the war that broke out on the death of Amenemes IV. was the advance of Saites upon Abydos. He took it without difficulty, for the power and influence of the Mencherian Pharaohs was at this time rapidly declining. Our authority for this historical fact is the tablet of Abydos. On this monu- ment, which we shall find just as essential to the intelligence of the post-pastoral period of Egyptian history, as has been the Chamber of Karnak for that which preceded the Shepherd invasion, the name of Saites occupies (as we have said) exactly the same honourable post at the head of his race as it does at Karnak. He is also twice entered in it, like the son of Amex- EMES and others at Karnak. In the first entry (No. 26) he appears under the commencement of the the form of the weak jp^^ one, Sa." In the other entry, whicl*is likewise houoraiy, he comes in his place next to Mencheees, as his direct descendant and re- presentative, which in fact he was. The Upper Egj ptian Pharaohs of the ]lth and 12th dynasties descended from Mencheres only collaterally. They are, therefore, in another line. In this last entry (No. 16) is the name name he assumed at the ^ war, sa-nu-Jca-an, " fair is CHAP. 11.] CHANGES HIS NAME. 69 ^'O^ in which he afterwards governed Egypt, " fair is the form of Be [the sun]." The matter of Sa. therefore, seems to have heen ahogether settled by the conquest of Memphis and Ahydos. So that on the occasion of taking the latter city, he changed his name, by ascribing the same honourable title to Re Athom the father of all the gods of Egypt. This his new name (which was far more becoming the founder of a dynasty), would probably have been written Nu- CHEREs by the Greeks. Nor are these all the honours ascribed to Saites by the constructer of the tablet of Abydos. His name is compounded with all the legible ones that occupy the space between the two entries, with the exception of two. This was an attempt to give to these ancient kings the double name which at the time of the construction of the table had become universal, though in their day it was confined to the Upper Egyptian Pharaohs only. Neither Saites nor his successors of this dynasty ever used more than one epithet enclosed in one ring for their names. We have elsewhere mentioned that Amenemes IV. (No. 39) was an immediate ancestor of Sesosteis, the constructer of the tablet of Abydos, and that he is the last of his race who appears there for some generations. The next name to his is that of Amosis (No. 40), the founder of the 18th dynasty. We now perceive the cause of this omission. The successors of Amenemes in the direct line had no longer possession of Abydos. It had been taken from them by Saites and the Lower Egyptians. Therefore it is that Saites heads the Upper or Mencherian line as the direct representative of the 70 IJSTS AT ABYDOS AND KARNAK. [chap II. family of Menes (1), and behind him (26 — 16), are the names of all ■who had been kings of Abydos in that line before him, that is, between his times and those of Mencheres, and also his successors, who still re- tained Abydos, until it was recaptured by Amosis (No. 40), when its sovereignty once more returned to the Uj^per Egyptian hne. Thus does it appear that the tablet of Abydos follows exactly the arrangement of the Chamber of Karnak in recognizing the rival pretensions of the two branches of the family of Menes in Upper and Lower Egypt, which for the whole of this the most ancient period of the history of the kingdom were contending for the sovereignty. The two documents also correspond in the position which is conceded to the Lower Egyptian line at the top or head (A, of our diagram), as the older and more direct representatives of the protomonarch. So that the upper line (A) of the tablet of Abydos contains the kings of Lower Egypt, like the two upper- most planes of the Chamber of Karnak (C, D, G, H, diagram). ^Yhile in the second line (B) at Abydos, are the Upper Egyptian Pharaohs of the 11th and 12th dynasties as in planes A and B at Karnak. The third line (C) at Abydos is filled with repetitions of the names of Sesosteis, in whose family the two rival dynasties were finally merged and made one. This will appear at the issue of our present inquiry. The cotemporary remains of the reign of Saites or Nucheres are by no means extensive. It is pretty certain that he was far advanced in life at the time of the capture of Memphis. In the second year after that CHAP, n.] MCEias. 71 event he took possession of the mines at the Watly ^leghara. In the eighteenth year of his reign, the Upper Egyptians were once more expelled from thence in his name by his son-in-law Mceris, and his grandson Phiops or Aphophis. He is said in the lists to have survived the capture of Memphis by nineteen years. It is, therefore, pretty certain that the event com- memorated on this tablet took place in the last year of his reign, and shortly before his death.* Saites was buried in one of the pyramids in the district of Sho. It was named ^ + v ^1 A " the pyramid of Nuchekes of V Q ILJJavw \ IA^ living [eternal] buildings." Its ruins have not yet been discovered. The histoiy we have already quoted {above, p. 37), tells us that after the conquest of Memphis Saites was principally occupied with the defence of his north- eastern frontier against the Canaanites and Assyrians. If any other memorials of his reign have escaped the fanaticism of the succeeding age, they will probably be found in that part of Egypt, if ever the mounds there shall be excavated. m mei-re, Mceris. This monarch was the son-in-law of Saites. He was, most probably, a prince of Canaan; and in this circumstance originated the slander which called the successes of his family a Shepherd invasion. The most * Lepsius, Abt. ii. bl. 116. 72 SON-IN-LAW OF SAITES. [chap. n. prominent event of his reign was the capture, from the Upper Egyptians, of Crocodilopohs, and the palace of the Labyrinth. It stands recorded at Abydos in the ring of his son and co-regent Phiops; who was, most probably, born the year that ISIemphis was taken ; and was on that account immediately crowned king of Eg}^pt, conjointly with his father and grandfather. Far from exhibiting the destructive propensities ascribed to the Shepherds by the Greek fable, this Canaanite carried on, and brought to completion, the great design of Amenemes, with such magnificence and ^vith so many additions and improvements, that, in after times, the whole of this wonderful work was ascribed to Mceris. This truth, which was long ago suggested by Bunsen, now appears demonstrably in the monumental history of the reign of this monarch. Nothing now remains of the Labyrinth but its lower portions. All the rest, which MosRis built, has perished. Mceris and his son both ascended the throne on the death of Saites. The father, Moeris, was crowned king of Upper Egypt; and his capital was Crocodilopolis. The son, Phiops, was crowned, at the same time, king of Lower Egypt. He reigned at Memphis. The foreign descent of Mceris, doubtless, suggested this arrange- ment. The chronicle of it appears in the porphyry quarries of El Hamamat. This arrangement of an amicable co-regency, or rather division of the monarchy, became a precedent for the successors of Mceris and Phiops, which issued in the depression and ultimate extinction of this illustrious line of Pharaohs. It like- wise involves the history of the following epoch in CHAP. II.] MONUMENTS OF MCERTS. 73 utterly inextricable confusion. There appear to have been three always, often four, co-regent Pharaohs. This perplexity commences even now. Mceris does not appear either in the Chamber of Karnak, or on the tablet of Abydos. This is perfectly regular. His wife only was really entitled to a place in the pedigree ; and the names of females were never entered there. His place in both is occupied by the name of his son. We shall find other instances of precisely the same arrange- ment, in the subsequent history of Egypt. The few memorials of the reign of Mceris, which have escaped the destructive fanaticism of his bigoted successors, show it to have been a very glorious one, fully bearing out the character given to him by the Greek tradition. No king that went before him, and very few that followed him on the throne of Egypt, have left so many quarry marks as Mceris. The sand- stone of El Kab, the porphyry of Hamamat, and the granite of the Wady Meghara, all bear testimony to the extent of his quarrying operations for the embellishment of his cities. We will now endeavour to read, from these interesting records, the history they seem to embody. The beginning of it falls on the first triacontaeteris, or thirty years' feast, which occurred after the capture of Memphis by Saites. As a token, doubtless, of his gratitude, Saites added to the temple of Phtha, the god of his new capital, a superb hypostyle hall, built entirely with the porphyry of Hamamat, and expressly designed for the celebration of the solemnities pertaining to that high festival. This form of construction is VOL. II, L 74 NATIVE FORCED LABOUR. [chap. II. strictly Egyptian, and in no other type does its tery peculiar architecture show to equal advantage. It consisted of a square hypaethral enclosure, filled with gigantic columns, and their architraves arranged in endless colonnades. It is of all conceivable forms the best adapted for exhibiting to advantage the long and splendidly-attired processions, bearing gorgeous sym- bols, that wound interminably among its clustering pillars. The building of this superb construction must have occupied many years. For the quan-ying of the porphyry a very large body of prisoners of war resided at Hamamat, under the command of no fewer than fourteen officials of the com't of Saites, all entitled to have their names enrolled in the commemorative tablet, and therefore noblemen of the highest rank, and most of them having names compounded with that of Moeris, and therefore his school-fellows and relatives.* Such a quarter supposes a very large force of workmen, who, as we have said, were always either bondslaves, male- factors, or prisoners of war. It cannot be doubted that in the present instance they were Upper Egyptians, made captives by the invasion of Saites ; that this his evil precedent was followed by his sons ; and that in this consisted the actual gi'ound of the execration and obloquy which the Upper Egyptian records have heaped upon the memories of this dynasty of kings. Suphis, of the great pyramid, has already affiarded us an exactly parallel case, f * Or, Heteri \iToLtfoi'\. They had been the playmates and school- fellows of the king in his childhood. t Vol. i. pp. 275, seq. CHAP. II.] SHEINE OF MCERIS AND PHIOPS. 75 The solemnity which was prepared for on this scale of magnificence was fm-ther signahzecl by the coronation in this hall, of Mceris, as king of Upper Egypt, and of Phiops, as king of Lower Egypt. A shrine of the same material, but, doubtless, of the richest workman- ship, was executed at the charge of the two kings to commemorate their accession. Both of them wore on the occasion the vestments of Phtha, the god of Mem- phis, thereby expressing their especial devotion to him. ) ^ m A 1 □ rn )_ It contained the statues of both kings. This fact is recorded in the accompanying tablet from the rock of Hamamat, which is in fact a picture of the shrine.* * Leps. Abt. ii. bl. 11.5 a. 76 CAPTURE OF MEGHAEA. [chap. IL The foreign cast of the features of Mceris, and the striking contrast to them of the Egyptian contour of his son, are very conspicuous. Mceris was by birth and descent of one of the princes of Arvad. From this circumstance his descendants and their subjects came to be called in hieroglyphics Upper Arv^ad, a century later. The inscription before Mceris reads, " the king Mceris, the god beneficent, lord of both Egypts." Before his sou is written, "the prince the benefactor of both Egypts, Aphophts, beloved of the gods." On the base of the shrine is the date : " the first day of the st panegyry." In what year of Saites this coronation took place is not recorded. The next event is that of the 18th of Saites, already mentioned. It has, happily, two records, which may possibly assist in the development of its history. On the 4th of Mesore (the last month), in this year, Mceris and Phiops, at the head of an army, expelled the Upper Egyptians from the Wady Meghara, and thereby acquired possession of the valuable quarries and mines in its vicinity. Saites had evidently been living when Mceris and his son had marched from Egypt : for the glorious relief which to this day commemorates the victory is inscribed with his name and with those of his two co-regents. On this tablet, Mceris, like any other father, ascribes all the glory of the war to his beloved son.* He it is who rushes through Lower Egj-pt; and in Upper Egypt gi-asps the hand of an Eg}-ptian whose pusillanimity is noted by the circumstance, that with the beard of a man he has the breasts of a woman. * Abt. ii. bl. 11 a. CHAP. II.] DEATH OF SAITES. 77 Phiops was on this occasion made sovereign in all Egypt : lie wears the two parts of the crown in the two divisions of the picture. This was an honour never assumed by Mceius. More than thirty officers of his army were of the rank which entitled them to have their names inscribed at the foot of this magnificent tablet. The especial purpose of the tablet is to commemorate the hewing of granite from the quarries there for the casing of the pyramids of Saites and Mceris, both of which were then in process of construction. On the 27th of the same month in the same year, Mceris alone reached Hamamat, on the opposite shore of the Gulf of Suez. Twenty-three days would be about the time required for rounding the head of the gulf by somewhat hasty marches. There the tidings of his father's death seem first to have reached him; for he gave directions for the commencement of extensive quarrying operations, and left two of his sons to superintend them. One of these princes was a priest presiding over the funeral rites. The date agrees remarkably well with the lists, which makes the death of Saites to have taken place in the 19th year of his reign at Memphis.* The present memorial is dated within three days of the termination of his 18th year. Mceris excavated the porphyry rocks of El Hamamat on three other occasions. One of them only is speci- fied. It is the expulsion of the Upper Egyptians from Coptos, their capital. He signahzed this success by a porphyry shrine, dedicated to the god of Coptos, and * Abt. ii. bl. 115, 24. 78 SKENIOPHEIS. [chap, il erected in the temenos, or sacred grove, where he was worshipped. His successes against the Upper Egj-ptians were very great. He recovered the possession of the sandstone rocks of Eilethya, which apparently had been retaken in his father's time. It would seem therefore that the Upper Egyptians were expelled by him fi'om the whole of Egypt Proper, with the exception of Thebes. This last city seems, from the Chamber of Karnak [B 14], still to have remained in the possession of the feeble repre- sentative of the Mencherian Phai'aohs, the princess Skeniophris. The brief historj- of this princess, appended to the entry of her name in the lists, informs us that she was the sister of Amenemes IV. (she was his niece); and that she survived him four years. It was probably much longer. With her the 12th dynasty, which had opened so pro- pitiously and so full of promise, closed in defeat and disaster. The remains of the Labyrinth have preserved to us the single fact regarding her reign, that she was asso- ciated with her father in the sovereignty of all Egj-pt on the death of her uncle. Her name is inscribed on several fragments of the internal decorations of its once magnificent halls. Mceris was a munificent monarch as well as a suc- cessful warrior. He has covered the rocks of El Kab, of Hamamat, and of Meghara, with the memorials of his excavations from them to decorate the cities of Upper Egypt. His monumental fame likewise rests on * Leps. Abt. ii. bl. 140. CHAP, n.] REIGN OF MGERIS. 79 the still surer ground of a faithful discharge of the relative duties. He was a dutiful son and an affec- tionate father. But he was a foreigner by birth and extraction ; and this circumstance alone would have sufficed to exclude his name from the royal genealogies, and to have given his memory a doubtful colour in the archives of Eg}'pt. In addition to this, he in all probability first set the example, which his successors uniformly followed, of employing the Upper Egyptian prisoners in his works of construction and decoration. As a foreigner he would naturally feel far less scruple on this point than had he been a native Egj'^ptian. As ruler in Upper Eg}^pt alone he came also into especial collision with the kings of the other pretension and their adherents, being, as we have seen, the chief agent in their expulsion from the borders of Egypt. For all these reasons the name of Mceris seems to have been the mark at which the fiercest fanaticism and the deadliest hatred of the adherents of Amosis, in the succeeding epoch, were especially levelled. So relent- less have been their ravages, that of all the fair constructions of Mceris nothing has escaped them, save the inscriptions on the rocks and a single tomb at Chenoboskion, where his name appears, together with those of his father, his son, and his grandson. Mceris never pretended to any other monarchy than that of Upper Egypt. His father and his son were co-regents with him throughout his reign, which for this reason has no place in chronology. Its exact duration is unknown ; it must have been considerable. Mceris was buried in the pyramid which he had 80 APHOPHIS THE SHEPHERD. [chap. n. begun, and which his own son completed. Its name is of the utmost historical importance. The fierce fanaticism which has erased from the monuments and rocks of Egypt all memorials of the reign of Moeris, has been just as ruthless in its destruc- tion of those of his son. Its effect in this last case has beea to involve our inquiry in a serious difficulty, which nothing but the discoveiy of its existence and its ravages could have cleared away. The Pharaoh to whom Joseph was prime minister, and during whose reign Egypt enjoyed a far greater amount of material prosperity than at any other period, is, nevertheless, absolutely without a history in her annals, either tradi- tive or monumental. In the Greek tradition we have already seen him appear under the utterly anomalous impersonation of the Shepherd-king Aphophis. Its contradictions and impossibilities we have sufficiently exposed. Yet is the statement so clear and unanimous, so without ambiguity or hesitation, that it is certain that no other king besides Aphophis was ever men- tioned to the Greeks as the patron of Joseph.* So that to reject it is to cut the whole history adrift from their tradition. The monuments ignore the Shepherd invasion altogether. According to their testimony, it was a civil war between two rival branches of the stock Phiops, Apappus, Aphophis. * 'EttI iraat (xv^-Kt^ivitrxi. Syncellus, p. 61. CHAP. II.] MONUMENTS DESTROYED, 81 of Menes. The aid to the sokition of our difficulty which they afford us is, the synchronism of a king, having a name in hieroglyphics which might certainly be hellenized into Aphophis {Karnak, C. 15), with queen Skeniophris (B 14), the daughter of Amun- TiM.EUs. This is an important point gained in the inquiry. Yet when we come to the examination of the cotemporary monuments of this king, we find them to be very slight and unimportant : differing remarkably from those of his predecessors of the 12th dynasty in the extreme and visibly wanton mutilation they have undergone. On extending our researches in the vici- nities of the places in which the name of this king occurs, we find them to be situated in the midst of a vast series of tombs, grottoes, and other works of art, all entirely and systematically mutilated and defaced. This mutilation, as we have said, has cost an amount of labour only surpassed by that of their original con- struction ; and must therefore have been suggested by some religious or political antipathy. The proof of this, 'prima facie, is rendered complete by the circum- stance, that in two places in this vast cemetery are tombs of the earlier era of the kings of the 12th dynasty; and that they are not merely unmutilated, but ai'e among the most perfect of the remains of Ancient Egypt. It cannot therefore have been in any indis- crimmate sack, or in the accidents of their localities, that the monuments around them have perished. These very peculiar circumstances of the monuments of this king are assuredly suggestive of the same con- clusion regarding him as that which we had already VOL. ri. M 82 NAME AT ABYDOS. [chap. II. been induced to adopt from other and entirely distinct considerations. He was of a race of Pharaohs who, having rendered themselves obnoxious in some religious feud, their memory was as far as possible effaced from the soil of Egypt, and they were denounced by the chroniclers of subsequent times as barbarians and foreigners. These particulars consist with each other perfectly, and seem to us to account well for the difficulty which is presented by the extreme paucity of the memorials of Aphophis, notwithstanding that his undoubted history proclaims him to have been one of the greatest kings of Egypt. We have elsewhere exposed the strange embroglio in the list of the 6th dynasty, wherein this same king appears under the name of Phiops, which is written Apappus in the canon of Erotosthenes.* The monu- ments, we repeat it, have preserved the name of one king only which admits of being thus orthographized, and he was the son of Mceris and the grandson of Saites. Our readers are aware that the husband of queen Skeniophris (B 14), under his wife's name, sits imme- diately below Phiops (C 15), in the Chamber of Kai-uak ; and that the fact that they were cotemporaries is indi- cated hereby. The name of Phiops on the tablet of Aby- dos (A 25), where he immediately follows his grandfather, seems to supply us with an event in which these /r-~N □ □ pj. 2 two rivals came into colUsion. It is thus written : "fair is the form of Seb, Phiops." Seb, or Sebek, the crocodile, was the god of the Faioum ; and the epithet, "fair is the form," was the name of * Vol. i. c. vii. p. 452. CHAP, n.] TRIPLE CO-REGENCY. 83 Saites, his grandfather. The adoption of this title, therefore, by Phiops, was an acknowledgment of his grandfather as the head of his dynasty, and an attempt to propitiate the god Seb. We gather from hence that one of the first feats of arms of Phiops (possibly before his accession) was the expulsion of Skeniophris and the Upper Egyptians from the Faioum and the palace of the Labyrinth. Before this disaster, she had made considerable additions there to the constructions of Amuntijleus her father. Her name, as we have said, is recorded on several fragments which were dug out from the ruins by Dr. Lepsius. They are now in the Berlin Museum. Phiops reigned cotemporarily with his father and grandfather. This we be- lieve to be the only in- stance of a triple co-re- gency of the same preten- sion on the same throne in the annals of the mo- narchy. It is commemora- ted atHama- mat in the an- nexed device. V. 84 LENGTH OF HIS REIGN. [chap. II. The golden hawk, which was one of the fishing eagles of the Nile, seems from the first to have been made the impersonation of a king. We are as little acquainted with the motives of this symbolism as with those of most of the others in the entire system. The three hawks on the same symbol of "gold" denote the joint reigns of Mceris and Phiops, who are both mentioned in the tablet, with Saites, whose name does not appear. The date, it may be observed, is the same as that of the preceding illustration (p. 75), also from Hamamat. The present tablet recorded the quarrying of porphyry from thence to decorate a temple in some other city than Memphis, to which these kings also made additions, in commemoration of the st panegyry. We have already stated that the birth of Phiops, in the year of the fall of Memphis, is the probable solution of this strictly peculiar arrangement of a triple co- regency. We have also explained, in our sketch of his father's life, that he divided the whole monarchy with Phiops on the death of Saites. When Mceris deceased, Phiops became the king of all Egypt. It is entered against the name of Phiops, in the list of the 6th dynasty, that he reigned for 100 years within an hour. We have seen that his reign began with his life. There can be no doubt that it was a long one. The few remains of the reign of Phiops that are found in the vast cemetery of Abydos ai*e of exquisite beauty. Egyptian art in them had attained its highest CHAP, n.] THE PATRON OF JOSEPH. 85 perfection. They consist altogether of the tombs of princes and courtiers. The only points of history em- bodied in them are : 1. The worship of Osiris at Abydos after formulae identical with those of the latter kings of the 12th dynasty, and of all their successors. 2. The name of the palace constructed by Phiops, the Aphopheum. Nearly all the princes interred at Melawee, Schech-Zaid, and Chenoboskion, were officers of this palace. We infer from hence that it was built on one of the fertile plains on the western bank opposite to these localities ; that it was begun after the death of his father, and designed for the king's residence in Upper Egypt. It was like- wise intended in some measure to vie with the Labyrinth, which his father had com.pleted. This was a common practice with ancient kings. 3. Egypt must have enjoyed during the reign of Phiops an amount of external prosperity greater than at any former period. A vast amount of forced labour must also have been at the command of her princes and nobles. Their tombs, now nearly all mutilated, have surpassed, both in dimensions and execution, those of the 12th dynasty. Having collected these monumental indications of the state of Egypt under Phiops, or Aphophis, we now come to the very important synchronism which puts his reign in relation with the general history of the rest of mankind. The patriarch Joseph was sold into Egypt during the reign of Aphophis. The event itself is a part of the history of Israel ; but the circumstances 86 SLAVE TRADE WITH EGYPT. [chap. II. and accessories of it belong to the history of Egypt, and are most important to its elucidation. There is scarcely a single detail of this very well known narrative* which does not throw light upon the history of Egypt in the reign of Aphophis. So very ample are the materials, that it will be incumbent upon us to use the utmost possible brevity in treating of them, that our remarks may be brought within the limits into which the extent of the inquiry before us imperatively requires their contraction. The trepan and sale of Joseph by his brethren elucidates a fact which appears in the tombs of the princes of the 12th dynasty. "We have just pointed out that Nuhotphthis II. presented to his sovereign, Sesoktosis it., thirty-seven slaves skiUed in the pounding of stibium, whom he purchased of one of the petty kings of the Jebusites. The tomb of his near connection, Chotei, in the same cemetery (Beni- hassan), is covered with pictures of Canaanite and Ethiopic slaves wrestling and fighting in his presence. At Bersheh, also, Thotephthis, a courtier of the same monarch, drags a colossus from the quarry to its desti- nation, with gangs of Canaanites as well as Egyptians. At a still earlier period, in the reign of Sesortosis I., a large force of Canaanite auxiliaries, or mercenaries, or slaves, fought in the army with which he conquered Nubia. This fact appears in the painting of the tomb of Amunei, at Beni-hassan {see Plate). All difiiculty connected with these facts is cleared by the narrative of Joseph. An extensive slave-trade was carried on by * Gen. xxxvii. — ^xlvii. CHAP, n.] JOSEPH AT IIELTOPOLIS. 87 the itinerant merchants of the desert between Egypt and Canaan. The petty kings of the hitter country sold to them their prisoners of war, whom they carried down in coffles, or caravans, to Egypt, where they found a ready sale for them. The name of the prince by whom Joseph was bought from the Midianites was Potipliar. The name of the priest whose daughter he married long afterwards was Fotiplierali. Both are the same name written with a slight variation. It is strictly Egyp- ^ Ov^ tian, and of not uncommon occurrence, -^^ — 1 ^ ptephre, " he who worships [offers to] the sun." The sun was, as we have often mentioned, the god of Heliopolis ; and Potipherah is declared to have been the priest of px, On, which the lxx. translate HAiottoAi?. Now it appears from the monuments, that it had been the practice, from a very early date, to name the inha- bitants of Egypt after the local gods of their native cities. So that nearly all Memphites had names com- pounded of Phtha, and all Thebans of Amun. These circumstances decide a point of great importance. The scene of the bondage, the imprisonment, and the subsequent exaltation and marriage of Joseph, was the city of Heliopolis ; which we have already found to occupy so commanding a position in the annals of the kingdom. So that it becomes an historical fact, that the patron of Joseph, Pharaoh Aphophis, had possession of Heliopolis, and for a long period held his regal state there. Heliopolis was the most ancient capital of Egypt. In the days of the Greeks, there were three cities 88 EGYPTIAN TITLES. [chap. u. each of which had the metropohtan privilege of sending forth ten judges to administer justice in their sur- rounding districts. These cities were Thebes, Memphis, and Hehopohs.* The same was the law of Eg}pt in the times of Amosis and his successors. " The three zi seats of justice of both Egjpts" ai-e very fre- =^^^ quently mentioned in the hieroglyphic texts of these late epochs. But in the inscriptions of the remoter times now before us two seats of justice only are ever enumerated. We infer from hence that Thebes had not yet obtained this privilege ; and that ]\Iemphis and Heliopolis were then the only capitals of Egj-pt. The titles and professions recorded in the inspu-ed narrative before us admit of perfect illustration from the cotemporary monuments of Egypt. Potiphar was n27"iQ d^d- i-c, 4? Q s-rsh, "royal prince."! He was D">nntan-i27, z.^., JJJ ^ sr-tog (Copt., Tcocre.) " superintendent of the vineyards;" lit., vine props. § The two prisoners were : — d^'ptt^an-nc:;, "the cup-bearer," i.e., ^jf^^ ll mr-so, " president of those that give drink." D^csn— lb. "chief purveyor." IT This office was fre- quently held by the princes of Egypt. The title is not distinctly written on any known tomb. The names of Joseph admit of even still more * Diod. Sic. i. c. 75. t Tombs of Memphis, passim. J Gliizeh, Tomb 73. § Gen. xxxix. 1. || Ghizeb, Tomb 68. H Gen. xl. 1, 2. CHAP, n.] NAMES OF JOSEPH. 89 precise illustration. The titles conferred upon him by Pharaoh* were significant allusions to his circum- stances. The first of them, Tsaphnath,^ would be thus rendered in hieroglyphics, V-/ tsf-nt, "near to [one with] Neith, the "^"^^^^M ^ goddess of wisdom," the exact echo of the address of Pharaoh on conferring it on him: "There is none so discreet and wise as thou art."]; The other tide is Joseph's acquittal of the false charge under which he had suffered imprisonment, g^^llT^V f phcli-mik, [nD3?2. Paa- 7ica/t],"he who A 11=11 flees from adultery." We have before noticed it as the name of one of the courtiers of Usercheres I., of the 5tli dynasty.§ In all probabihty, he also had assumed it on a similar occasion. The rest of his titles are not in any degree doubtful. They are written on the tomb of Joseph, which is at Sakkarah. II It was either a cenotaph, constructed for Joseph by the Egyptians as a token of pubhc esteem, or it has been the tomb of the successor to his offices, who, out of respect to his memory, took his name as well as his titles. The idolatrous allusions contained in its inscriptions seem to favour the latter opinion. In the archaeology of any other ancient kingdom such an identification would be a marvel all but incredible. In that of Egypt it scarcely rises above the level of the ordinary results of investigation. The name of Joseph is thus written, ei-tsuph, " he came to save." It is parano- * Geu. xli. 45. t n23!J- J Gen. xli. 39. § Vol. i. p. 301. II Lepsius, No. 15 Sakkarah, Abt. ii. Bl. 101. VOL. II. N 90 TITLES OF JOSEPH. [chap. n. mastic, and alludes intelligibly to the good work he accomplished for Egypt during the seven years of the famine, besides embodying the sounds of his name. The title under which Joseph was first inaugurated, Tfnns. ahrech/'- appears also in his tomb, and at the head of his blazon. It will we believe not be found among the distinctions of any other prince of Eg}pt. It is written ^ ^ hh-resh, " royal priest and prince." The TlA<=d±=, office to which Joseph was appointed by Pharaoh is in like manner fully compre- hended in the titles which appear on his tombs. He was extensively empowered in regard of the tame cattle of the king. This title is mutilated. He was the "director of the granaries of the chiefs of both Eg}-pts." [— I The "full and the O empty channels of irrigation " ij d were also in his chai-ge, and the adjustment ■' of the supply of water to them; so that Joseph was "over aU the land of Eg}'pt" in special respect of the provisioning of the land, which comports exactly with the inspired narrative of his elevation. It is therefore historically true that Joseph was sold into Eg}-pt as a slave, and that he was afterwards prime minister to Pharaoh Aphophis. The men named in the Bible are real men, and the events recorded actual occurrences. "WTiatever be the value of these facts to the history of Israel, they ai'e far more important to * Gen. xU. 43. CHAP, n.] EEIGN OF APHOPHIS. 91 that of Eg}-pt, where so httle that is precise and tangible has hitherto been found.* With this aid the history of the reign of Phiops, or Aphophis, may therefore be written with far more certainty than that of any other king of Egypt that went before him. We have said that the few fragments of the reign of Aphophis, which have escaped the fanatical fury of his successors, attest him to have been a munificent patron * Since the above was written, an extraordinary confirmation of the views embodied in the text has fallen into my hands. It is the translation of an hieratic MS. on papyrus, in the possession of Mrs. Daubeny, of London, by M. Emanuel de Rouge ; whose great pro- ficiency in their study, and singular success in interpreting them, we have already noticed. The document belonged to Sethos II. while yet a child ; and was therefore (as the translator rightly observes) exactly of the times of ]\Ioses. It was copied under the superin- tendence of a scribe named Kake-ei, "the dispeller of darkness." This was likewise the case with all the hieratic papyri of the Sallier collection, which were published some years ago by the British Museum. It had therefore obviously been deposited in the same tomb. Mrs. Daubeny's papyrus is a romance, founded upon the lives of two brothers, who were both feeders of cattle. The name of the elder was that of the god Anubis. That of the younger brother is doubtful. M. de Rouge translates it conjecturally Satou. At the outset of the fable, this younger brother has an adventure with his elder brother's wife, identical in every particular with Joseph's adven- ture with the wife of Potiphar (Gen. xxxix. 6 — 20.) We have pleasure in referring to this most interesting document. {Revue Archeologique 9^ annee.) We would only further remark in regard of the name of the younger brother, that the single phrase of the original quoted in the article which contains it is mutilated just iu the place of its occurrence ; so that its transcription is somewhat imperfect : but it appears to us to bear no inconsiderable resemblance to the hieroglyphic name of Joseph in our text, in hieratic characters. The t is the doubtful letter in De Rouge's version. 92 NAME OF MEMPHIS. [chap, il of the arts of design. In further proof of it, the quarry-marks of Aphophis, on ah the principal quarries in Middle and Upper Egypt, are exceedingly numerous, surpassing even those of his father. But the name of his pyramid, which is happily preserved at Schech-Zaid, affords us a yet more cogent proof of his taste and magnificence. It is thus Avriiten, lit., "[of] Phiops, the fair con- vS. structer, the pyramid." It therefore declares formally that Phiops stood pre-eminent among all the kings of Egypt for the magnitude and beauty of bis architectural constructions. Even this is not the extent of its testi- mony to the point. The names of the pyramids Avere also those of the districts in their immediate vicinities ; and the pyramid of Phiops gave its name to, or took it from, a locality no less eminent in the histoiy of Egypt than the city of Memphis. Its frequently-occurring hieroglyphic name is t mn-nuii, which the Copts have written ueiiqi almost without variation. The Greek Mf.u^ji? is a Hellenized version of the same name. The Hebrew and ^13 are mere abbre- viations of it. The conclusion from hence is very obvious. SqcIi were the beauty and extent of the architectural constructions wherewith Phiops adorned the city of Menes, and so far did he surpass herein all his predecessors, that ever afterwards the trivial name of Memphis became that of his pyramid, which crowned the height of Sakkarah, that rose immediately behind the city. The fury of the Amonian fanatics, under Amosis, doubtless rased to the ground the vast temples lA CHAP, n.] JOSEPH PRIME MINISTER. 93 and palaces of Phiops at Memphis, and utterly effaced his name and memorials from the quarries of Tourrah, on the opposite bank, where he had made vast excava- tions. But they could not erase the memory of his good worlvs from the heart of Egypt. The name of its great capital handed it down to posterity notwithstanding. We have only to call to mind that this same Phiops, or Aphophis, was the patron of Joseph, when we at once perceive the value of these details in restoring to consent and harmony the fragmentary notices of the history of Egypt, which lie scattered over so many authorities. The interpretation of the dreams of Pharaoh, and the prediction of the events involved therein, by the prisoner Joseph, are the well-known details wherein Aphophis first appears in the Scripture narrative. The elevation of the prisoner as prime minister, and the literal accomplishment of his prediction in the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine, both made by his wisdom equally conducive to the advance- ment of Egypt in material prosperity, are circumstances so familiar to all Enghsh readers, that they require nothing here beyond the most casual notice. The history of the cotemporary and rival dynasty of Upper Egypt will very shortly be before us. We shall there find that the physical features of Egypt afford at this day the unmistakable indications both of the truth of the inspired narrative of these events, and of the correctness of the place in our history which we assign to them. The immigration of Israel into Egj^pt took place in 94 CHRONOLOGY. [chap. n. the course of the third year of the famine.* From this inspired history we happily know the exact measure of the period that has elapsed since the visit of Abram, the last event whereby we were enabled to harmonize the two histories. It is 215 years; and the value of this certainty to the histoi-y of Egj-pt can scarcely be estimated too highly. Without its aid the actual dura- tion of the interval between the accession of Amenemes and the reign of Aphophis never could have been disentangled from the intricate maze of double and triple reigns of two rival co-regencies, overlapping each other at all possible points, in which it is bound up. By its help the inquiry is greatly simphfied. We assume as before f the accession of Amenemes I. to date from the pacification of Achthoes, to which Abram was a party. We have collected from the monu- ments the following certainties regarding the reigns of him and his successors : — Amenemes I. reigned alone 14 years. Sesortosis I. „ „ 42 „ Amenemes II. „ „ 32 „ Sesortosis II- 1 2^ Sesortosis III. J " " " Amenemes III. (Amuntim^us) 43 „ 145 „ We have said that the capture of Memphis took place late in the reign of Amuntijleus. He may have fallen in the defence of his northern capital, or not have survived it twelve months, or he may have * Gen. xlv. 6. t Vol. i. p. 380. CHAP, n.] EGYPT UNDEE APHOPHIS. 95 lived three years after. We cannot be certain which, but either is perfectly consistent with the synchronism before us. If Memphis fell in the 40th year of Amun- TiMJius, the immigi'ation of Israel into Egypt took place in the 54th year of the reign of Aphophis, and in the 73rd yeai- of his age, by our assumption re- garding him. If AaiuNTiM^us did not so long survive his loss, this event took place in the 70th year of Aphophis, the 51st of his reign. We have already cited the evidence of the monuments to the correctness of the statement in the lists that Saites died nineteen years after the capture of Mem- phis. The rest of the data of this our reckoning admit of the same corroboration. If we deduct the reigns of Amenemes IV. and Skeniopheis from the sum of the list of the 12th dynasty, the remainder will be 148 years, which differs by three years only from the united reigns which the dated monuments assign to the same kings. Aphophis survived for seven or ten years the immi- gration of Israel. According to our conjecture regard- ing him he died in his 80th year ; for all the copies of the hsts agree in assigning to Aphophis a reign of 61 years. It is only by the aid of the present synchronism that this portion of the history of Egypt can be dated at all, so little is there to rely upon in the other authorities for it. Aphophis left Egypt by far the richest and most flouiishing kingdom that had then appeared upon the earth. His pohcy, both external and internal, had an 96 HIS FAIR CONSTEUCTIONS. [chap, il important bearing upon her subsequent history, and must therefore be carefully considered. In his policy towards the Canaanites on his north- eastern frontier, Aphophis scrupulously adhered to the principles which had guided the Pharaohs of his line from the first. It was for its age marvellously tolerant and liberal, even when we take into the account that he was himself related to one of the royal families of Canaan. The corn, which the prudence and foresight of Joseph had stored in such abundance during the years of plenty, was sold freely to the Canaanites in exchange for their precious things and commodities, as well as to the Egyptians. The famine was in Canaan as well as in Egypt, and therefore " all countries came into Eg}-pt to Joseph to buy corn, because the famine was sore in all lands." The increase in affluence and power which the vast foreign traffic implied in this passage would confer upon Egypt is well understood in modern times. It was from thence that he found the means to construct the beautiful temples and palaces wherewith he adorned Memphis, and which so far surpassed all that his predecessors had done, that the name of his pyramid became in after times the trivial appellation of this great capital of the kingdom. "We must call to mind that Phiops or Aphophis was the son of Mceris, the completer of the Labyrinth. His father's example would, doubtless, with his increased means, be largely improved upon in the constructions of Memphis. This makes it clear that his buildings there, as well as the tombs of his princes, * Gen. xli. 57. CHAP, n.] IMMIGEATIOX OF ISRAEL. 97 were afterwards wantonly thrown clown and mutilated ; for in the times of Herodotus there was nothing in Memphis to compare with the Labyrinth.* The inspired narrative, whence we derive this most important illustration of the foreign policy of Aphophis, plainly implies that the famine was by no means the occasion on which it was first adopted. The scope of the whole narrative requires that during the entire 215 years between Abram and the immigration there had existed an extensive traffic between Egypt and Canaan. Another point of the external policy of Aphophis is likewise made apparent in the same inspired history. He encouraged the settlement of the Canaanites within the limits of Egypt, especially in the Delta. We have explained that such has evidently been the policy of the Lower Egyptian Pharaohs from the first notice of them to be found in the Bible. The interview of Abram with the Sebennyte cotemporary of Achthoes was an issue of it, which we have elsewhere considered. Another and still more momentous result was the immigration of Israel, which we have just ascertained to date from either the 51st or the 54th year of the reign of Pharaoh Aphophis. We find from the Greek tradition that the same policy had been pursued towards the Canaanites from the beginning. The shepherd Philitis depastured his flocks in the neighbourhood of Ghizeh in the days of SuPHis, and, doubtless, assisted him to build the Great Pyramid. From this circumstance its erection was as- cribed to him out of hatred to the memory of Suphis. f * Herod, ii. 148. t u.s. c. 128. VOL. II. 0 98 NAME OF GOSHEN. [chap. n. The district in which Israel was located is one of those questions which belong immediately to the his- tory of Egypt, and therefore requires discussion in this place ; notwithstanding that it may at first sight assume the appearance of mere biblical criticism. On the first interview of the sons of Israel with Aphophis, they addressed him in the following terms : "For to sojourn in the land are we come; for thy servants have no pasture for their flocks; for the famine is sore in the land of Canaan. Now, therefore, we pray thee let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen."* We need scarcely mention that the king complied with this request, and that Israel and his descendants dwelt and had possessions in the land of Goshen. This name is not Hebrew. Hitherto nothing is known of its meaning. The locality it designates is likewise in nearly the same obscurity. To judge from the analogy of other similar unintelligible words, which we have met with in the same inspired narrative, f its meaning will probably be found in the Egyptian lan- guage. In the Coptic texts are many words all spelt with the same letters as ^cb, Goshen, and all denoting one class of objects. The following are of them : iycoiyeu, " a lily.' iy^yHu, " a tree." crcoiyeii, " the herb anise." ^CTHij, " the herb garhck." Evidently all these words are from one root, and as evidently the import of that root was " growth," " vege- tation." But the Israelites explained to Pharaoh at their interview that they came to Egypt in search of * Gen. xMl. 5. t Above, p. 88. CHAP. II.] ITS MEANING. 99 pasturage, ^'hich had failed them m Canaan. For this reason they requested that they might be located in the land of " Goshen," that is, " of herbage " or " flowers ; " so that, prima facie, there cannot be a doubt that such is the meaning of the word. As to the site of Goshen, we have mentioned already that no spot on the surface of the earth can advance a better claim to be entitled " the land of flowers " than the Delta; for nowhere is vegetation more rapid or luxuriant. It lies, moreover, along the north-eastern border of Egypt, and was therefore the district vrhich would be first reached and easiest of access to travellers from Canaan ; a most important consideration when their flocks and herds came along with them. The proof, therefore, that Goshen was the Delta, or some part of it, becomes a very strong one. The complete demonstration of the fact seems to arise from the name assumed by the Pharaohs of the 22nd dynasty, who made Bubastis in the eastern Delta their northern capital. It was written /-y y y J ]^ ^ awnan The first tliree characters, it will be v ' t-— j ^ > perceived, are the consonants of the word " Goshen," sh-sh-n. The last is the determinative. It is the picture of an irrigated field, /i * bounded by two canals cut from the same u—i floodgate in the * The Egj-ptlan name of such a field was KOI. Hence it came, that in the days of these kings and afterwards, this picture was used to denote the sound of k as well as determinatively {see Alphahet, No. 62). The first king who took this name is the Shisliak of the Bible, who sacked Jerusalem in the days of Rehoboam (1 Kings xiv. 25). The same name is written Sesonchis in the Greek lists. 100 INTEKNAL POLICY. [chap. II. bank of tlie Nile. The group, therefore, reads, " the field [district] of Goshen." The two first characters in it are pictures of a garden (in Coptic ^yHu),* used initially, and therefore denoting that the district of Goshen was principally composed of gardens, according to the rule for initials.f Thus clearly is it demonstrated that the word Goshen meant " the land of flowers," and that it was a name of the Delta. This the external policy of Aphophis was, doubtless, eminently successful in extending and increasing the population and the wealth of Egypt. The maxims of slate and government which regulated the internal affairs of his kingdom, have also been handed down to us on the same unerring authority. We shall find them strictly to harmonize in design with the statesmanship of Men'cheres, Amenemes, and others, the greatest of his predecessors, the wisdom of which we have already found reason to admire. They are embodied in the following extract : — And there was no food in all the land [in the third year], for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all the silver [and gold] that was found in Egypt and Canaan for the corn which they bought. Then Joseph brought the treasure into Pharaoh's house. And when the silver failed in Egy-2)t and Canaan [in the fourth year], all the Egyptians came unto Joseph and said, " Give us bread ; for why should Ave die before thee? for the silver faileth." And * Sl(.en, in Hebrew p gan. So Goshen we find to be written ShosJien in Egyptian. Sh at the beginning of a word had, therefore, some peculiar pro- nunciation requiring a different letter to express it in the primitive language, but not in the Mizraite dialect of it. t Vol. L p. 47. CHAP, n.] Joseph's administkation. 101 Joseph said, " Bring your cattle ; and I will give for your cattle, if silver fail." And they brought their cattle unto Joseph ; and Joseph gave thera corn for the horses, for the flocks, for the herds, and for the asses. And for that year he fed them with corn [in exchange] for all their cattle. When that year was ended, they came to him the second year [i. e., the fifth of the famine], and said unto him, We will not hide it from my lord, how that our silver [and gold] is gone. My lord also hath our cattle ; there is not ought left before my lord but our bodies and our lands. " Wherefore shall we perish before thee, both we and our land ? Euy us and our land for corn, and we Avill be Pharaoh's [slaves] and our land will be his [possession]. Also give us seed that we may Jive and not die, and that the land be not desolate." So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them j so the land became Pharaoh's. As for the people, he removed them to cities from one end of the border of Egypt to the other end thereof Only the land of the priests he bought not ; for the priests had a portion from Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them. Wherefore they sold not their land. Then Joseph said unto the people [in the sixth year], " Behold, I have bought you ; this day you and your land are Pharaoh's. Lo, here is seed for you, that ye may sow the land. "And it shall be in the increase, that ye shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed for the field, and for food, and for them of your household, and for your little ones." And they said, " Thou hast saved our lives ; let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants." So Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day ; Pharaoh has the fifth part, except the land of the priests only : it became not Pharaoh's."' Egypt had at the period before us (perhaps has now) an important function to fulfil in the economy whereby * Gen. xlvii. 13—26. 102 PRINCES IN OLD EGYPT. [chap. II. the destinies of man universal upon the earth were to he accomplished. Its consolidation, therefore, as a kingdom, and the fundamental institutions wherehy its permanence was to be secured, were questions by no means beneath the solution of the Divine Wisdom, notwithstanding the grievous corruptions wherewith the Egyptians had tainted the knowledge of the true God. The predecessors of Aphophis had accomplished the unity of worship, and therefore of internal policy, whereby Egypt was saved from flying into fragments like Canaan and Cush. Another step in the same direction was gained by Aphophis through the adminis- tration of Joseph. The vast estates and possessions of the princes of Old Egypt, the number of their dependents, and the authority regal in everything but the name, which they exercised over them, we have found recorded on the walls of their tomhs, and noted upon them. It has been the constant result of this state of things in the annals of mankind, that such princes become turbulent and bad subjects. The very troublous history of old Egypt, which we have just concluded, furnishes in itself a pregnant proof (in the absence of all direct notice) that the great power of the princes and nobles had been one of the disturbing causes. Restrained, by a fundamental law of Egypt, from themselves aspiring to the throne, they had, as in mediaeval Britain, fomented and abetted the feuds of the royal family, and fought under the standards of the rival pretenders. The plenty and the famine were, by the foresight and sagacity of Joseph, made the means CHAP. II.] THEIR POWER CURTAILED. 103 of uprooting this evil, so that it ultimately ceased to exercise any further influence adverse to the unity of the kingdom. The radical canon of all kingly power is, that the per- sons and properties of the whole realm are the king's. This had heen hitherto merely theory in Egypt, as in most other kingdoms. Under the administration of Joseph it became absolutely and practically a fact. By the end of the third year, all the precious metals of Egypt were in the treasure-houses of Pharaoh. In the fourth year of the famine, Joseph purchases, for Pharaoh, with the corn in his granaries, the whole of the cattle of the princes. In the fifth year their properties, in the sixth their persons, are Pharoah's by purchase. He then dealt with his subjects as with his slaves. He appointed them their habitations. The princes of Egypt shall no longer be independent feudatories dwelling on their own estates, and lording it over crowds of vassals: " He removed them into cities;" thus effecting, without disturbance or resistance, a momentous social revolu- tion, and advancing Egypt thereby many centuries in civilization. These regulations of Aphophis took place "from one border of Egypt unto the other;" and we shall find the expression also to be literally true ; for he was king over all that was ever called Egypt, from the cataracts of Assouan to the Mediterranean. In the seventh year of the famine, Aphophis obtained from his subjects the ratification of all their concessions, and, in return, gave them back their estates, with the seed wherewith to sow them, under the condition that one-fifth of the produce should be Pharaoh's for ever. 104 NATURE OF THE CHANGE. [chap. n. We have already seen how tyranny, the exercise harshly and arbitrarily of irresponsible power by man over man, was engrained in all the institutions and modes of thought in Ancient Egypt. In such a state of society, nay in any condition, it is well known that the absolute authority of one is productive of a far greater amount of happiness to the community than Avhen such a government is diffused among many.* This consideration illustrates the tendency and effect of the change in the social condition of Egypt brought about by the counsels of Joseph, and displays the occasion as one every way worthy of that Divine inter- ference which is assuredly implied in the inspired narrative. Israel is about to dwell for some centuries in the land of Egypt. Therefore the social institutions of Egypt underwent a great improvement and ameliora- tion; in order that in the enjoyment of peace Israel might multiply therein, and wax exceeding miglity. Clearly this was th.e primary object of the interposition. Reflexly, also, the change was necessarily promotive of the consolidation and good government of Egypt itself. The monumental proofs of the occurrence of this modification in the social condition of Egypt are just as striking as auy of those which have hitherto engaged us. The tombs of the eras that follow that of Aphophis bear unequivocal testimony to a gi'eat political change having taken place in the condition of the inhabitants * We must here be understood to discourse of ancient times only. The great changes undergone by the human mind in the vast chasm that yawns between these times and ours renders all attempts at analogy between the one and the other simply ridiculous. CHAP, n.] THE PEIEST's office. 105 of Egypt at this period, when we compare them with those of the preceding epochs. In Old Egypt scarcely an act of any Pharaoh is recorded in the tombs of his subjects. Nor does his name appear at all save in the names of their estates, and sometimes in their own names. But in the tombs of the New Kingdom, or that of the times that followed Joseph, all this is reversed. There is scarcely a tomb of any importance the principal subject of which is not some act of service or devotion performed by the excavator to the reigning Pharaoh. We shall have abundant opportunities, in the course of the inquiry before us, of showing the reality of this remarkable change, the cause of which we so plainly discover in the legislation of Joseph. Nor is this difference confined to the secular princes of Egypt only. The inspired narrative visibly requires in addition that a difference at the least equally percep- tible should appear in the condition of the priesthood, at the two epochs now under comparison. Such is certainly the case. We found the priest's office in Old Egypt to be a mere appendage to the secular functions of the princes and nobles, performed, invariably in the cases where the performance is depicted, by proxy, and by the hand of menials and dependents. The contrast to this presented by the monuments of the later epoch is marvellously perfect. The priest has risen greatly in authority and importance in the state. His office becomes more and more exclusive and hereditary, until at length he ascends the throne of the Pharaohs, and rules Egypt by a dynasty of priest-kings.* For all this * The 21st Dynasty. VOL. II. P 106 OWNERSHIP OF THE LAND. [chap, il the inspired narrative gives us the amply-sufficient cause in the forbearance of Aphophis to exact pay- ment for the corn supphed to the temples during the famine. The remains of the institutions of Joseph are likewise traceable in the account of the laws and customs of Egypt preserved in the Greek tradition. We find from Diodorus,* that the tripartite division of the soil, so clearly implied in the Scripture account of the reforms of Joseph, was in full force at the time of his visit to Egypt. For the sake of convenience, the whole had been included in one arrangement. The fifth of Pharaoh had been commuted for the cession of a determinate portion of the surface of every nome (or province) of Egypt; so that there were three classes of landed proprietors only, the priest, the king, and the soldier, or secularity. This is evidently the arrange- ment made by Joseph, with a very trifling modification, notwithstanding that 1800 years elapsed between his days and the visit of Diodoras. The existence of the same proprietorship of the soil is just as plainly assumed in the Rosetta inscription f (not to multiply citations), where the land of the priests is exempted from the taxes imposed on the rest of Egypt. Thus clearly does the Greek tradition testify to the reality of the arrangement specified in the sacred text; to the efiect of which on society, the preceding Lib. i. c. 73. See also ii. 37 to 57, where he ascribes the removal of the Egyptians into cities to Sesoosis. t Greek, line 16, vol. i. p. 55. CHAP. II.] ITS REDISTRIBUTION. 107 and following monuments bear evidence just as unequivocal. It is inevitable to such a position as that of Aphophis with his subjects at the end of the famine, that certain modifications would take place in the return of the several estates which had now become Pharaoh's by direct purchase. It could scarcely be, that exactly the same land-marks would define the boundaries of the princes of Egypt after the famine as before. The one transaction of Aphophis with his princes, recorded in the inspired narrative,* shows him to have been a vigorous and firm as well as a just ruler. Doubtless, therefore, in the redistribution of the estates of the princes of Egypt neither their merits nor their demerits would be overlooked by him. The loyalty and good service of certain of them would be rewarded, and at the expense of others who had no such claim upon the favour of their sovereign. Many changes of this nature would doubtless take place throughout the whole extent of the land of Egypt. The exciting and irritating nature of such modifications, the stir and movement which they would originate in the entire community, the fierce resentments of those who had lost, and the equally fiery loyalty of those who had gained, by the royal distribution, we need not describe. They would assuredly be exhibited ; and the misty and turbid history of the troublous times that followed the reign of Aphophis is the unmistakable proof of their reality and of their inevitable effects. * Gen. xl. 108 MELANEEES. [chap. n. Aphophis or Phiops died in the 80th year of his age, after a reign of 61 years, either seven or ten years after the first immigration of Israel. He was interred in the pyramid which his father began, and which he had completed, immediately above Memphis. His son Melaneres reiofned in his stead. inl-n-re, Melaneres. The position of this monarch at Karnak (C 16) shows him to have been the successor of Pniops. As the reign of the latter was long and peaceful, we can scarcely err in assuming that Melaneres was his son. His position on the same monument makes us acquainted with the great transaction of his reign. The king of Upper Egypt, his cotemporary, who sits immediately below him, is a viceroy, ,-, ^ /'^N 1^)' " the divinely good lord of the two ^ J [and] viceroy." It is this indication. Me- (banks of the Nile) impossible to mistake laneres took Thebes from the Upper Egyptians, and in his days all Egypt Proper was under the rule of the so-called Shepherd- kings. This is the single certainty that we possess regarding his reign. He appears in the very obscui-e arrangement of the upper line of Abydos (A 20), with the change in his name, which we elsewhere noted * in that of Mencheres, and found to mean that he had assumed the titles and attributes of Horus in the * Vol. i. p. 334. CHAP, n.] HIS PYRAMID. 109 , — >^ temple of Osiris at Abydos. It may be inferred '^ij.j from hence that Melaneees also was similarly invested, and that during the lifetime of his father he was the viceroy of Upper Egypt, of which Abydos was a pai-t. The rest of the monumental memorials of Melaneees are very slight. A tablet at Assouan, on the extreme southern limit of Egypt, represents him standing on the symbols of both Egypts, wearing the northern crown and worshipped as a conqueror. This remain exactly confirms the indication of Karaak. Melaneees expelled the Upper Egyptians from the entire monarchy ; and the present tablet was sculptured upon the occasion of the cession to him of the last position they had maintained there. It is to be noted that on his standard this king assumed the characters which we found on that of Tatcheees, and whence was evidently copied the name of Sephees.* We shall find this indication of value when the obscure question of his successors is before us. Melaneees likewise wrote his name once on the rock at Hamamat, on the occasion of hewing granite from thence. There is but one other memorial of him. A prince named Atju, at Chenoboskion, was priest to the pyramid of Melaneees, and also to those of his father Aphophis, and of his great-grandfather Saites. Its name was thus written (S^ ^^^n I A . Melaneees has no place in the Greek lists. This was also the case with Mcerts, his grandfather. The * Vol. i. p. 311. 110 NOT IN THE LISTS. [chap. n. circumstance in itself strongly suggests that the same arrangement took place in regard of both monarchs. After the death of Mceris, his father, Aphophis put the crown of Upper Eg}'pt on the head of his son. His career was brief though glorious ; probably enough he fell in battle. Aphophis long survived him. Fur these reasons Melanekes has no place in the suc- cession of the kings of Egypt. There are no dated monuments of his reign ; we therefore know nothing of its duration. We are now in a position to lay before the reader the completed diagram of the 31 kings of the Chamber of Karnak that face to the left of the doorway.* For the convenience of such a synoptical view of it, we here repeat the whole of this portion of the chamber, with the references to the pages of our history of its several kings. The reader is, we trust, now familiar with its arrangement. It will likewise be unnecessary to trouble him with the further expression of our sense of its value and importance to our inquiry. The two successors of Aphophis on the throne of Lower Egypt have no place in the genealogies either of Karnak or Abydos. We shall presently find the cause of this to have been that during the whole of their reigns a race of Aphophean kings of Upper Egypt reigned at Thebes, and that it was with them only that the Mencherian Pharaohs of the subsequent epoch claimed affinity. The monumental history of these kings is by no * Page 111. caAP. n.] CHAMBER OF KARNAK. 1" Plake a. Plane B. Plane C. Plane D. t3 S ^ to ■ B 5:* ^ CO CO H 3 g P OS 12! a ■n- H P- w B a to H ►'HI-' a. g ox V3 H c T3 T3 m m D ■< H to o •"^ E vi m* o ^ ^? I ^ CI, s CO V! g w B .-^v at Karnak among the kings facing to the right (G 2). This coincidence, which was first pointed out by Dr. Hincks,* affords certain and satisfactory ground for the assumption that tlie kings in the Chamber of Karnak, who face to the right, belong to a later epoch than those that face to the left. We are ashamed to add that this fact is the single contribution towards the history of Egypt which has yet been afforded by the Turin papyrus ; and still worse, it is also the only one that we shall probably ever derive from it. Such is the vagueness of form in the hieratic characters, that no two students are yet agreed as to the import of the majority of the kings' names contained in it. To those who are possessed of the time, the tact, and the pa- tience, upon which the study of it is sure to make ample demands, we heartily wish success, f We must, * Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. vol. iii. (second series) p. 149. The 12tli dynasty in col. vii. had been discovered by Lepsius seven years before (Egypt's Place, vol. i. p. 52). t M. Emanuel de Rouge has been far more successful than any of his predecessors or cotemporaries in his interpretations of the hieratic texts (see p. 91, Note). CHAP, ra.] AN HISTORIC MYTH. 125 however, confess our doubts that it is history at all, in the precise acceptation of the word. It appears to us to be an historic myth of a very late period of the kingdoEQ of the Pharaohs, drawn up for the instruction of the young priests, and intended to facilitate their study of the hieroglyphics. Such was evidently the intention of many of the hieratic texts that accompany hierogh^hic inscriptions. They are scolia for the ex- planation of difficulties. It is a strange mutation in the relative measures of perspicuity of the two, that now the text should be the key to the scolion. Such is the fact, nevertheless. These hieratic comments, which in ancient times were doubtless made perfectly cleai' to the scholars by the oral elucidations of the master hierophant, are scarcely to be understood by the modern student; who willingly turns from the form- less ambiguity of their characters to the clear precise limnings of the hieroglyphs. It was the facility with which the hieratic character was written that led to its general adoption at the late periods in which it came into use. If we have rightly divined the purpose for which the Turin papyrus was compiled, it will certainly follow that it was a history of the succession of the kings of Egypt, written for the express purpose of prepossessing the minds of the young persons, for whose use it was intended, with notions of the antiquity of the kingdom as inflated as it was possible to induce them to receive. The proof of this is evident enough. The list begins with dynasties of gods reigning in Eg}-pt for untold millennia. Then follow the demi-gods, whose rule in 126 CHAMBER OF KAENAK. [chap ni. Egypt lasted for 23,200 years. Mexes and the rest of the mortals, down probably to Amosis, the conqueror of Memphis, follow these, as in the Greek lists, which ■were evidently copied from similar documents. We repeat the same objection, in limine, to this Egyptian original that we before urged against the Greek trans- lations. If we admit all the 250 kings which it probably enrolled as the names of real men, upon what principle do we reject all the gods? It is just as easy to invent the one as the other, and to write the names of fic- titious kings in hieratic characters as in Greek or any other letters. In a point of general direction, like the one we have deduced from it, the Turin papyrus may serve as history ; but to translate, as best we may, the hieratic characters into hieroglyphics, and to present them in the order in which they occur there, and upon its sole authority, as authentic lists of the kings of Egypt, is in our judgment to write history upon veiy slender evidence. We return to the far surer and more precise indica- tion of the Chamber at Karnak. We found there that the kings in the two lower rows or planes had reigned in Upper Egypt, and those in the two upper ones in Lower Egypt. We found, moreover, that the tw'O divi- sions ranged cotemporaneously so far as the length of the several reigns and other circumstances admitted. The internal arrangement we found to be as follows : the oldest king of Lower Eg'}'pt (after the father-king Menes) sat in the uppermost row furthest from the doorway. Immediately beneath him, in the lowermost row, sat Menchekes, the first king of Upper Eg}-pt. CHAP, in.] KINGS TO THE RIGHT. 127 The successors of both sat before them in the order of then- succession. It does not seem possible that we can be mistaken in assuming that the same ai'range- ment also took place with the kings that faced to the right. We therefore assume that in the mutilated name (H 1) on the v uppermost plane, we have that of the successor throne of of Mel.\neees on the Shepherd Upper Egypt, and that the three en- tirely erased — ^ names on the ground plane (E 1, 2, 3), are those of some of the feeble successors of Skeniophpjs in the Mencherian pretension. It will, however, be incumbent upon us to explain some of the many causes that involve the successions to both crowns in utterly inextricable confusion and perplexity. I. The viceroy of Melaneees at Thebes was himself acknowledged as king by the other pretension. In all probability he married a daughter of the reigning Upper Egyptian Pharaoh. His descendants, therefore, occupy one line or plane of the genealogy before us. II. In the weak and fallen condition of the Upper Egyptian pretension in Ethiopia, it could not be but that the reigns would be short and turbulent. The number, therefore, of the names of Mencherian kings in Upper Eg}'pt will very far exceed that of the rival pretension in Lower Egypt during this interval, where we have seen that the reigns were remarkably long. It is wiih these cautions that we give the following as the arrangement of the kings that face the right of the entrance in the Chamber of Karnak : 128 THEIR CO-EEGENCIES. [chap, ill Sons of the Viceroy of Melaneres Mencherian Pharaohs To explain the correspondence of these planes, we must once more call to mind the different circumstances under which these two lines of kings would exercise their authority. The viceroy and his descendants reigned at peace over the greater portion of all that had ever been Upper Egypt, and up to its extreme southern limit. This pacification we assume to have been made during the reign of Aphophis, and possibly enough about the time of the immigration of Israel. Being thus free from war on both borders, it would follow as a high probability that their reigns would be comparatively long, and that in the proximate interval of 70 years, which is now before us, the number of reigns would not greatly exceed that of the Lower Kingdom; where, as we have found, it was filled up with the latter years of Aphophis, and with the reigns of Jannes and Asses. With the Mencherian Pharaohs the case is altogether different. The interval of time, the kings for which must necessaiily have been arranged in planes E and F of the Chamber of Karnak, is longer than this by a considerable part of the long reign of Aphophis ; being the time that elapsed from the capture of Abydos and the death of Skeniopheis to the conquest of Thebes by Melaneres ; a period of several years' duration. In the next place, the reduced and feeble condition of these kings both as to numbers and territor}', the Planes -! ^ { 11 CHAP, m.] THE TWO CO-EEGENT LINES. 129 coDstaut reverses they experienced from the armies of the Lower Egyptian Pharaohs, and their ultimate expulsion from the bounds of Egypt into the newly conquered and inhospitable wastes of Nubia and Ethi- opia, would inevitably tend to curtail the duration of their reigns, and to add thereby to the number of kings in the genealogy. Even after the pacification of Melaneees, when, having ceded the whole of Egypt to their rivals, they seem to have been allowed the possession of Nubia and Ethiopia without further molestation on their northern border, they had doubt- less still to contend with the warlike tribes of Cush and Phut; who, having been recently expelled from thence, and but imperfectly subdued, would incessantly harass the broken and dispirited fugitives who now held theii' ancient land in possession. These are the circumstances which have so modified the arrangement of this portion of the Chamber of Karnak, that the Upper Egyptian succession commences at E 1 some 30 years before the corresponding Lower Egj^tian line {plane H), but terminates with Amosis, the conqueror of Memphis. On the other hand, the descendants of the viceroy of Thebes, who sit over against them, extend as far as the father-in-law of Thothmosis, the constructor of the chamber, who lived a century after Amosis. So that the successions cor- respond neither at the beginning nor the end; and the duration of the Lower Egyptian line [planes H and G) exceeds that of the Upper Egyptian line over against it {planes E and F) by nearly a centurj', though there are the same number of kings in both. VOL, II. s 130 MENTHESUPHIS II. [chap, iil We commence with the Mencherian succession of Pharaohs. The last event we have recorded concerning it is the expulsion of Skeniopheis from Crocodilopolis, which we assume to have been one of the earhest feats of arms of Aphophis, performed probably enough by his father in his name during his childhood, or even infancy. The death of Skeniopheis followed shortly afterwards. Her successor's name is, as we have already said, erased in the Chamber of Karnak. On referring to other monuments, however, we find fre- quently inscribed the name of a king written in two rings thus: ranh, ^ r>J t\ r^^^ mondi — U])m. It V =Jl IS-^^gJ will be no- ticed that this name differs from that of Menthesuphis, of the 11th dynasty, in one character only. Neverthe- less, he must have been a different person, as he evidently belongs to a later epoch of the history of Egypt. The years of his reign, and the names of the months, are frequently inscribed on his monuments. We have elsewhere explained that these first appear in the times of Amenemes. We cannot therefore hesitate in placing Menthesuphis II. among the successors of Skeniopheis. The memorials of this monarch are of a highly honourable character. He quarried blocks of porphyry from Hamamat, on six different occasions, for the decoration of the temples of Thebes, which city his namesake and ancestor had founded. Three of these quarry-marks ai'e dated in the first year of his reign, and three in the second. There is, in addition to these, another mark in the same quaiTy commemo- rating his devotion to the idol of Coptos. It is merely CHAP, m.] HIS DEVOTION TO SA. 131 conjecturally that we can place the peace, which must have been ratified between him and the Lower Egyptian Pharaohs, some time in the course of the joint reigns of McERis and Aphophis. Menthesuphis II., how- ever, seems wisely to have avoided collision with his formidable neighbours in the north, and to have pur- sued, with zeal and energy, the career of conquest of his ancestors to the southward. We find him com- memorating his progress on the rocks of the island of Conosso, which is on the southern frontier of Egypt. In one of them he boasts of having conquered fifteen tribes of the Phutim. It is well worthy of note, that in both these reliefs he constitutes the idol of Sais, the god of his newly-conquered territory; and evidences the excess of his devotion to him by worshipping him on the one tablet under the impersonation of Nu, the god of the Nile ; and on the other under that of Month, the god of war, and the tutelary of Thebes, his capital city : thus making him superior to both those gods. We have already seen that the loss of Memphis and all northern Egypt to his ancestors was imputed in his times to the indignities put by the son of Ame- NEMES upon the idol of Sais.* It perfectly comports with the servile spirit of all idolatry to find, both in him and his descendants, a studious endeavour to pro- pitiate the ofiended god by frequent acts of devotion to him. We here discover that in the times of Men- thesuphis II. this conviction was not only unimpaired but increasing. He adorned the temples of the angry deity at Thebes and Coptos, though the latter city was * Above, p. 41. 132 HEIGUT OF THE NILE. [chap. m. in the possession of the rival dynasty. He also, as we have seen, dedicated to him his new conquest in Ethiopia, and ascribed to his aid the victories he had won over the Phutim. We do not know that the reign of Menthesuphis II. lasted more than two years ; it cannot have far exceeded that duration. Most probably, he fell in battle in Ethiopia. We assume his name to have been the first of the three erased kings in plane E of the Chamber of Karnak (E 1). We shall probably find assistance in harmonizing the very obscure and difficult succession which follows with the cotemporaiy reigns in Lower Egj^pt, by the explana- tion of another of those marvels which meet us so frequently in our progress down the stream of the history of Egypt. At several points in Nubia and Ethiopia, at Semneh, for example, at Kummeh, and other places, there are registries on the clifi's that overhang the Nile of the height of the annual overflow. All these registries are dated by the year of the reigning king. The eai'liest of them are in the reign of Sesoe- Tosis III. There are several of that of Amenemes HI., and for many years, from the first year of his reign to the forty-third. There are, lastly, some similar regis- tries during the reign of one of the kings in the portion of the Chamber of Karnak which is now before us, and then the entries cease altogether. The average height of these registries at all points above the highest level ever attained by the yearly overflow at the present day, is thirty feet. Dr. Lepsius was the first to point out this remarkable circumstance, which he obsei-ved in Mounmental History of Eojpt Published by Binns & Gooawui Sate CHAP, in.] THE LAKE OF ETHIOPIA. 133 the course of the year 1843. Shortly afterwards, Sir G. Wilkinson travelled over the same district for the express purpose of further investigating these phenomena. He discovered at the southernmost point to which his researches extended vast flats of Nile mud, many miles across, on both banks of the river. Spots in these plains are cultivated to this day by means of channels, though some of them are nine miles distant from the utmost line ever reached by the present annual overflow. He traced the same appearances downwai'ds from the plains of Ethiopia, through the narrow valley of Nubia, over the cataracts of Syene, and as far as the red sandstone rock which crosses the Nile at Djebel Silsih. Below this point they ceased altogether. The Nile, through the rest of its course to the sea, has undergone no perceptible change of level through the many ages during which its valley has been inhabited. It is cleai' from hence that in the days of the kings who have engraven their registries on the rocks, the waters of a vast lake covered the whole of the plains of Ethiopia from the very mouth of the Astaboras,* and stretched in an estuary, through the long gorge of Nubia, to the rocks of Djebel Silsili. This is the inference of Sir G. ^Yilkinson ; the justness of which does not appear to us to admit of denial, or even of question.! Did it need corroboration, we have it in * The last feeder of the Nile from the eastward. See Trans. R. S. L. vol. iv. p. 93, &c. t See the English translation of Lepsius's Letters from Egypt (Bohn, 1853), Appendix A., pp. 507 to 532, where the impossibility of any other solution is very clearly demonstrated by Dr. Horner. 134 KNOWN TO THE GREEK TRADITION. [chap. m. the circumstance that the Nile itself before its junction with either of its western feeders, the Bahr el Abiad of modern geography, retains precisely the same cha- racter through the whole of the part of its coui-se through central Africa with which we have very recently become acquaiuted. It frequently expands into lakes.* We apprehend the existence of this vast lake or sea to be very distinctly shadowed forth by the Egyptian myths, which have been preserved in the Greek tradi- tion. The priests told Herodotus f that the Nile came from the ocean, and flowed into the ocean again. Tlie historian was greatly perplexed therewith. As he after- wards]: tells us, he knew no river with such a source. The fact that, when first known to the Egj'ptians, the Nile flowed from a great lake, perfectly solves the difficulty. The same fact accounts just as fully for the myth preserved in the Book of the Dead regarding the noc- turnal coui'se of the sun. It sank together with the Nile, and again rose together with the Nile, from a huge abyss containing infinitely more water than the river itself. This was denoted by its hierogh-phic name, meh-nmu, "full of water," "overflowing with water." Such was hterally the case at the time when the fable was invented ; and in the infancy of know- ledge it was no unnatui-al conclusion, that the Lake of Ethiopia, whence the river flowed, and the Mediter- ranean, into which it emptied itself, were the two shores of one and the same abyss. * See Werne's Expedition to the Sources of tlie Wliite Nile. t ii. 21. + c. 23. CHAP.m.] DISCHARGE OF THE LAKE. 135 We have said that one of the successors of Skeni- OPHETS has registered the height of this lake at the overflow in Ethiopia. The discharge or drainage of the lake must have occurred close upon the times of the last of these entries ; for some of their immediate suc- cessors have built temples and engraved rocks, in South Egypt and Nubia, close to the present water's edge, and of course far below the surface of the lake. This discharge is, therefore, an event in the history of Egypt. "When we come to consider the mode in which this catastrophe must have occurred, it is evident that it was not by a sudden fissure of the rock of Djebel Silsili, or any other result of an eavth(][uake, which would have allowed the whole of this huge volume of water to burst forth at once, and utterly sweep from the valley all traces of man and his works. No such event occurred, as it is perfectly useless for us to explain ; and therefore no such disruption took place. Nevertheless, the discharge of this lake must, we repeat it, be an event in the history of Egypt. The enormous disturbance which the otherwise scarcely varying phenomenon of the yearly overflow would undergo from it and the results of it, were, moreover, circumstances very likely to be recorded in the annals of a country so entirely dependent upon its recurrence. Now, as our readers are aware, such a disturbance of the overflow really did take place late in the reign of Aphophis, and under the administration of Joseph. The waters of the flood, for seven years together, very far exceeded all that had ever before been known in Eg}'pt; so that an extent of surface was brought under 136 ITS CAUSE AND EFFECTS. [chap. m. cultivation in the Delta unparalleled at any former or subsequent period. This again was followed by seven years, during which " there was neither earing nor harvest ; " expressions which leave us surely to infer that in the course of them the phenomenon of the overflow never appeared at all. Let us, then, consider whether the discharge of the Lake of Ethiopia may not have been the natural cause of the seven years' plenty and of the seven years' famine. We have only to assume that an unusually abundant overflow in the first year of the plenty should, by raising the level of the lake, overtop some mass of sand and mud which had proved a perfectly sufficient banner so long as the water did not rise above its summit. This bank would be greatly worn by the abrasion of the water rushing over it, so that a portion of the waters of the lake itself, as well as of the overflow, would be poured upon Egypt. This over-supply pro- duced, we apprehend, the first year of plenty. The consequences of too high a Nile would not be then disastrous as now, when all the channels are constructed and the mounds thrown up for one scai'cely varying height. The prescience of Joseph would guard agniust its inconveniences, and also diS'use the flood far and wide over the flat desert that surrounds the Delta. On the subsidence of the overflow, the upper surface of the now greatly depressed mud bank would be ex- posed for nine months together to the burning sun of Upper Egypt. Under its influence it would, to a con- siderable depth, crack, warp, and crumble into dust, which would be driven forward into the bed of the Nile CHAP. III.] EFFECTS OF ITS DKAINAGE. 137 the moment it was touched by the overflow of the follow- ing year. The consequence would be another great depression of the surface of the lake, and the second year of plenty. We submit, there is nothing unreasonable in the assumption that the continuance of this process would be required for seven successive years, in order entu'ely to drain the Lake of Ethiopia and to bring down the Nile to its present level in this part of its course. This point being attained, we have next to consider what would be the effect upon the overflow of the eighth year from the first bursting of the bank. The entire drainage of the lake would leave a vast expanse of deep mud exposed to the tropical sun. Over this the blue Nile would spread itself in a broad, shoaly, much-encumbered bed, in the lowest levels. All the rest would parch in the sun, and rise into blisters, and sink into hollows, and crack into deep fissures. Here and there pools of stagnant water would remain ; but by very far the greatest portion of the bottom of the former lake would be dry and undergo these changes. The effect of this state of things upon the blue Nile would be that a much smaller quantity of water than usual would appear in the river at the former issue of the lake. Not only would the water be a longer time in finding its way through a labyrinth of channels, but its wider diffusion would greatly increase the amount of evaporation. When the overflow of the eighth year first reached what had formerly been the head of the lake, instead of its first wave being impelled to the outlet with the VOL. II. T 138 CAUSE OF THE PLENTY AND FAMINE. [chap. ni. rapidity of gravitation, it would merely increase the diffusive power of the river, which would spread itself wider towards both banks of the former lake. The cracks we have described would require enormous quan- tities of water to fill them. The sinuosities of the cracks would still further detain the flood beneath the blaze of the sun of Ethiopia. And even if we assume the overflow of this year to have been the ordinary one, it is clear that under the circumstances but a \ery small portion of it would ever reach the mouth of the lake. During the six following years, it is expressly stated that " the famine was in all lands," both to the north and to the south of Eg}'pt; so that the forests of Ethiopia as well as the pastures of Palestine were drooping for lack of moisture. Such being the case, it is obvious that the imperfect floods of such years could never find their way through this maze of cracks to the foot of the lake; and also that at least seven years would be required for the river so to work its own defined course over the plain of Ethiopia, that the phenomena of the yeai'ly overflow should reappear in Egypt in their wonted order. When it is further explained that our hypothesis as to the condition of the bottom of the lake is exactly that which the present state of the plain of Darfur clearly indicates to have actually prevailed, we submit that we have made out a strong case, prima facie, that the proximate natural cause of the seven years of plenty and of famine was the bursting of the Lake of Ethiopia. When we state in addition that one of the obscure CHAP, in.] ARRANGEMENT OF KINGS. 139 cotemporary and rival kings of Aphophis, the patron of Joseph, registered the rise of the lake in Nubia and Ethiopia up to the very year of its disruption, as it would seem, we find that the plenty and famine were, like the rest of the divine dealings in Egypt, actual occurrences, the natural causes of which were foreknown and predisposed. The value of this identification to the history of Egypt at this its most obscure period is inappreciable. The successor of Amenemes III., who has inscribed his name on the rocks of Semneh and Kummeh, must have been the cotemporaiy of Aphophis, for he it was that expelled Skeniophris from Crocodilopolis at the be- ginning of his reign ; and the seven years of plenty and famine also took place in the course of it. As we now know the general arrangement of the Chamber of Karnak, we have only, therefore, to find his name there also, and then we shall be in position to synchronize the two successions of the Mencherian kings with the Shepherd Pharaohs of Lower Egypt. We must premise that the two middle planes of this genealogy that face the right (F and G), are arranged in the reverse order of the corresponding planes on the other side (B and C). The oldest kings in planes F and G are furthest from the doorway, as in the planes above and below them. We shall presently find the reason of this. On applying these premises to the interval before us, we find the abundant justification of the caution with which we commenced the inquiry. It appears from the Chamber of Karnak that in the portion of the 140 MENCHEPJAX KINGS. [chap, iil reign of Aphophis, comprehended between the death of Skeniophpjs and the bursting of the Lake of Ethiopia, no fewer than ten kings succeeded each other on the throne of the Mencherian Pharaohs. Startling as this may appear, the monuments of these kings neverthe- less go far to verify it. Taking 60 years as the proxi- mate length of this interval, we have six years for the average of the reign of each of them ; and of the three or four that have left dated records behind them, only one reaches this average. The rest are below it. The name which Lepsius copied from a tomb at Thebes must be another of the three erased names — the successors of Skeniopheis. It is inscribed thus : ^-^-v The tomb is dated the first year of his reign. In the close resemblance of this name to those of McEEis and Melaneees, we detect the first trace of the harmony between the two rival pre- tensions to the crown of Upper Eg}-pt, which certainly began about this time. We assume it to have named the successor of Menthesuphis II., which is hkewise erased at Karnak (E 2). other authority than this nealogy for the three follow (E 3, erascS), (E 4), m E 4. n E We have no mutilated ge- names that (E 5). No record of them besides this is known to exist. The name of the following king in the same condition. (E 6) is also His successor (F 1), we know only from the quarry of Hamamat, whence he was on two occasions per- [chap. ui. SECHEMETES — SABACON I. 141 raitted by Aphophis to liew blocks for the decoration of the shrine of Sa at Coptos ; so that this unfortunate race of monarchs still continued to ascribe their adver- sity to the anger of the idol of Sais, and still persevered in their efforts to propitiate him by offerings to his temple. The first of these acts of devotion was made at the commencement of his reign ; the last, in its seventh year. He is the only one of his race who is known to have reigned so long. These tablets bear un- mistakable and melancholy testimony that the arts of design were neglected, /"qs. J and had much in his times, in full, shk-m- Sechemetes. deteriorated in Upper Egypt His name is thus written malitf, " Sevek within him," The two following names in the Karnak genealogy are again erased (F 9 and 3), and we have no means of supplying them. The king who has inscribed his name on the rocks of Semneh and Kummeh (F 4), immediately follows them. The registries are of the first four years of his reign. It is assumed rather than known, that he wrote his complete name thus: — \ He is generally named Sabacon I. We the circumstances which A know nothing of drove forth this wastes of Ethi- monarch so far into the '■^ opia, save the clear inference that they were adverse ones. These are all the particulars we know of the brief, disastrous, and inglorious reigns of these obscure suc- cessors of the Mencherian kings. They scarcely deserve the name of history. 142 NAMELESS KINGS — AMOSIS. [chap. m. The circumstances of this once illustrious line visibly revived in the remaining interval, which will bring their history up to the capture of Memphis by Amosis. In the course of the 80 years that intervene between this event and the bursting of the Lake of Ethiopia, their succession is represented at Karnak by four kings only. These longer reigns are the unmistakable symptom of improved circumstances. Of the two first of these kings we can, never- theless, give no better account than of the most obscure of their predecessors. Their names are recorded here and no- where else (F 5),* (F 6). ^ The king that follows them ought, by the analog}^ of the opposite end of the chamber, to be a father- king. He sits first in the middle plane. His name is written (F 7). He is accordingly mentioned in a m ve2 ^ ^ ^ tomb at Eilethya as having returned to Egj-pt with 20,000 men to the joy of the Egyp- ''J-^ tians. Immediately below him sits Amosis (E 7), the conqueror of Memphis. We assume F 7, therefore, to be the father of Amosis ; and that the arrangement is identical with that of the same planes at the opposite end, where Amenemes \; (B 8) is the father-king, and his son, the first viceroy of Memphis, sits beneath him (A 9). This was the part of the chamber first sculptured. * The hieratic transcription of this name appears in column viii. of the Turin papy- Iw j | j | 1 rus, below the name we have just quoted > ^ from thence {above, p. 124). CHAP, m.] SHEPHERDS IN UPPER EGYPT. 143 Its arrangement is such that the only displacement is that of Amosis, who occupies the post of honour as the conqueror of Memphis. His father sits imme- diately above him. The same arrangement was not practicable at the other end without the inverted order of the two planes we have already explained. The circumstances under which the revival of the Mencherian line of kings took place will require our attention when the 18th dynasty is before us. The Theban viceroy of Melaneees (B 15) and his successors (H 1, seq.), are the remaining memorials of this obscure and difficult period which will require our attention. These were, in fact, a succession of kings of Upper Egypt of the LoAver Egyptian or Shepherd line, as it was afterwards nicknamed. They were co- regent with the Memphitic Pharaohs upon a perfectly amicable arrangement, as Aphophis with Mceris, and afterwards with Melaneees. The son of this last king was associated with him at Thebes on the throne under the title of /- j ^w^Nj viceroij. This title he afterwards retained as V ^^~^A his royal name. There can be no doubt that he and his successors reigned at Thebes over Upper Egypt, whence the Mencherian Pharaohs were entirely expelled during the reign of the successor of Menthesuphis II. There appears to have been afterwards peace between the two pretensions. The tomb of the son of Melaneees was discovered at Gournou, the cemetery of Thebes, about 30 years ago, by Passalacqua. The alabaster sarcophagus or cover was entire, and beneath it was the mummy-case not much injured. This last very interesting relic is 144 THE SAECOPHAGUS OR COVER. [chap. m. now iu the British Museum. The sarcophagus was removed by Dr. Lepsius in 1843. It is deposited in the BerUn Museum. This king does not assume the ring of Menes on the sarcophagus, but it is given him on the coflBn. The former was the first prepared at the beginning of his co-regency. It was afterwards, when he had assumed the imperial titles, that the mummy- case was finished. An interesting memoir on this case Avas read some years ago by the present Bishop of Gibraltar before the Royal Society of Litera- tm'e.* The inscriptions on it, as usual, are purely mythic, and embody no allusions to history. The wooden or alabaster sarcophagus belongs to a class of deposita for the dead, instances of which have been discovered in all the great cemeteries of the valley of the Nile. They are remai'kable even among the monuments of Egypt for the rigid exactitude with which they have been copied from one original, and for the absolute identity of all of them in style of art and mode of execution, in whatever locality they have been deposited. They all belong to the present epoch of om* history — to the two centuiies now under review, when Abydos was the necropolis of all Egypt. They were all executed in that city, and by the same college of hierogrammatists. They were used for the pm'pose of enclosing; the mummv in its case, with all the personal offerings made to it, during its Nile voyage from Abydos to its final resting-place. Tlie sacredness of then- closure, and the fearful impiety of any attempt to violate them, ai*e veiy significantly represented iu * Traus. vol. ii. CHAP, m.] ITS USE AND INSCRIPTIONS. 145 their decorations. Over against the portals, which are most carefully depicted in the inside of these chests or father, and therefore full of his divinity, on the exterior. It is denoted by this, that the god himself watches over the inviolability of this sacred ark, and that the unheard-of sacrilege of any attempt upon it will be punished with his fiercest vengeance. The gates are ordinarily placed at the side next the left of the head of the deceased. Now that their origin is understood, the study of the inscriptions and pictures on these extraordinary covers (they are mere lids without bottom), will well repay the labour of deciphering them, when a sufficient power of -trained and habituated mind shall be directed to the study of the remains of Ancient Eg}pt. To the history of the writing of Eg}-pt they are of especial interest ; inasmuch as in them the characters are in the transition state, from the perfect picture to the cursive hint at it of the hieratic writing.* The earliest tombs in the mountain of Gournou, the cemeteiy of Thebes, are likewise of the epoch now before us. They are approached by a steep incline, like the entrance to a pyramid, leading to a square vault, in which the coffin was deposited covered with its sarcophagus. They are entirely without decorations * This writing on the Theban sarcophagi seems to be all that the skill of the artists then at Thebes could accomplish. There does seem room for a doubt that it was added on the arrival of the mummy at its final resting-place. VOL. IT. U lids, are the two eyes of Osiris dazzled with the rays of the sun. in TouTH, his mythic 146 SONS OF MELANEEES. [chap III. of any kind on the walls.* There were no artists at Thebes in these troublous times who had skill enough to attempt it. Of the successors of the Viceroy of Melaneees, the Chamber of Karnak is our only memorial. We copy here their names in the order of their occurrence : IP o J. H. 1. H 2. H 3. H 4. H 5. Our reasons for concluding that they represent the succession of the so-called Shepherds in Upper Egypt will afterwards appear. We have now to call the attention of our readers to a peculiarity in these five royal names. Three of them (H 2, H 4, and H 5), difier from names we have already copied from the corresponding co-regency of the Mencherian Pharaohs in one chai'acter onlv, and that either a mere index letter to regulate the pronun- ciation, or a grammatical form ; so that the sound, not the sense, was probably modified. The resemblance between H 2 U'e], E 5 PI , and F 6 m m ; between H 4 [Xe] E 5. F 6. and F 4 ^ fl ; and between H 5 [^^y and F * Lepsius, Abt. ii. bl. 147, 148. CHAP, ni.] ALLIANCES AND INTERMAEEIAGES 147 is perfectly apparent. They come in the same order in both successions. We infer that the two hnes reigned together in Upper Egypt and Ethiopia, and that there was some close and intimate connection between them. They seem to have lived during the reigns of Jannes and Asses. While these last, as we have found, recorded their memorials further to the northward than their immediate predecessors, and were probably forming alliances with the Canaanites, both in the Delta and in Palestine, a comparative coolness and distance would naturally arise between them and their co- regents of the same pretension in Uppef Egypt. On the other hand, the descendants of the Viceroy of Melaneees would be induced, by this repul- sive power on the northern border of their dominions, gradually to relax their hostile feelings towards the exiled family in Ethiopia. The truce would thus be- come a peace and an alliance ; and this last would be cemented by successive intermarriages, according to the invariable practice of the family of Menes. W^e believe, therefore, that in all the instances before us, the Shepherd-kings were the sons-in-law of the Men- cherian Pharaohs, whose scarcely-altered names they adopted. In this comparative estrangement between the two co-regent Aphophean lines in Upper and Lower Egypt, and in the close and intimate alliance between the former of them and the Mencherian pretension in Ethiopia, consisted the political causes of the full of the so-called Shepherd kingdom, and the re-conquest of Memphis by Amosis. Manetho is our authority for 148 IN UPPER EGYPT. [chap. m. this. He expressly says, that the expulsion of the Shepherds from Memphis was accomplished by the alliance of the Mngs of Thehes with the kings of the rest of Egypt* The religious causes, however, of this defeat exer- cised a far more powerful influence in bringing it about, and will require to be investigated in the follow- ing chapter. * Tuv ex ryis 0«/3a/Sof xai Tris iWris A'tyvitrov ffaaiXsut. (Contr. ApiOD. i. 14). CHAP. IV.] TWO LINES OF KINGS. 149 CHAPTER IV. TWO LINES OF KINGS IN UPPER EGYPT. — BURSTING OF THE LAKE OF ETHI- OPIA.— ITS POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES. — THE AMONIAN FANATICS. — RE- CONQUEST OF MEMPHIS. — AMOSIS. — HIS LINEAGE. — HIS INSULT TO THE GOD OF MEMPHIS. — TOMB OF PRINCE AMOSIS.- — CAPTURE OF TANIS. — THE DELTA REMAINED IN THE POSSESSION OF THE SHEPHERDS. — THE XOITE PHARAOHS. — AMENOPHIS. — HIS REIGN AND ITS MONUMENTS. — MESPHRES. HIS WARS WITH PHUT AND GUSH. ACHENCHERES. — SUCCESS AGAINST LOWER EGYPT. — PEACE WITH IT. — AMENSES AND HER HUSBANDS.— THEIR REIGNS AND WORKS. — CHRONOLOGY. It will have appeared, from what we have already ascertained regarding the kings of Upper Egypt during the ascendency of the so-called Shepherd dynasty in Lower Egypt, that two lines of kings were at this time also co-regent there. The successors of Melaneres and the Prince Viceroy, his son, had possession of all Upper Egypt probably from Crocodilopohs * to the cataracts of Syene. The Mencherian Pharaohs main- tained with great difficulty the shadow of sovereignty in the southern dependencies of Nubia and Ethiopia. * The extension of the worship of Sebek, in southern Egypt, seems to have taken place about this time, and probably by the Theban line of kings. Sebek was tutelary at Esneh, Ombos, Syene, and other local cities of this district, as well as at Eilethya. 150 BURSTING OF THE LAKE [chap. IV. The conquest of these vast regions to the south- ward had been but imperfectly achieved by the hero kings of the twelfth dynasty. The native tribes, both Cushite and Phutite, were impatient of the yoke of Egypt, and threw it oflf upon frequent occasions. The civil broils called the Shepherd invasion, were turned by them to this account, so that the discomfited Mencherians fled before the conquering arms of Lower Egypt, into a dependency newly subjugated, and in open revolt against their authority. How hardly they struggled for existence, the quick succession of their kings at Karnak strongly testifies. With what diffi- culty they maintained a footing in the district, their works of construction in Nubia and Ethiopia declare just as impressively. They consist altogether of bastions faced with brick and stone, of mounds, fosses, and other military works of defence. It was in their construction that the energies of these short-lived Pharaohs were exhausted. The bursting of the Lake of Ethiopia, we have ascertained to be the event which brought to its ter- mination this rapid succession of short and troubled reigns. In the highest degree disastrous to Eg}'pt Proper (save through the foresight of Joseph), it would not seem, from its very nature, calculated to be equally so to the inhabitants of what had formerly been the banks of the upper parts of the Lake. The cultiva- table surface would be enormously increased ; and even when the drought was at the worst, a sufficient over- flow would pour down the rivers of Ethiopia to irrigate tracts of land incomparable lai'ger than any that had CHAP. IV.] A CAUSE OF THE PEACE, 151 hitherto been at the command of the inhabitants, or that they would have the means of cultivating. We venture to suggest this natural occurrence as having tended to turn the attention of all the belligerents in this broil, of Upper and Lower Egyptians, of Phutites and Cushites, from deeds of war to works of peace. Here was, on the one liand, a sudden increase of arable surface veiy far beyond the means of any force of men at their command to cultivate. On the other hand, corn had ceased to grow in Egypt ; and, not- withstanding the granaries of Joseph, an enormous demand for it would assuredly arise from thence. The supply of this demand would still further call forth the agricultural energies of all the residents in Nubia and Ethiopia, whether Egyptians or Negroes. It would tend, moreover, to induce them to forget their former difierences, not with each other merely, but also with their Shepherd neighbours in Upper Egypt, who so loudly asked of them the corn with which they were so well able to supply them. It is said that two hostile armies, after a long march over the dusty plains of South India, once met each other at noon-day, on the opposite banks of a river. Without the interchange of a word or signal, one uncontrollable impulse seized, at the same moment, every living being in both hosts; and men, elephants, camels, and horses, rushed headlong to the sparkling waters, and drank. Thus, we imagine, began the truce between the rival kings of Upper Egypt. There was the first and great necessity of life to be supplied : the one had it, the other had it not, but could give 152 NEW WAR OF RELIGION. [chap. IV. for it those other necessaries of hfe which their rivals, as sojourners in a strange land, would require just as urgently; so that the peace between them would be one of mutual interest and advantage. We conclude, therefore, that there was peace and perfect good understanding between the rulers of Upper Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia, during the eighty years and upwards that elapsed from the bursting of the Lake of Ethiopia to the conquest of IMemphis by Amosts. These, and the intermarriages of the several royal families consequent upon such a state of things, are the political causes to which we are able to trace this event. The religious motives of this war will now require our attention. We have already seen that both rivalries professed the same system of mythology, and that their rehgious animosities were, in fact, disputes for precedence between the different gods of which it consisted. The contention between Sa and Amun, at Coptos, wdiich we have found to have been the motive of the present civil war, did not seem to present any formidable difficulty in the way of its adjustment; now that the shrines and cities of both were under the same sove- reignty. Both gods had the same indecent form. The penitence of the Mencherians for the insult offered to Sa, the elder of them, in Upper Eg}qit, by Sesor- Tosis, had been amply expressed, and remains engraven on the rocks to this day. A very common expedient in idolatry was adopted to appease this rivalry of gods. The gods of Coptos and Luxor in Eastern Thebes, were declared to be two impersonations of one and the CHAP. IV.] PHUTITE MAERTAGES. 153 same being, who named himself, Sa-Amun at Coptos, and Amun-Sa at Thebes. Thus was the cause of the Shepherd civil broil finally removed. The oracles of both shrines proclaimed this fusion of two gods into one ; and all Egypt acquiesced, from the mouth of the Astaboras to the mouths of the Nile. In this pacifi- cation, we perceive the cause of the peace and pros- perity so unequivocally displayed by the monuments of Jannes and Asses, the two last Pharaohs of the Lower Egyptian Dynasty. There was peace then throughout all Eg}qDt during the interval before us. Under the wise administration of Joseph, the altered circumstances of Egypt Proper were abundantly provided for. The agriculture of Nubia and Ethiopia, in its now altogether new phase of sur- face, would, in like manner, demand the whole of the energies both of their black and white inhabitants. These circumstances, moreover, satisfactorily account for the paucity of public monuments in both countries at this epoch; as there were no wars, there were, of course, no prisoners to build temples and excavate tombs. The Phutites of the western desert had, at the very outset of the kingdom, been allied by marriage to the family of Menes. The proto-monarch himself, or his son, had married the Phutite princess whose family was first settled on the site of Memphis.* This cir- cumstance was by no means forgotten in the present pacification. Intermarriages among the several royal families became very frequent. The features and com- * Vol. i. pp. 232, 413. VOL. II. X 164 CAUSES OF THE WAR [chap. rv. plexions, both of the Theban Pharaohs, their hume- diate descendants, and then- queens, we shall find to furnish the unerring proof of this fact. A close and intimate union was formed among the whole of the inhabitants of Upper Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia. Their former distinctions, both of caste and colour, were forgotten ; and in the course of the interval now before us, the whole had become in a great measure one people. We have already ascribed the compara- tive estrangement of the so-called Shepherds in Upper Egypt from their brethren in Memphis and the Delta, to this union with their southern neighbours. There was a large admixtm*e of dark-skinned Phu- tites among this new race. Many of the peculiarities of this branch of the family of Ham have happily becH preserved to us upon the monuments of Eg}-pt of the following epoch ; and among them we shall find veiy conspicuous, a most determined and fanatical ad- herence to the dogma that God is one ; a truth which had so weak a hold upon the mind of the Mizraite, that it is scarcely to be discovered on any one of the extant records of his modes of thought. The new modification of the god of Eastern Thebes would, doubtless, excite an enthusiastic furor of devo- tion throughout all Upper Egj-pt and Ethiopia, Hke every other novelty in idolatry. His shrine would be crowded with worshippers, and covered with ofierings. Among these would, doubtless, be a large proportion of Phutite votaries, who, repudiating altogether the Egy-p- tian doctrine that i\.muu was supreme god in Eastern Thebes alone, would maintain the supremacy of their CHAP. IV.] EASILY EXCITED. 155 god everywhere, and declare the gods of all other cities to be mere subordinates under Amun of Thebes. Many a dusky prophet would be seen in the streets and courts of the infant city, haranguing crowds of eager and excited listeners, upon the greatness of the god Amun, his right to the worship of all Egypt in all its cities, and the wrt)ngs he was enduring in Lower Egypt. The doctrine would be especially agreeable to the priests of the god. The oracles beneath the pent- houses would mutter it in warning, or thunder it in response, to the successive crowds of pilgrims with whom the temple was filled, day and night. By these means a flame of fierce fanaticism would be kindled throughout Upper Egypt and Ethiopia. The right of Amun to be god in all the cities of Egypt, and the duty of his votaries to enforce his claims with the sword, would be never-failing themes with all men. It took but little in ancient days to kindle up a war. Almost at any time — " Eeligion, freedom, vengeance, what you will, A word's enough to rouse mankind to kill ! " It was especially so in the infancy of the world. Happily the lust of war is now somewhat abated. We have likewise mentioned another probable cause of discontent against the parent-government at Mem- phis, in the re-distribution of the lands after the famine. This, as we have said, would be a matter to rankle in the recollections of the families who (truly or not) might consider themselves aggrieved by the adjustment. 156 A CRUSADE. — AMOSIS, [chap. rv. These religious and political discontents appear to have led to the war between the two pretensions, which ended in the expulsion of the Lower Egyptian kings from Memphis and the whole of Egypt to the south of it. We have said that the king who sustained this mis- fortune was AssESj and that it took place close to the termination of his long, and hitherto peaceful, reign. It was, as in the preceding instance, a sudden and unexpected eruption. But the wild fanatics that fol- lowed the standard of Aiiosis, marked their progress down the valley of the Nile by acts of sacrilegious violence and spoliation, from which the armies of Saites had altogether abstained. They everywhere broke open and plundered the tombs of the followers of the rival pretension, and completely mutilated and defaced their walls. That they committed the same excesses on the monuments and pubhc buildings of Memphis when it fell into their hands, the history of that city in after times, and the present state of its ruins, leave no room to doubt. The ai'my of Amosis was principally composed of a mob of fierce, mad, drunken enthusiasts, who masked their lust for plunder and love of violence and disorder with their fanaticism ; like every other crusade. Amosis. Amosis was the son of the marriage of the rightful heir of the Mencherian hne with a princess of the house of the viceroy of Melaneees. So that in his CHAP. IV.] IMPORT OF HIS NAMES. 157 person this last succession was finally merged in that of the Mencherian Pharaohs. We discover this fact in the circumstance, that his queen has the yellow complexion of the Eg}-ptian ladies ; whereas his son and co-regent was espoused to a Phutite princess, with the complexion of a negress.* From the analogy of former similar cases, we infer that Amosis made the capture of Memphis the first event in his reign. A long interval of anarchy, spolia- tion, and bloodshed, must have followed; for it was not until his 22nd year that he began to rebuild the temples of Memphis. The names assumed by Amosis are, as usual, instruc- tive as to the mystic history of his reign. His name in /■^^ Lower Eg}-pt, it will be seen, is that of Menthesu- PHis, the founder of Thebes ; with the change of the last group ^a. which consists of two lions' heads, and means "watchful in both Egypts." This group became afterwards distinctive of the founder of a dynasty. His name in Upper Egypt, Amosis, meant " son of the moon," and com- memorated the mythic insult wherewith he triumphed over his rival, the king of Memphis. We have seen, that the god Amun was wor- shipped at Peramoun, his primitive temple, at Coptos, and at Luxor, in Eastern Thebes. The introduction of the obscene or Coptic Amun, into Eastern Thebes, we elsewhere assume to have been the act of Amenemes. The Amun first introduced by him into Thebes at Karnak, was free from the loathsome characteristic of ^ Lepsius, Abt. iii. bl. 1. 158 INSULT TO PHTHA. [chap, rv. the other idol.* This first Amun, Amosis, after the example of his predecessors, spht asunder. To the female figure carved from the left half, he gave the name of Mant, "the mother;" he himself was, of course, the son that issued fi'om this divine marriage. But he clothed liimself in the vesture of Phtha, and assumed the comely countenance and sallow com- plexion of the god of Memphis. Still more clearly to indicate the secondary rank to which by this act Phtha was degraded, he associated this form of him with the moon, the most fickle and evanescent of all the heavenly bodies, and, therefore, in the apprehension of ancient Egypt, the feeblest of them. He completed the insult by the name which he gave to this filial divinity. He named him q ^ shons, that is, " the weak one;"f this name /wwcf^Bi was written Xwvo-»f, Chonsis, in the Greek inscriptions which have been found in Egypt. This studied and premeditated insult to the god of Memphis, having once been sanctioned by solemn acts of religion, could, of course, never again be undone. The tutelary of Memphis was thenceforward no longer one of the great gods of Egypt, but fell into the rank of an inferior and secondary being. This slight, how- ever, to the Memphites, was deeply felt and sternly resented. Another century of broil and bloodshed, and another capture and recapture of Memphis, were * Obelise of Begig. See vol. i. p. 38-i. t Coptic, ^toue, "weak."' The is a common substitute for the pronoun , aud when thus afHxed has an adjectival power. CHAP. IV.] ERA OF AMOSIS. 159 its fearful consequences to the kingdom of Egypt. In singularly exact uniformity with that we have already ascertained on former similar occasions, the inglorious Pharaohs who reigned at Thebes (and so far as appears at Thebes only) after the disasters of the Exodus, at- tempted to appease this divinity, by dedicating to him the last temple that ever was built in Eg}'pt by a native Pharaoh. The remains of this temple to Chonsis at Eastern Thebes give deplorable testimony to the deep decline of the arts in the evil times wherein it was con- structed. It was to the anger of this divinity that its constructors ascribed the misfortunes, before which Egypt grovelled in the dust. This modification of Amun was effected by Amosis in the temple of Eastern Thebes, which was afterwards expanded by his successors into the gorgeous palace of Karnak. The coeval remains of the reign of Amosis are few and insignificant. There is one monument which we can with certainty assign to his age. It is a very small tomb in the catacomb of Gournou in Western Thebes. The excavator of it was an arch -physician, the prefect of the granaries of Amun. 'j^^^^^u^jj His name was \^ pa-nasht-hi ; i.e., "the timber-feller." "^^^ 0~ZJa^ An inscription in this small tomb, very nearly defaced, has preserved, never- theless, the name of Amosis, followed by the epithet, AO" li^'iug, " whence we assuredly know that he ^ I (Panasht-hi) was the cotemporary of Amosis : a fact which might also have been inferred from the 160 PEINCE AMOSIS. [chap. IV. striking similarity between the style of art in this tomb and those of Eilethya. We infer from this circum- stance that Amosis was the zealous votary of Amun at Thebes, as well as at Memphis. The mutilation which the name of Amun has undergone in this in- scription belongs to the days of his successors. Another monument, also, of the age of Amosis, is happily historical. It is the tomb at Eilethya, of one of the Heteri, or schoolfellows of Amosis, who, according to the custom that now began to prevail, was named after him, -^^^ Amosis, with- out the ring, instead of taking 111 I a name com- pounded of that of his royal master, as in the olden times.* A discourse or poem of thirty columns of hiero- glyphics, recounts the exploits of this prince in Eg}-pt, during the reigns of Amosis and his two next suc- cessors. He was "admiral of the Nile," besides a high military rank. He was descended from one of the first colonists of Eilethya, under Pharaoh AcHXHOES.f From this forefather, the family had passed down eleven descents to Amosis. The names of all the intermediate heads of it, and of their wives, are re- corded in the tomb. This lineage coiTesponds well with our chronology. If we assume the founding of Ei- lethya to have been an early event in the reign of AcHTHOES, and the pacification to which Abram was a party, to be a late one (which is so highly probable as to be pretty certain), the former may have taken place thirty years before the visit of the patriai'ch, that is, 245 years before the immigration of Israel. * No. 5, El Kab. t i. p. 370. CHAP. IV.] \VOKSHIP OF THE CKOCODILE. 161 The seventy years we find to have been the proximate duration of the interval between this event and the recapture of Memphis by Abiosis,* being added to it, give us 315 years; i.e., rather less than twenty-nine years for a descent, which is just about the average length of these descents in ancient Egypt, vaguely computed by Herodotus at three to the century.f We give this remarkable approximation, as no light or despicable proof of the correctness of our reading, both of the history of Egypt and its chronology. Other postulates of our preceding history, which have rather flowed from analogies and probabilities than from either formal records or strict deductions, are likewise made into certainties by the names in this pedigi-ee of the prince Amosis at Eilethya. Two of these will require notice. We have seen that many of the iuimediate ancestors of Pharaoh Amosis took names in Upper Egypt, compounded of that of Sebek the god of Crocodilopolis. The great-grandfather of the prince Amosis was likewise in the fashion. He was named f] |v — ^ nyj5 , shh-ms ; " Sekmosis ; " i.e. /'horn of! -J^^l I <^ Sebek." The misfor- tunes of the reigning family were doubtless ascribed in part to the neglect of this deity, whom they further en- deavoured to appease by making him tutelary in Ombos, and other cities near Eilethya, which they founded. It has, moreover, just been explained, that a fusion must have taken place between the black and white inhabitants of Nubia and Ethiopia, in the time that immediately followed the bursting of the lake. The * Above, p. 120. t Vol. i. p. 236. VOL. II. Y 162 BURIAL OF MUMMIES. [chap. IV. direct proof of this union is likewise to be found in the pedigree before us. Several of the female ancestry of the prince Amosis were Cushite or Phutite women, as their names, compounded of districts in the possession of these tribes, clearly imply. The name of his grandmother was ^^-^q =^ a Jit t -hush ; i.e., " sought out (Copt. I ^i'^n S •j'^Idt) in Cush," i.e., Ethiopia. These two instances may serve to show that monu- mental indications however faint, if carefully observed, are by no means without their value as direct history. The first acts recorded in the very boastful strain before us, are those of the piety of the prince Amosis towards the mummies of his ancestors. This is uni- versal in all similar tomb-inscriptions throughout Egypt. Amongst these he especially dwells upon the removal of the whole of them from Abydos to the splendid depositum he had prepared for them in the rock of El Kab or Eilethya. The founder of the family of Amosis was named ) ahi-snau, " two souls." His removal from Aby- JT // dos to his tomb was also effected at the same time by Amosis. It was on one of the great Apiac festivals that it took place. The mummy and its offerings were covered with one of the wooden sarcophagi we have just described. This honour was reserved for the founder of the family, as a distinction among the mummies of his descendants which accompanied him. The name of this chest or lid we find to have been y in i 5* (Copt, taib), " a chest." t AJl) * Alphabet, No. 138.- + El Kab. Tomb 5, cc. 1—4. CHAP. IV.] FALL OF MEMPHIS. 163 Again, these particulars confirm our previous as- sumptions. The mummy of Ahisnau remained at Abydos for upwards of three centuries; and when it was at length removed, those of the whole of his des- cendants made part of the same cargo. Such was the universal custom in Old Egypt. We have seen that the mummies were deposited in the tomb of Amunei at Beni-hassan, in freights of four and six hundred at once. It was equally so in the adjacent vault of Nahrai. Not a mummy was buried there before the days of Sukenes, ...^^^ Q /vvw\^^ , the remote des- cendant of all who ^3 \ I @ ML had previously in- scribed their names there, and (so far as appears) the last of the family." It is likewise gratifying to point to the proof of the truth of our conjecture f as to the origin and use of the wooden sarcophagi. The prince Amosis was, as we have seen, the school- fellow of his royal namesake. His first act, on his accession to his father's estate, which took place im- mediately on his completion of the prescribed course of education, was the excavation of the tomb, and the removal thither of the mummies of his ancestry, (cc. 5, 6). The next exploit recorded was the military expe- dition against Lower Egypt, whereby the older branch of the family of Menes was once more expelled from Memphis, The prince Amosis was certainly a youth when he accompanied his royal namesake to this war. As the Heteri, or schoolfellows of the king, were all * lus. Nahrai, cc. 161—222. t Above, p. 144. 1G4 CAPTUKE OF TAN IS. [chap. IV. born in the same year with him, the truth of our conjecture that the capture of Memphis was the ex- ploit whence Amosis dated the commencement of his reign, is hereby made apparent. The first action of the war in which the prince Amosis was personally present, was the capture of Tanis. This event took place in the 3rd year of the king and of the war (c. 14). It would seem to have been a simultaneous attack by laud and water, and that the command of the fleet which sailed down from Memphis to the Tanitic branch was given to this prince. Tanis was by this exploit added to the crown or regency of Memphis (c. 8) ; another proof that this latter city had been taken in the first year. The prince boasts loudly of this exploit. Nevertheless, when we discover that his list of killed and wounded amounted to one man (c. 9), and of his captives to one man and three women (c. 13), we are compelled to admit that the enemy did not sustain an irrecoverable amount of disaster at the hands of our hero. The rendezvous for the prisoners after the capture of Tanis, was a city named Y.T.T a^Y;><\^^^^ (c. 14). This, we believe to mean <=::=> □ i:^:::^^ " the garden -quarter of Hnu" i.e. "Hanes" or " Sebennv- tus."* It was written thus, because it was still in the hands of the Lower Eg}'ptians, some part of whom had made peace with Amosis after the capture of Memphis. It was the constant practice, in the inscriptions that relate to these wars, to write the names of cities in Egypt, in the hands of the rival faction, with chai-acters * Vol. i. p. 356. CHAP. IV.] SHEPHEKDS. AilVAD. KAIN. 165 altogether different from the ordinary transcription, so as to give them the appearance of being the names of foreign cities. This practice increases greatly the dif- ficulty of interpreting them. Tanis and Memphis, which had fallen into his hands, are written as usual. AVe shall find from the account of tliis capture of Memphis, preserved in the histories of jManetho, that such a pacification actually took place at an early period of the war. The Egyptian prisoners taken in this affair, and, as it would seem, the dead bodies of the slain also, were admitted to ransom — the value of which was paid in gold. It is well worthy of note, that even at this early period the Lower Egyptians are branded with the opprobrious epithet \ ^^.^ (c. 15), "the evil confederacy a\aaa ^^jy J i i i A r--^ of mnu, cattle feeders " (Copt, uooiie) ; their country is named " Arvad : " while all countries over the north- ' — ' F — ^ eastern boundary of Egypt are compre- hended in the common epithet of /^vwy^:;:::::^ /waa/\ "Naharain," i.e. Mesopotamia, the w country whence the first colonists had come to Egypt. These identifications we shall find of extreme impor- tance to the intelhgence of the historical inscriptions of the succeeding epochs. We must now turn once more to the history of Manetho in Josephus. It relates that there was an insurrection of the kings of the Thebaid and of the rest of Egypt against those Icings in Loiver Egypt that loere called the Shepherds ; * and upon that arose a great * rovs ^xuiXiots Tovs tZ» woj^tVi'v naMviAs/MV (Cont. Apion. i. 14). 166 AVARIS. — THE DELTA. [chap. IV. and long war. It is said that the Shepherds were defeated by a king whose name was Amosis, and dis- possessed of all Egypt, and shut up in a district having a circumference of 10,000 arourse, that is, of about 300 miles. This admeasurement is that of the district called the Delta, in round numbers. There cannot be a doubt that this is tlie district actually referred to in the passage, and that it was thus vaguely designated by Manetho, in order to spare him- self the mortification of explaining to the Greeks, that so important a portion of Egj'pt remained for a long period after the capture of Memphis by Amosis in the hands of the Lower Egyptians or Shepherds. Still further to mystify and mislead his readers from the facts of the case, he proceeds to tell them that the name of this district was Avaris. He had before explained that this Avaris was a city of the Sethroite nome, which district formed the eastern bank of the Bubastite branch of the Nile ; and also that Saites had constructed there a vast fortified camp, with the army quartered in which he kept the whole of Egypt in check. He likewise tells us afterwards, that when Moses revolted against the king of Egypt, he concen- trated the rebel Egyptians and their Canaanite allies at Avaris. It is clear from hence that some motive, very far removed from the desire to write a true history, must have prompted this strange perplexity. The identification of Avaris will engage us hereafter. It applies in the present instance to the whole Delta. It was an ancient (probably in his time forgotten) name of this district, used for the purpose of concealing a CHAP IV.] NATURE OF THE CONTEST. 1 1G7 mortifying fact from his Greek readers. Manetho proceeds to tell us that the Shepherds fortified this vast district with a great and strong wall, and that they kept there their cattle and the whole of the spoil that they had taken from the Egyptians. This is simply absm'd, unless we read it as another way of saying that the Lower Egyptians retained possession of a con- siderable district after their expulsion from the city of Memphis by Amosis. It certainly favours such a view of the state of things in Egypt at this epoch, to find that the prince Amosis at Eilethya mentions the mere surprise of Tanis and the carrying off of an inconsiderable spoil, as the most notable event in the third year of the war; and that the city of Sebennytus was at this time in the hands of another king in alliance with Amosis. The mention of Mem- phis and Tanis only in the inscription, to the omission of the other cities of the Delta, is equally in favour of the view we are advocating. Had any other city fallen into the hands of Amosis, assuredly it would not have been omitted from this boastful composition. This will abundantly appear when other similar inscrip- tions are before us. We shall also find in them that both Memphis and Tanis were afterwards recaptured by the Lower Egyptians. We infer from all these circumstances, that the Lower Egyptian or Aphophean Pharaohs still retained their supremacy over the Delta, notwithstanding the misfortune they sustained by the loss of Memphis in the reign of Asses. This event would consequently exercise no restraining influence upon the increase in 168 THE XOITE KINGS. [chap IV. numbers and prosperity of the children of Israel who were sojourning in that district. Such an arrangement is certainly required by the inspired narrative of their histoiy ; and this requirement, we need scarcely observe, strongly confirms our present reading of the monuments and the Greek tradition. On referring to the lists of Manetho, we find mingled amid the strange confusion of co-regent dynasties, between the 13th and 18th, a succession of kings who reigned at the city of Xois, in the centre of the Delta [see Map). The Arabic name of this city, Sahha, corresponds exactly with its appellative in the Egyptian language; Coptic, cijujov, hieroglyphic ^ schis* It will hereafter be needful to point O f^-^ out that this is the city mentioned in the inspired history of Israel under the name of Succoth.\ As its name in all these transcriptions is Hebrew, and signifies " tents," there can be no doubt that it was one of the cities which Joseph built, and removed thither the inhabitants of the surrounding districts dming the latter years of the famine. The position of this city, so near the centre of their now greatly cu-cumscribed dominions, doubtless pointed it out as the most con- venient capital for the obscure descendants of Asses, who reigned in the Delta only. These Xoite kings are the l-4th dynasty of the lists. There ai-e said to have been either 16 or 76 of them, and they reigned either for 484 or 184 years. * S for th, which is according to the moelern pronunciation of Polish Jews of the Hebrew letter tJuiu. t Ex. xii. 37. CHAP. IV.] QUAKRY-MAKKS. 169 The reign of Amosis is said, in all the copies of the lists, to have lasted for twenty-five years. It seems from the monuments, that his war with Asses ter- minated in the third year of it, when the boundaries of the two kingdoms were settled by treaty, and all the prisoners were admitted to ransom. The rest of the reign of Amosis was exceedingly turbulent and in- glorious. It is highly probable that the spirit of fanaticism he had raised was too strong for the force under his controul to allay, when his purpose had been answered by it ; and that many years of his reign were consumed in curbing the licentiousness and chastising the excesses of the army of rabid zealots whom he had led to Memphis. This is so common a result of wars of religion in the history of mankind in general, that we can find no reason so probable as this why the reign of Amosis is monumentally obscure. In his twenty-second year, Amosis began the recon- struction of the temple of Phtha at Memphis, and also laid the foundation of a temple to Amun of Thebes, his mythic father, in the same city. We have already mentioned that this fact is twice recorded on the rock of Tourrah, which is immediately over against Memphis on the eastern bank of the river. The queen and eldest daughter of Amosis both shared in the honour and devotion of this work of piety. The name of the former is also written on the alabaster rocks of El Bosrah, in the eastern desert. It is thus inscribed in hieroglyphics, cn ^> "the divine queen, ah-ms-atri." I v I ^ // > Her daughter was named after her. These quarry- marks, with the tombs of Gournou and of the prince VOL. II. z 170 KINGDOM OF AMOSIS. [chap. it. Amosis at Eilethya, make up the whole of the known coeval remains of the expeller of Asses from Memphis, and founder of the eighteenth dynasty. The state of Egypt during the reign of Amosis, and the extent of his sovereignty, are questions which are hard to answer. We have seen that there were troubles on the northern frontier, from the Amonian fanatics, throughout the greater part of it. We shall find that a considerable district in Middle Eg}^pt never acknow- ledged his authority at all, but that the Shepherds or Lower Eg}'ptian Pharaohs, ruling there only, were in alliance with him and his successors. In Nubia and Ethiopia also a revolt against his authority took place, and a new Phutite pretension competed with him and his successors for the sovereignty of all Egypt. It would, therefore, seem that the dominions of Amosis were in a condition veiy similar to those of the kings of the eleventh dynasty.* His territory in Upper Eg}'pt does not seem to have extended further north than Abydos, or southward beyond Eile- thya. In Lower Egj'pt the sovereignty of Amosis appears to have been hmited to Memphis and its nome. It is a strange, and at first sight puzzling, feature of the reign of Amosis, that, notwithstanding its tur- bulence, the arts of design made considerable progi-ess in the course of it. This fact very clearly appears on the comparison of the works of art of his next suc- cessor with those of the times that went before him. We have seen that the Delta was the only district of * Vol. i. p. 367. CHAP, rv-.] CHEBKON — AMENOPHIS. 1 71 Egypt in which there was peace during his reign. It must have been here that the artists acquired the skill they have exhibited in the works of the epoch upon which we are about to enter. We may even trace in this comparison a perceptible amount of foreign in- fluence in the bolder and more flowing outline both of the contour and the draperies of their human figures. This change we do not hesitate to ascribe to the more enlarged intercourse with foreign artists from Canaan and Mesopotamia, whose immigration into Eg}^pt was abundantly encouraged by the liberal policy of the successors of Asses in the Delta. Thus have we found that a peaceable, well-ordered government in Goshen, at this epoch, is just as im- peratively required by the monuments of Egypt as by the history of Israel. We now proceed with the successors of Amosis on the thrones of Thebes and Memphis. The very difii- cult solution of the question regarding the Xoite Pharaohs must engage us afterwards. Chebkon — Amenophts. The name of the Pharaoh who sat on the throne of Egypt after the death of Amosis, is involved in no sort of doubt, if the monuments are to be regarded. The testimony of the tablet of Abydos, as to his successor, is corroborated by that of many other coeval remains : so that it seems to be a clear historical fact, that on the death of Amosis, a king reigned in Egypt 172 EKROK IN LISTS. [chap. IV. whose hieroglyphic name is written thus : "^y^ The Hsts of Manetho, however, present ^ ^ us with a difficulty on this point which will require to be considered. The four transcriptions of them agree in making the two successors of Amosis to have been M Chebros or Chebron, Amenophis or Amophis reigmng 13 years 21 „ The interpretation of the Upper Egyptian ring of the hieroglyphic successor of Amosis, gives us amn- liotp^'' i.e. " united with, one with, Amun." This name identifies itself with the Amenophis of the lists, who appears there as the second successor of Amosis. Yet can no fact be better established by monumental evidence, than that of the successor of Amosis. We believe the origin of the mistake will appear, if we place together the names of both kings written in full— £^ ^ ^ ^2r^ o The prenomen or name in Lower Egypt, of Ameno- phis, reads chrp-k-ra, i.e. " he who consecrates his person to the sun." Chebeos or Chebron has been the hellenized version of this name, wherewith the Greek transcribers of the lists got over the (to their ears) intolerable cacophany of this cluster of consonants. * See Alphabet, No. 19. CHAP. IV.] C HEBRON A WARRIOR. 173 Such appears to be an obvious mode of reconciling the monuments with the Hsts. The same king, under two names, has been inserted in the latter, either by mis- take, or for the well-known purpose of lengthening them. The thirteen years of Chebron may represent the time during which Amexophis was co-regent with Amosis. The actual lapse of time from the accession of x\mosis to the death of Amenophis, would then be represented by the forty-six years of their joint reign. "We adopt this arrangement as the most probable one under the circumstances. There are but few cotemporary monuments of Ameno- phis I. This, as in the case of his predecessor, might have been anticipated from the brief history of his times which we have already quoted from Manetho. There is, however, another circumstance regarding him, which rests on monumental evidence, and which is highly instructive as to his history. Perhaps no monarch that ever reigned in Egypt, certainly no one of the New Kingdom, is so frequently represented invested with the attributes of a god, and receiving acts of worship and adoration. We assuredly gather from hence, that Amenophis was highly successful in war. There are several manuscripts on papyrus in the hieratic character, in various collections in Europe, wherein the names both of Amenophis and his pre- decessor frequently occur. Should the mode of inter- preting these ever be recovered, many important historical facts regarding these wars will be brought to hght, for, no doubt, they are either histories of the MONUMENTS OF HIS REIGN, [chap. rv. wars of these Pharaohs, or epic poems founded upon events occumng in them. In the early part of the reign of Amenophis, Amosis- nfr-atri, the queen of his predecessor, was co-regent with him. She was, doubtless, his mother, and Ameno- phis was the son as well as the successor of Amosis. It would appear, from a tomb at Thebes, the reliefs of which have long been known through the designs of Mr. Burton,* that queen Nofre-atri was descended in the female line from Achthoes, the founder of the 12th dynasty, while Amosis placed at the head of his ancestry, Menthesuphis, the founder of Thebes. Another tablet, brought from Thebes and now in the Louvre at Pai'is, commemorates an act of worship to Amenophis and his mother, paid to them along with four of their descendants by a queen of a later epoch, who was also named Nofre-atri. The name of Amenophis is written on the side-posts of a gate or door in one of the walls of the construction that afterwards became the palace of Karnak. So far as appears from its existing remains he was its founder, for his name is the eai'liest that has been read there. Bricks of Nile-mud, stamped with the name of Ameno- phis, have also been found at Western Thebes. It is clear, from these circumstances, that he must have had prisoners of war, by whose forced labours he performed these works. Accordingly, we find in the tomb of the prince Amosis at Eilethya, that this king also, like his father, was compelled to head a warlike expedition against the Cushites in Nubia, for the purpose of * Excerpta Hieroglyphica. CHAP. IV.] QUEENS OF AMENOPHIS. 175 reducing them to obedience, and collecting their tri- butes. It is further stated therej'^that on the occasion he made a considerable booty, both of prisoners and cattle. A pair of sandals, in the Museum at Berlin, have upon the strap the name of Chebron Amenophis, and on the sole the painting of an Asiatic prisoner, bound. We believe that one or two other similar small remains likewise commemorate the fact, that Amenophis had wars with the Lower Egyptians, who were always re- presented as Asiatics, as well as with the Ethiopians. A fine picture in stucco of Amenophis and his mother was cut from the wall of a tomb at Gournou, the burial- place of Thebes, by the Prussian Expedition. It is now in the Berlin Museum. He has himself a noble coun- tenance, but his complexion has the sickly, pallid tint which denotes a mulatto. His mother was an Ethiop in complexion and descent. She had also the straight though somewhat prominent nose, and thin lips, of the modern Somalis, Amharic Abyssinians, and other direct descendants from Gush, in North-east Africa. The faces in this highly interesting picture are visibly portraits {Frontispiece). A statue of this monarch, in the hard limestone of Eastern Thebes, forms a part of the magnificent collection of Turin ; but he is there represented as a god after liis decease, and the image has been con- secrated as an object of worship. In the same collection is a mummy-case, the execu- tion of which shows it to have been of the Ptolemaic or Roman epoch. The personage whose remains were deposited in it was priest to Amenophis I. and his 176 BEGAN THE TEMPLE OF KARNAK. [chap. iv. family. There can scarcely be a doubt that this coffin was originally found in the tomb copied by Mr. Burton, and that, being descended from the same family, the owner of it had inherited the same office. From this sarcophagus, we learn that in the course of the reign of Amenophis, his queen ^ ah-htp, (" united to 4 with him in the is also inscribed in of Nofre-atri, his the moon ") was associated regency. This same name the tomb among the hneage mother; so that, in all probability, she was likewise of the blood-royal. Amenophis and his queen Ahepthis are also wor- shipped in a tomb in the burial-place of Thebes, closely adjacent to the one already mentioned, but of a much later epoch. It was excavated in the times of the 20th dynasty. Thus have we found that the name of Amenophis will ever be illustrious in the monumental history of Egypt. He is the first Pharaoh whose name appears cotemporarily on the noble constructions that once adorned Thebes. The palaces and temples of this city of wonders, now in extreme dilapidation and ready to perish from the earth, still excite an intense thrill of admiration in him who first visits them. Let him have wandered over the world where he will — let the ruins of Rome, of Greece, of Mesopotamia, be never so familiar to him, these experiences only heighten his sense of astonishment, and deepen his conviction that, for sublime grandeur of design and symmetrical beauty of arrangement, none of them will bear comparison with the ruins of Thebes. CHAP. IV.] SUCCESSOR OF AMENOPHIS. 177 Mesphres. The successor of Chebron Amenophis we know from the monuments tp have been also his son. His name, which is of frequent occurrence, is written . Nothing can be more certain than the fact, that this was the name borne by the successor and son of Amenophis. Never- theless, the lists once more fail us alto- gether. We give from them the names of the successors of Amenophis. m Africanus. Amensis MiSAPHEIS MiSPHRAGMOTJTHOSIS TOUTHMOSIS Years. 22 13 26 9 EusEBius, by Syncellus. MlPHEES ... ' MlSPHRAGMOUTHOSIS ToUTHMOSIS Tears. 12 26 9 JOSEPHUS. Trs. Mths. Amessis (sister of Amenophis) 21 9 Mephres 12 9 Mephramouthosis 25 10 Thmousis ... ... 9 8 EcsEBius, Armenian Version. Mejiphres . . MiSPHARMUTHOSIS TUTHMOTHIS Trs. Mths. 12 0 26 0 9 0 Before endeavouring to deal with the utter confusion which reigns over this part of the 18th dynasty, when the lists are compared either with the monuments or with themselves, it may be of service to consider if the inquiries we have already made concerning places of similar difficulty do not throw some hght upon the mode in which the names of the Pharaohs of this epoch were written in the Greek lists. The two names we have found, suggest the probability that either of VOL. II. 2 A 178 MESPHEES. [chap. it. the two royal rings composing the name of Pharaoh, or hoth of them together, were made use of in these transcriptions. Misphkagmouthosis seems to be a corruption of the two names of.AMosis; while, on the other hand, the two rings of Chebeon Amekophis figure in the hsts as two Pharaohs. The names of co-regents, as well as of Pharaohs actually reigning, seem also to be enumerated in them. The name of the ^iCZ^ queen Amenses is written in Her history and that of euKajre us hereafter. hieroglyphics, amnst. her husbands will The first ring in the name of the monumental successor of Amenophis /-qN reads aa-chru-ha-ra, i.e., " gi-eat creator who is sun." None of the names slightest resemblance to of the substance of the we have quoted bear the it. We ai-e compelled, therefore, to assume that it has been rejected from the Greek version. In the second ring of the same name are two epithets or titles. The first of them is thoth-mes, i.e., "begotten of Thoth;" in which, to our surprise, we detect the Thothmosis of the lists, who was, according to them, the third or fourth successor of Amenophis. Without at once alighting upon the conclusion, that the lists are here a mere jumble, we proceed to the remaining epithet of the second ring. <^ a It reads m-slia-slie-phra, i.e., " he who is crowned O 5(k [feted or exalted] like the sun." This title certainly may have been the Mesphees of the lists. The name Thothmosis, as being that of several of CHAP. Vt.] MONUMENTS OF HIS EEIGN. 179 his successors, may have been omitted from the present Greek name, for this reason.* Mespi-iees Thothmosis has left some striking monu- ments of a brief but very glorious reign. In its second year, we find him at war with the Phu- tites and Cushites. On the 15th of the second month (Phaophi), he celebrates on a rock at Ombos a victory with many captives over Phut and Gush. These cap- tives were employed in quarrying materials for the construction of temples to Athom, Hathor, and the other gods of Lower Egypt. He, also, on four other occasions, quarried the same rock, and employed the stone in the construction of the temples at Thebes. On every one of them he boasts of his victories over Phut or Gush, thus making it clear that they were blacks, and not Lower Egyptians or Ganaanites, whom he employed to build his temples. It was doubtless during this war that a votive niche * This name (Thothmosis) is connected with another difficulty in the course of Mauetho's narrative of the expeller of the Shep- herds and his successors. After having named the hero of this exjiloit MisPHRAGMOUTHOSis, and his son or descendant who com- pleted it Thothmosis, in another part of his history in which he repeats the narrative, he assigns the honour of it to Thothmosis only, making him the father of the new dynasty. Such is the common reading of this place (Contr. Apion. i. c. 15). There are, however, very considerable variations in the spelling of the name in the different manuscripts and versions of Josephus that still exist, and the collation of it with Josephus himself in the preceding chapter, with the lists, and with the monuments, seems to leave no doubt that the word Tetmosis or Tei^osis is corrupt, and that it was originally written Amosis. This emendation restores Josephus to harmony with the lists, with the monuments, and with himself. 180 REIGN VERY GLORIOUS. [chap. IV. or recess was sculptured by Mesphres at Ibrim, im- mediately to the north of Ipsambul, in the face of a cliff that rises perpendicularly from the western bank of the Nile. At the further extremity of this ex- cavation are four figures in low relief, two of them representing the Pharaoh now before us; the other two, the mythic beings to whom this locality was con- secrated. The mean execution of this monument shows that it was done hastily, by workmen of inferior skill. Most probably it was at the head of his army that Mesphres Thothmosis ordered the niche of Ibrim to be excavated in commemoration of some defeat of the Ethiopian enemies of Eg}-pt in this neighbourhood. The prince Amosis had likewise recorded in his tomb that he accompanied Mesphres in a campaign against the southern enemies of Egjpt, which was attended with success ; a large and fruitful territor}' being hereby added to Egypt. There can be no doubt that this was the war in which so lai'ge a portion of the reign of Mesphres was occupied. The constructions begun at Thebes by Mesphres show that he had at his command a very great amount of forced labour. He proceeded with the work at Karnak, which his father had begun. One of the Syenite obelises, now prostrate among its ruins, was quarried and completed by Mesphres, but it had not been removed from Syene at the time of his death. It was brought down the river, and erected long after- wards, by one of his remote successors of the twentieth dynasty. The propylon before which this obelise was intended CHAP. IV.] WARS IN ETHIOPIA. 181 to stand was in the course of construction at the same time. It is the tliird on the southern face of tlie temple. Like the obchsc, also, it was left unfinished, and the reliefs and inscriptions were proceeded with by his successor, and completed long afterwards by Se- THOS I., of the nineteenth dynasty. On both these monuments, Mesphres records his triumphs over the Phutites and Cushites in Nubia and Ethiopia. In Western Thebes, he began the two temples whose ruins are known by the modern names of El Asasif and Medinet Abou. Like the palace of Karnak, they were all dedicated to the various modifications of the idol Amun. They resemble all the other remains of this monarch in commemorating victories over the southern enemies of Egypt only, and in being of no great extent, though vast and beautiful in design. The historical inferences from these monumental facts are veiy palpable. The reign of Mesphres was but of short duration, and occupied altogether with the reduction to obedience of Nubia and Ethiopia. With his northern frontier he appears to have been at peace. His monuments are remarkable for expressions of devotion to Athom, to Buto, and to others of the old idols of the Delta, as well as to Amun, the god of his family. It was only in a time of full peace and most amicable understanding, that such civilities were bestowed upon the gods of foreign countries, for such was the light in which the Xoite kingdom was regarded at Thebes in the days of Mesphres. The reign of Mesphres is recorded in all the copies of the lists to have lasted for twelve years only. We 182 HIS WOKKS OF UTILITY. [chap. IV. have seen how exactly this agi'ees with the indications of the monuments that it was but a brief one. He was, in every sense of the word, a great king. In the in- scription at Ombos, he is said to have conquered both Nubia and Ethiopia. The prisoners he took in battle were employed in the construction of a vast system of mounds, whereby the waters of the Nile were restrained from diffusing themselves over what had once been, doubtless, the area of the Lake of Ethiopia, where they became pestilential and barren swamps. A far greater volume of the waters of the overflow was by these means poured upon Egypt Proper, to the great increase of its fertility. This fact is expressly recorded in the inscrip- tion on the rock of Tombos.* The waste of a con- siderable portion of the annual overflow would be an all but certain consequence of the bursting of the Lake of Ethiopia. These great kings of the olden time did not fear to encounter difficulties of such colossal dimen- sions. Mesphees reconquered Egypt and her depen- dencies to their utmost southern limits, and then exacted from the forced labours of the subdued rebel tribes, the erection of the huge mounds, whereby their own land was rescued from pestilence, and Eg}-pt from baiTen- ness. That these vast works were but planned by Mes- phees, and that they were completed by his successors, we have very probable evidence in the brevity of his reign. There is scarcely a king of Eg}'pt who received after his death more magnificent tokens of esteem and veneration than AIesphees. Most * Lepsius iii. 5. CHAP. IT.] HIS HONOURS — ACHENCHERES. 183 rings were his son, for thededica- of the reliefs, both at El Asasif and Medinet Abou, were apparently executed at bis death. On the obelise at Karnak, his name is inscribed with the following variation : /T^N /'^^ The additional titles in these .ri probably added after his death by this obelise seems to have borne tion of that portion of the palace wherein the second descendant of Mesphres worships the entire line of his ancestry. There is a magnificent colossal statue of Mesphres in the Museum at Turin. It is a black jasper veined with white, beautifully sculptured and highly polished. It also was executed after his death, and commemorates him as a god. We have found in the lists, that the reign of this illustrious monarch lasted for twelve years only. The high honours paid to his memory seem to suggest the probability, that he may have fallen on the field of battle. The queen of Mesphres we find, in the temple of El Asasif, to have been named Amosis. She was his sister also. These incestuous marriages prevailed in Eg}'pt at all epochs of its history. Achencheres. The monumental history of Egypt, after the death of Mesphres Thothmosis, is in confusion as to the order of succession, indicating the existence of the disputes concerning it, which are so very likely to follow upon the untimely removal of the head of a house ; herein strengthening our sm-mise that he fell in battle. His 184 SON OF MESPHEES. [chap. IV. immediate successor on the throne of Eg}-pt was his son, whose name stands thus : [aa-cliru-n-ra) [tet-mes mshe-nefr-chru). 11 This succession is that of the tablet of Abydos (rings 42, 43). It is stated with the same formality on the statue of Mesphres, in the Turin col- lection, in the accompanying inscrip- tion, Avhich is engraven on the front legs of the throne. It reads, " the good god, the lord of the two Eg}-pts, aa- chru-n-ra, the beloved of Amun, ever- living, hath dedicated this his work to his father, Thothmosis Mesphees, whose words are justified." There are other monumental evidences of this succession; so that it is satisfactorily estabhshed. The lists present us in this place with a considerable diffi- culty. The successors of Mesphees in them ai'e Misphragmouthosis and Thoth^josis,* names which the history has already appropriated to the two Pharaohs by whom the Shepherds were expelled. But the first of them being already identified with Amosis, the circumstance of its repetition here in the lists is in itself suggestive of some error. The truth of this sug- gestion is strongly confirmed by the circumstances that the history f bears upon the face of it, that these two * Above, p. 177. t Joseph. Contra. Apion, i. li. CHAP. IV.] NAME IN THE LISTS. 185 kings were the immediate successors of each other, and that the Thothmosis of the monuments was a pros- perous monarch, and evidently the one entitled by Manetho, the expeller of the Shepherds. We infer, then, that the Alexandrian revisers of the lists in after times have inserted the name of Mispheagmouthosis in this place, in order to restore the hsts to harmony with the history as they read it; displacing the right name (which they inserted below) for the purpose of keeping correct the number of successions (six) between Amosis and Thothmosis. This displaced name we find two successions afterwards. There are great discrepancies in the several copies, in the mode of writing this name, in the number of years, the sex and the times, assigned to the personage that bore it. Africanus writes it Acheeees, and makes him reign for 32 years. In the copies of Eusebius he is named Achencheeses or Achencheees, reigning 16 or 12 years, with the historical notice that in his days the Exodus took place. In the history, again, (where Mispheagmouthosis has been inserted, as well as in the lists),* the same monarch is named Akenchees, and declared to be the daughter of the preceding king, reigning for 12 years only. That this name Achencheees is out of place, is rendered still more probable by the circumstance that it seems to have been a difficulty with the revisers of the lists in ancient times. One of them, for example, repeats it twice, inserting another name between the VOL. II. * Contr. Apiou, i. 15. 2 B 186 CIIOWN OF LOWER EGYPT. [chap. IV- repetitions,* which has been an endeavour to harmonize the sum of the dates with the temple-records, which this displacement had disturbed. These considerations lead us to the conclusion that the name Achencheres is a Greek version of aa-chru- en-ra or chre,\ which is the title contained in the first ring of the royal name before us. The event which seems to have been the inaugurating circumstance of the reign of Achencheres is commemo- rated on the granite rocks of Syene. It took place on the eighth day of the month Phaophi, in the first year of his reign. It consisted of some small success against the Shepherds or Lower Eg}'ptians in the Delta. The prisoners captured in the afiair were brought by the young king to Syene, where they joined the gangs of black prisoners in quarrjing blocks of granite for the decoration of the temples of Amun at Thebes. We further learn from this important but very obscure inscription, that Achencheres was crowned during the lifetime of his father, and that the single character which distinguishes his name from that of his father, was an honorific title conferred on him to com- memorate the same exploit. The first ring of his name is written thus in the inscription. ^ It will be perceived that the last chai'ac- v_ ter in the ring is the red crown, or lower part of the shent, and the symbol of dominion over Lower Egjpt. This change has also been made in the first ring of the name, which we have repeatedly explained to be the royal title in Lower Egypt. The assumption of this * Appendix of Authorities, p. 135, Note 8. t See vol. i. p. 287. CHAP. IV.] PALACE OF MEDINET ABOU. 187 last character is very frequently referred to in the inscription before us, on the propylon of Karnak, with the building of which Achencheres proceeded, both in conjunction with his father, and probably after his death also. His name in Lower Egypt is likewise written with the following variation : ^ the last character means " lord of Lower Egypt." On the later monuments of Achencheees, the same name varies once more, and is written thus : the simple and primitive character denoting ?i, has been substituted for the crown of Lower Egypt, which has the same phonetic power * but — ^ which conveyed an insult to the Xoite dynasty, then reigning in the Delta. A peace was doubtless ratified between the two Pharaohs at a later period of the reign of Achencheres, and this variation of his name in Lower Egypt has been one of the conditions of it. There is no other way of accounting for this change. The well-known palace of Medinet Abou, situated close to the foot of the Lybian mountains that hem in the plain of Thebes on the western side, is re- markable for having been begun almost the earliest, and finished the latest, of all the great constructions of Thebes with the hundred gates. In speaking thus of Medinet Abou, we mean, of course, that its latest con- structions of any magnitude or importance are those of the last of the Pharaohs, who made large additions to any of the great edifices of Thebes. The portion of * Alphabet, Nos. 86, 87. 188 MOST ANCIENT PART. [chap. IV. this superb palace nearest to the Lybian mountains, consists of six halls, opening en suite, according to the following ground-plot. l.y,j In these halls we read the legend of Achencheees Thothmosis. In that numbered 2, the interior cornice bears the following inscription. This inscription, like many others similarly placed, commences in the middle and reads from thence in both directions, the central character being common to both. That to the right hand reads : 1st line, " the living king of Lower Egypt, Mesphees, the beloved of Amun-ra." 2nd hue, " the living son of the sun [i.e., king of Upper Egypt), Thothmosis, the beloved of Amun, everliving like the sun." The inscription to the left is: 1st line, "the living king Achencheees, the beloved of Amun-ra." 2nd line, " the hving son of the sun, Thothmosis, the dazzled of Amun,* everliving like the sun." This inscription shows that Mesphees and Achen- cheees were both living and co-regent at the time * Vol. i. p. 113. CHAP. IV.] THE WOKK OF ACHENCHERES. 189 ■when this hall, which from its situation would appear to have been the commencement of the whole struc- ture, was built. The reliefs and legends which cover its interior walls, refer to acts of worship paid to Amun-ra, by Mesphres and his son Achencheres. . It was to him, under this impersonation, h O ^ss" ^^^^^ temple of Medinet Abou H/vwa I was dedicated, in this small but elegant hall, by Mesphres and Achencheres, and in the vast additions made to it afterwards, which extend into the plain of Thebes for nearly a mile, by the long line of Pharaohs, kings and emperors, that successively bore rule in Egypt down to Antoninus Pius, there is not a wall or pillar that does not bear a dedication to the same divinity. It is for this reason that the rings of both Pharaohs are surcharged with titles expressive of the protection and adoration of Amun, and that both terminate with the epithet, "the beloved of Amun-ra." We believe there is not a legend throughout the entire ruin wherein this precedent has not been followed. The halls 1, 4, and 5, seem to have been begun by the same Pharaohs conjointly, but they were not completed at the death of either, the names of two of their successors appearing in them. We have already noticed the extreme beauty of execution which characterizes these monuments. They are not incavo, like most of the works of the 12th dynasty, but rising in low relief from the surface, like the oldest tombs; and for delicacy of execution, they are among the finest of the works of art in Egypt. 190 TEMPLE OF ASASIF. [chap IV. The death of Achencheees seems to have taken place before the completion of this suite of halls. In that numbered 3 in our plan, there is but very little mention of him. His two successors, and their acts of devotion, cover the walls. His name only appears on the cornices and door-posts, which were in- variably first inscribed. Most probably his death took place while it was in the course of execution. In hall 6, there is no name earlier than that of his third successor. Achencheees seems also to have made considerable advance in the building of the neighbouring temple of El Asasif. It would even appear that, though designed by his father, Achencheees, he was really the founder of it. The name of Mesphees is read only twice upon its walls, and in both instances it has been overwritten aftervvai'ds with that of his son. This beautiful httle temple was dedicated to Amun, under all his names, forms, and attributes. Its construction proceeded throughout the entire reign of Achencheees. This fact is shown by the circumstance, that his name is inscribed there with all the three variations we have just explained. On the propylon of Kamak, also, Achencheees completed the decorations which his father had begun. His works were visibly performed there after his father's death, as he in one or two places overwrites the name of Mesphees with his own. The pic- fQ\ tures or inscriptions are, in these instances, unfinished at his father's death. It is thus he records the fact that he completed them. CHAP. IV.] QUEEN AMENSES. 191 The remains of constructions in red granite bearing the name of Achencheees Thothmosis, and of the same exquisite style of execution, have been found at Esneh, to the south of Thebes in Upper Egypt, and at Semneh in Nubia. They ai-e the remains of temples dedicated to the gods of these localities. The wife of Achencheees was named Amun-Meit. She accompanies her husband on several monuments. The remains of the beautiful sarcophagus in which she was deposited are still to be seen in her tomb in the Biban Hadji Achmed, or Valley of the Queens. The walls of the tomb ai'e all but entirely illegible. That which remains on them is, like the sarcophagus, in the exquisite style of art which distinguishes the epoch. We are able to gather from the succession that filled the throne of Egypt after the death of Achencheees, that^he died childless. It is probable that he died young also. The hsts seem to assign him a reign of 12 years. Queen Amenses and hek Husbands. The succession following Achencheees on the monu- ments is again discordant with the lists, and in this particular instance with itself also. Champolhon was the first to discover this amid the ruins of Thebes, and he also was the first to grapple with and solve the difficulty. In the small temple of El Asasif in Western Thebes, the legends and reliefs are in the same style of perfect 199 OVERWRITTEN RINGS. [chap. IV. execution as those we have just noticed. In the course of them, the Pharaohs Mesphres and Achencheres are repeatedly addressed as divinities, with acts of worship. But the royal rings which contain the names of the actual founder or founders are pa/impsesf, or overwritten three times. Champolhon also noted that the most ancient of the inscriptions which covered this temple had been originally written in the feminine. It was a \\oman that addressed the gods. The replies of the gods were in like manner with feminine pronouns, showing that they were conferring blessings upon a female. A very close examination of the overwritten rings enabled him not only to decipher the several names upon them, but also to determine the order in which they were written. He obtained from hence the following succession. /rj^ Haw 1 On other parts of the same temple, the ring which commences the three first names is also overwritten with that of Achencheres. On the tablet of Abydos, the royal name (No. 4) (which is everywhere the last inscribed), is the immediate successor of Achencheres. The following is Champollion's solution of this difficulty; it appears to us to be satisfactory. I. Achencheres, the sou of Mesphres, succeeded CHAT. IV.] THEIE EXPLANATION. 193 In his father on the throne ol J^gypt, and died without issue. II. His sister, Amenses (No. 1), succeeded him, as the daughter of Mesphkes. She had probably been co- regent with him throughout his reign. As the first- born of her father, she was associated on the throne of Egypt with him also. This fact appears on the stamps of unburnt bricks at Gournou.* III. The first husband of Amenses (No. 2) took her title for his first ring, and for his second that of her brother. He may have been the father of the monarch (No. 4) who appears as the immediate successor of Achencheres in the tablet of Abydos. IV. The second husband of Amenses (No. 3) was named Amenenthes. She ruled Egypt conjointly with him, and probably with her son also, for several years during the minority of the latter. V. The guardianship of his mother and step- father seems, nevertheless, to have been extremely odious to the young king (No. 4) ; for, on all the monu- ments that remain of him, he has omitted no oppor- tunity either of defacing their names, or of writing over them his own name, or that of his uncle Achen- cheres, or of his grandfather Mesphres. The ex- ample of this defacement was set him by his stepfather Amenenthes, who has overwritten with his own name that of the first husband of Amenses, in many places at El Asasif. Tbis solution appears to us in itself so obvious and * Leps. iii. 26, 4. VOL. IT. 2 C 194 QUEEN AMENSES OMITTED. [chap. IV. natural, and also to account for so many difficulties occurring on monuments in all parts of Egypt, that we do not understand the ground upon which it can be called in question. We have already seen that in the history of this period, resumed by Josephus, Achen- CHERES is said to have been a woman and the sister of her predecessor. We find from the monuments that AcHENCHEEES was succeeded on the throne of Egypt by his sister.* The omission of the name of AmeNses from the tablet of Abydos is generally accounted for by the cir- cumstance that she was a woman. We are disposed to believe that it was in deference to the antipathy of her son to the memory of his step-father, as we would hope, that the first ring of her name, which is equally that of the names of her two husbands, was left out of the royal genealogies. Another and still more revolting reason for the erasure of the name of Amenses, we shall hereafter have to notice. Amenses and her two husbands have gained for themselves a very high monumental fame on the re- mains of Ancient Egypt. The lai'gest and most beau- tiful obelise in the world, that which still remains upright among the ruins of Karnak, was the work of * Bimsen and Lepsius have contrived another theory of this ob- scure succession, based upon the fact that Amkn'Ses, Achexcheres, and Thothmosis, were all the children of Mesphees. It assumes them to have reigned in the order of their seniority. It is certainly true that they had aU one father; but, nevertheless, it is to be feared that Achencheres and Thothmosis were not brothers in any right use of the term. CHAP. TV.] BEAUTIES OF KAENAK. 195 Amenenthes. It is upwards of ninety feet high. The base is eight feet square. It is one block of red gi-anite, highly polished, with reliefs and hieroglyphics of matchless beauty. The inscription on the plinth of this magnificent work of art informs us that it was begun in the fifteenth year of Amenenthes, on the first day of Mechir, the sixth month ; and that it was completed in his seven- teenth year, on the seventh day of Mesore, the twelfth month. Its execution, therefore, occupied two years, six months, and seven days. The number of labourers and skilled artists required for the completion of such a work in a period so comparatively limited, must have been enormous. The portions of the marvellous palace-temple of Karnak in Eastern Thebes, which were really the works of Amenses and her husbands, are now not easily to be distinguished, so greatly have they suffered from dilapidation. There can, however, be no doubt, that they were the first founders of it, and that they dedicated it to the modification of Amun, worshipped in Eastern Thebes, Amun-ra ^tlt!fjQ"~\ o> n:] (d souther. f-j/wvA I y 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Karnak, like Medinet Abou, and, we believe, all the other known temples of Egypt, was begun at the side nearest the mountain and furthest from the river. The most ancient parts of all of them are found in that position. In Western Thebes, Amenses and her husbands carried forward the works which her brother and nephew had begun and left unfinished at Medinet Abou, and 196 EL ASASIF. — OMBOS. [chap, it. ia the small temple of El Asasif in its immediate neighbourhood. This temple was commenced with a speos or artificial cave hewn in the face of the cliff, from the foot of which the rest of its constructions project. In this portion of it, Amenenthes is repre- sented making offerings to the consecrated images of his wife's ancestor. He is accompanied by his step- son in these acts of worship. In another place, Amen- enthes worships the boat or sacred ark of the god to whom he dedicates the temple. In this solemn rite, his step-son and pupil is also associated with him. A daughter of his own is hkewise represented as taking pai't in the ceremony. Neither is the monumental fame of this illustrious queen confined to her capital only. Like her prede- cessors, she left the memorials of her piety towards her country's gods in the rest of Upper Egj^t. The side-post of a gate found at Ombos bears her first name or that of one of her husbands. It is in the same beautiful style of execution : i.e., " the gate erected by Amenses, closing the temple of Sevek." This fragment, which was completed by the son of Amenses, is all that remains of an ancient temple which long afterwards was rebuilt by the Ptolemies : so that the zeal of Amenses and her husbands for the worship of Amun did not interfere with their acts of piety towards the gods of their ancestors. CHAP. IV.] Cleopatra's needles. 197 At the time when the temple of Ombos was rebuilt, this gateway seems to have been the only remain of the ancient structure. It was evidently regarded with religious reverence, carefully built into the new wall, and made a part of its decoration, the gateway being blocked to prevent further defacement. There is yet another monument of the reign of Amenses and her second husband Amenenthes, of even greater historical interest than those we have already mentioned. The magnificent pair of obelises in red granite, which once adorned the entrance to the great temple of the city afterwards called Alexandria, and familiar to all readers as Cleopatra's Needles, were first hewn from the quarries of Syene by Amenenthes. Tlie first husband of Amenses (the possible father of her successor) seems to have survived their marriage but a very short time. The monumental indications of his reign would lead us to infer that, like his wife's father, and probably hke her brother and predecessor also, he perished in battle. Be this as it may, the monumental fact, that under Amenenthes the kingdom of the native Pharaohs had stretched itself as far northward as the shores of the Mediterranean, on the extreme western angle of the Delta, is a sure indication that the war against the Lower Egyptians, begun by Amosis and revived by Achencheres, was kin- dled anew in the times of Amenenthes. It was, in all probability, as a successful warrior that he first aspired to the hand of his sovereign, and it was his military fame that moved her to condescend to his suit. It is remarkable, that though Cleopatra's Needles 198 QUEENS OF AMENENTHES. [CHAP. TV. were completed, and probably brought down the Nile, by the successor of Amenenthes, yet he has not in this instance erased the name against which, on so many other monuments, he seems to have lost no opportunity of giving this utterance to his abhorrence. \\^e pro- bably account for this circumstance by assuming that the city of Racotis (the ancient name of Alexandria) was first annexed to the kingdom of Eg}^pt by Amenenthes, and that his step-son forbore the mutilation in this case as an act of common justice. Amenenthes had two other queens besides Amen- ses. The name of the one was (o^^^Xj fa-nfm, and of the other /^^i^s"^ hi-as-t. He survived A menses for many ^> — =sS — A years, and probably juarried both these ladies after her death. Polygamy always prevailed in Ancient Eg}'pt. The duration of the reign of Amenses is put down in the lists at 22 years. This, however, must be that of her second husband Amenenthes, by whom all the principal memorials of her reign were executed. As he bore her name, it was natural that all his acts should be ascribed to her. It was probably because he had no relationship by blood with the family of Menes, that Amenenthes took his wife's name in Lower Egj^t. His name in Upper Egypt seems to have signified. I to Nu in some temple I He had probably dedi- CHAP IV.] CHRONOLOGY. 199 The actual lapse of time from the conquest of Mem- phis by Amosis, to the death of Amenses and her husbands, is a question of such difficulty, through the continual co-regencies which we have found to occur, and tlirough the want of correctness in the lists and the absence of desire after it in their compilers, that we can only give it proximately, as in many former instances. We shall probably be able to verify our approximation from other quarters hereafter. We have already given the dates entered against each monarch in the lists. It would appear that the twenty-two years of Amenses and her husbands were assigned in the archives of Egypt to her brother and her son, so that they represent no actual time whatever. Such is the inference upon which we are driven by the monumental data which we have so fully explained. Reserving the particulars of this chronology for a future occasion, we merely state now, that about eighty years seem to represent the interval between the capture of Memphis by Amosis and the death of the queen Amenses. This latter event therefore took place about the hundred-and-fiftieth year of the sojourn of Israel in the Delta. Before we proceed with the history of the son of Amenses, whom Manetho names incorrectly the ex- peller of the Shepherds, it will be needful to resume our examination of the obscure annals of the Kings of Lower Egypt. 200 t END OF CHAMBER OF KARNAK. [chap. v. CHAPTER Y. TERMINATrON OF THE CHAJIBER OP KARNAK. — CHILDREN OF ASSES. — SHEPHERD-KINGS IN MIDDLE EGYPT. — ESSIODT. — THOTHMOSIS THE EX- PELLER OP THE SHEPHERDS. — HISTORY EN MANEMHO. — HISTORY ON MONUMENTS. — EXPLOITS IN 21ST, 22ND, AND 23RD YEARS. — JIARRIB8 A DAUGHTER OF MIDDLE EGYPT, AT MEJIPHIS, IN THE BEGINNTNG OF HIS 23RD year. — AVARIS THE PROnTIVE NAME OF THE DELTA. — METALS niPORTED INTO EGYTT BY THE PHENICIANS. — FATHER OF THOTHMOSIS. — HORSE ROADS THROUGH THE DFiTA. — SENT PRESENTS TO AMUN AT THEBES. — THEIR GREAT AilOUNT. — CONTRIBUTION OF THE HER- MONITES. — BRONZE FROM BABYLON. — MENTION OF THE DAUGHTER OP ARVAD, THE WIFE OF THOTHMOSIS. — RETURNS TO THEBES WITH HIS WIFE AND HER DOWRY IN HIS 24TH YEAR. — GRANITE SANCTUARY OF KARNAK ; A HISTORY OF THOTHMOSIS FROM THE 29TH TO THE 35TH YEAR OF HIS REIGN. — WAR IN HIS 29TH YEAR NEAR GHIZEH. — MEMPHIS AGAEf IN THE HANDS OF AN ENEMY. — REPELLED BY THOTHMOSIS. — 31ST YEAR, ATTACK ON HADASHA. CUSTOMS OF WAR. — NAJIE OF ADAM IN EGYPT. — 32ND YEAR MUTILATED. — 33RD TEAR, WAR WITH HETH. — ALL COUNTRIES TO THE EAST OF EGYPT NAHARAIN. — ISRAELITES CALLED HERMON. — 34TH YEAR. — HETH. — THE CANAANITES EN THE DELTA. — SCARCITY OF TIMBER IN EGYPT. — CUSH. — 35TH YEAR. — THE WATERS OF NAHARAIN. — THE PELUSIAC BRANCH. — TREATY WITH HETH. — 39TH YEAR, WAR BROKE OUT AFRESH. — HIS WARS PRINCIPALLY TREATIES. — PROBABLY CEDED THE WHOLE OF HIS LOWER EGYPTIAN POSSESSIONS TO THE XOTTE KING. — TOMB AT GOURNOU. — FOREIGNERS. — BRICKJIAKEBS. — LOWER EGYPTIANS AND CANAANITES. — WORKS IN THE REST OF THEBES ; AT HELIOPOLIS ; AT ALEXANDRIA. — HIS INCESTUOUS PARENTAGE. — LENGTH OF REIGN. We have now reached the latest epoch to which the genealogy of the Chamber of Karnak extends. The CHAP, v.] WORSHIP OF SEPHEES. 201 last of the kings recorded there must, therefore, now be examined. We take them the last in the order of our inquiry ; but they were really the first that were inscribed in the Chamber ; and the displacements which render the other parts of this genealogy so intricate, were suggested by the consecutive arrangement of the two co-regent lines of Lower Egyptian kings, whose history we must now endeavour to unravel. The children of Asses retreated into the Delta, and founded a kingdom, the capital of which was the city of Succoth or Xois. Their dominions appear to have ex- tended as fai' to the northward as the extremity of the cemetery of Memphis, now called Ghizeh. Here they especially devoted themselves to the worship of the god-king Sephees, in his pyramid.* There cannot be a doubt that they proceeded with the elaboration of the sphinx from its living rock, and with the rest of the works of decoration which once adorned the second pyramid and its stupendous precinct. They seem to have entertained the idea of making Sephees a great god in all Egypt, in especial rivalry with Amun. In token of their devotion to Sephees, they all took names which were compounds of his. We have seen f that the second and the third Sesoetoses had both included the same title in their names in Lower Egj^pt, doubtless out of respect to the memory of Sephees. We have also found that Sesortosis IIL was highly successful in his war against his southern enemies of Egypt. His success would, in these remote times, be ascribed to the aid of the deified Sephees, * Vol. i. pp. .301, seq. t Above, p. 12. VOL. II. 2 D 202 CONQUEROK OF MEMPHIS. [chap. v. whose name he had thus honoured. The sons of Asses would, therefore, be encouraged to adopt it in the hope of obtaining the same aid against their southern enemies, the Upper Egyptians. The first of these kings (H 6), must have been a benefactor to his domi- nions, and have had a prosperous and peaceable O reign. The same blessings were, doubtless, also hg. continued to the Xoite kingdom under the reign of his successor (H 7) ; for the names of both these monarchs were long afterwai"ds assumed, under the Saite kings of the 26th dynasty (700 B.C.), by H 7. pretenders to the throne of Eg}-pt in the island of Conosso, which is close to Philae in the south of Upper Egypt, and in Argo, in Ethiopia. This in- teresting fact was elicited by the researches of the Prussian Expedition to Egypt in 1843.* The pros- perity of the Xoite kingdom at this period is still more unequivocally shown by the position of the following name in the Chamber of Karnak (H 8). He was /qN the first king who occupied the post assigned in the general arrangement of the Chamber to the conquerors of Memphis. The order of his h s. succession was not disturbed for the purpose of placing liim there, for the whole Chamber was blank when * See Abt. ii. bl. 151. The style of execution of both the statues and inscriptions, so clearly shown in the beautiful and faithful copies of Lepsius, at once decides the era to which they belong. In the multiplicity of his pursuits, the illustrious author has overseen this palpable fact, and inadvertently arranged them as the work of the kings who first bore the names. The strange whim of these Saite kings, to take the names of their remote predecessors unaltered, often occasions difficulties and raises doubts in the monumental successions. CHAP, v.] THE XOITE KINGDOM. 203 his name and those of the rest of the kmgs of his hne were inscribed. The artist had, therefore, merely to arrange them so as to place him in the post of honour. The name of this monarch differs only in the number of the last group from that of his predecessor, Sesor- Tosis III., in Lower Egypt. It was, doubtless, the success of the former to the southward of his dominions, in the capture of Memphis from the Upper Egyptians, that procured him the distinction of a name thus closely allied to that of the deified conqueror of Ethiopia. Thus does it appear that the three immediate suc- cessors of Asses were illustrious kings, with a pros- perous and progressive kingdom in the Delta, entirely independent of Amosis and his descendants at Thebes ; treating for peace with them, and declaring war against them. This important fact is confirmed by the account of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt. They must have been the subjects of such a kingdom, or their wonderfully rapid advance in numbers and influence would have been impossible. The monuments hitherto discovered afibrd us no data Tvhatever whereby to synchronize these kings and the events of their reigns with the co-regent line of Pharaohs at Thebes ; but we shall find them to aff"ord us evidence amply abundant, that Memphis was re- captured and in the hands of the Lower Egyptians during a considerable portion of this period. It seems likely that this misfortune happened to Upper Egypt during the wars of Mesphres, in Ethiopia,* which would naturally tend to leave defenceless the opposite border of the kingdom. * Above, pp. 179, seq. 204 FATHER KINGS AT KAENAK. [chap. v. Two other successions on the Xoite throne are also Cq^ noted at Karnak. We know nothing of their reigns or history. The last of them ^o" i^^st have been nearly cotemporary with G 1 G 2. Thothmosis. A very few fragments of buildings, with the names of these kings, have occasionally been found at Alexandria, and in other localities of the Delta. These are our only coeval materials for their histories. A still more obscure succession of Phai'aohs seems also to have been co-regent in Middle Egj^pt with the successors of Amosis in Upper Egj-pt, and of Asses in the Delta, during the very difficult interval of our history that is now before us. Our monumental ac- quaintance with them is confined altogether to the Chamber of Karnak, and to the inscription on a single ruined tomb at Essiout, which is in the south of Middle Egypt. From this last monument we find, that they wrote their names in one ring only. It follows from hence, as well as from their position in the upper row of the Chamber of Karnak, that they must have been of the Shepherd or Lower Eg}ptian line of Pharaohs. They are so arranged in the Chamber, that the last of them sits at the head of one of the middle planes (G). The general order of the whole suggests the inference, that this monarch was one of the father-kings of the genealogy, and that he shai^es this peculiar honour with the father of Amosis, who sits immediately below him (F 7), and with Amenemes (B 8), and Menes (C 9), on the opposite side of the Chamber. As this king (whose name is erased) was cotemporaiy with Thothmosis, CHAP, v.] KINGS IN MIDDLE EGYPT. 205 the constructer of the Chamber, or nearly so, it would seem probable that it was as his father-in-law that Thothmosis worshipped him, and that by this mode of pacification the whole of the Middle Egyptian king- dom passed by right of succession to the sovereignty of Thothmosis. We can merely state, concerning this obscure line of Pharaohs, the further probability, that they were the descendants of the Viceroy of Melaneees ; that they assisted Amosis in the capture of Memphis ; that they reigned in some portion of Middle Egypt, the limits of which we are not now able to define, and that they were on terms of friendship and close alliance with the Theban Pharaohs throughout the whole of the present interval. This marriage, by which a large portion of fertile and well-peopled territory was added to the dominions of Thothmosis, was the harbinger of a brilliant and prosperous reign. We have traced the same effect to the same cause on several previous occasions. The succession stands thus in the Chamber of Karnak : G 3. G 4. G 5. G 6. G 7. G 8. The king whose name appears at Essiout (G 6) was a warlike monarch. The all but utterly defaced paintings of the tomb still retain the traces of a corps of soldiers, with the round shield and horned helmet of Arvad. The 206 TOMBS OF ESSIOUT. [chap v. tomb, like so many in its neighbourhood, is of dimen- sions equaUing, at least, the most spacious of those of the days of Aphophis and his successors. Their con- structers had, therefore, a large amount of forced labour at their command. They, doubtless, aided the sons of Amosis in the completion of the conquest of Nubia and Ethiopia. Had the vast series of noble vaults in the rock of Essiout remained in the all but perfect state of preservation in which they were first discovered by Europeans in 1798, we should have been able to have thrown considerable light upon this very obscure incident in the history of Egjpt; but so com- plete has been their wanton destruction by the Turks, that scarcely a dozen groups remain legible in the whole cemetery : whereas, when Denon was in Egypt,* he ex- cused himself from giving specimens of the paintings and inscriptions in the tombs of Essiout, under the plea, that to copy them completely would be the occu- pation of years. This brief episode brings to its termination the genealogy in the Chamber of Karnak, and our certain monumental knowledge of the Xoite kingdom in the Delta. We shall find it shadowed forth in om' subse- quent history under the epithet, at once obscure and opprobrious, of Upper Arvad. We subjoin a diagram of the portion of this chamber, the kings of which face to the right from the entrance. * Voyage m Egypte, vol. ii. p. 5. CHAP, v.] DIAGRAM OF CHAMBER. 207 I—" 1 1 (Id > Co- Co- s •-i OS o 1 HdO Bgen o K Dgen p »— ' ^_ t. p cr ct- ? o !> o >• o a Z (O O 73 m z o I m > z I > > O X 0) o 00 o c 5- 03 CO 1^ a o Ox s « g CO ^ J? CL, > Z 0) O 73 /w^ r-^^ 228 HELIOPOLIS. — AVAEIS. [chap V transcription are the old word, ar, ^^-3, " a city." It is not in the other reading, with the three first characters of which the remainder of the group corresponds. It reads ono, which is the trivial name of the city of Heliopolis, the On, ps, of the Hebrew Bible. It is so written, instead of with its ordinary transcription, ■Q to denote that it was not under the sceptre of ® Thothmosis, but of the king of the Delta, his grandfather or brother-in-law. The utter intolerance of the priesthood branded this monarch a Shepherd, because of his encouragement of the now rapidly in- creasing clan of shepherd strangers that were sojourning in his dominions. The two last characters in the group _ J< before us, mean the lower [or northern] sluice U (flood-gate), and doubtless designate some tract of irrigated land to the northward of the city, the produce of which was devoted by Thothmosis and his father-in-law to the temple of Karnak. Another property was likewise dedicated to the temple, ^.^^ ^ * collected from a locality, the name of which will I I also demand our closest attention. A^A^A^.^\_^ It is of frequent occurrence in the course of the inscriptions now before us. The two first cha- ^/wv\ racters, nk, we have already met with elsewhere,! I I and found to correspond to the Coptic word, 11061K, " pollution," " adultery." It is, therefore, used here as an opprobrious epithet of the district or ter- ritory in question, which is consequently designated by * The first character is tlie tongue of an ox, in the the act of gathermg up the herbage which the teeth have bitten off. t Above, p. 89. CUAP. v.] NAME OF THE EASTERN DELTA. 229 the remaining character in tlie group, the hon. The Eg}'ptian name of the hon was derived from the sound the animal uttered (Copt, uove, Hierog. moo), like that of every other living creatm'e. But the primitive name of the king of beasts was more nobly derived from his gesture and natural qualities, n>-is, aryeh. Singularly enough, the Egyptian texts have preserved the primitive sense, which is lost to the Hebrew, and even the metaphorical or initial use of the lion, in the word Apez, arch, " to guai'd," " to ob- serve."* Now we have lately ascertained, that Manetho used the name 'Aouajsi? as applied to the whole Eastern Delta, if not to the entire district between the mouths of the Nile. ^Ye infer from hence, that Areli or the lion- land, was the ancient name of the Eastern Delta, which Manetho has transcribed in Greek characters, Avaris ; and that being at this period not in the possession of Thothmosis, it is entitled in these inscriptions, the impure lion-land. The great vigilance required by the * The distinctive title of the head of a dynasty {above, p 157), was derived from the vigilant habits of this noble creature. Champollion rightly translated this epithet, " vigilant over both Egypts," though he did not j^erceive the verbal origin of its import. This hieroglyphic group connects the two imports of the word areh, which meant " vigilance " for the purpose of vengeance ; because the lion, from his well-known habit of crouching unperceived for his prey, and then suddenly springing upon it, was made the symbol of the divine vengeance upon transgression, as impersonate in the king. One of che titles assumed by Memnon on the lions of Amoun-tu-enh, is "lion, vigilant in both Egypts." It is also AT~Ti\ about the epoch now before us, that we first find -"J J J \\ the Eumenides, or " goddesses inflicting the divine vengeance " of the Egyptian mythology, represented with the heads of lions. 230 KINGDOM OF THE DELTA. [chap. v. first settlers against their neighbours in the desert of Suez, would naturally suggest this as an appropriate appellation of their eastern border. It appears, that three-fourths of the produce of the districts in question were devoted yearly to the temple of Karnak. The 10th column informs us, that metals of various kinds formed a part of the tribute or dower which Thothmosis received from the king of the Delta. The king, having received this contribution, devoted to the building of the temple gold, silver, bronze, copper, ii-on, tin, lead, and two other mixed metals, the one used in the manufacture of the delicate graving tools of the hieroglypts, the other in the forging of fetters, and all in large quantities. It is important and highly in- teresting to discover here, that even while the Israelites were in Egypt, the vessels of the Phenician traders were exploring the most distant coasts of the Mediter- ranean, and had, probably, already passed the pillars of Hercules ; and that they were bringing to Egypt metals from the mines of Corsica, Spain, and North Africa, and, perhaps, even of England. The indica- tions of extensive foreign traffic and gi'eat internal prosperity in the kingdom of the Delta at this period, which we discover in the text now before us, are at least equally important, as evidences of the truth of the Scriptuve narrative of the sojom-n of the Israelites in Egypt. The following columns of this voluminous inscrip- tion speak in like manner of the pious care and fore- thought of Thothmosis, in providing most amply for CHAP, v.] DEATH OF HIS FATHER. 231 the honour and worship both of his earthly father, and of his heavenly father, Amun. So extensive were his contributions and impositions on the rest of Egypt for the maintenance of the temple, that, besides being recorded upon the walls, the memory of them was perpetuated in songs, the singing of which formed a part of the ritual of worship in the temple of Karnak at all the festivals which he had instituted (c. 12). The death of the father of Thothmosis took place in this his 23rd year (c. 16). On this occasion he directed no fewer than four granite obelises to be sculptured in the quarries, for the decoration of the temple of Karnak. He instituted, also, in memory of the same event, four banquets and two symposia. We need scarcely remind the reader how universal was the custom of funeral banquets in the ancient world. The nobles of Memphis came on this mournful occasion to condole with the young king, and to partake of his hospitality (cc. 16, 17). It is very important to observe, that the name of Memphis in this place is its ecclesiastical or sacred name in Egypt |— j the house of Phtha (c. 17). It is certain, ^ from this circumstance, that Memphis was now in the possession of Thothmosis. He had received it as the dower of his wife. At Heliopolis he reigned jointly with the king of Lower Egypt. This it will be remembered was our conjecture at the outset of this inquiry. The present reading confirms it. Another point, also, of considerable interest appears in the course of this inscription. Thothmosis com- menced on the same occasion, the death of his father, 232 PARENTAGE OF THOTHMOSIS. [chap. v. the Chamber of Kings in this temple, with the contents of which we have ah-eady endeavoured to make our readers acquainted, and which has contributed so largely to the illustration of the history of his predecessors (c. 20.) We are informed, that he constructed it for the purpose of presenting offerings of deprecation to the spirits of his ancestors. Our readers need scarcely be reminded, that on the door-posts of the chamber, Thothmosis is represented in the act of doing so. It is to be hoped that Thothmosis was the son of the first husband of Amenses his mother, as we have assumed. There is, nevertheless, abundant cause for the apprehension that he was born of incest ; and that his father was ]\Iesphkes, who was also his grand- father. This horrid suspicion is excited by erasures of names and other peculiarities on the monuments of this period. If Mesphres really was hving up to tlie 23rd year of Thothmosis, it will at once be perceived how difficult it is to disentangle the actual lapse of time during this epoch from the mesh of co-regencies in which it is enveloped. It appears from the succeeding columns of the inscription before us that Thothmosis, in the several banquets and symposia, and in the various festivals named in the course of it, especially worshipped the spirits of his father, of his ancestors as set forth in the Chamber of Kings, and of his spiritual protogenitor Amun, at Karnak (cc. 23 — 29). The summation of the whole of his offerings concludes the inscription. The number of meat and drink offerings presented by Thothmosis in his 23rd year amounted to 3605, that cn\v. v.] AMOUNT CONTPJBUTED. 233 is, to ten daily, with one for each of the days of the epact. By this we are to understand that ten tables of prothesis were decored and set forth before ten shrines in the temple of Karnak on every day in the year, and one on each of the intercalary days, from the offerings and endowments bequeathed to it in this document. It was probably the great number of religious rites, which occupied the five days at the end of the year, that rendered a greater prescription than the one appointed impossible. The enumeration of the sup- plies for this enormous ritual is so much mutilated, that no instruction would be conveyed by the translation of the fragments that alone remain of it. The valuation of it is also rendered unsatisfactory by our inability to compare it with modern standards of value. It amounts to five measures of pearls, 236 heavy ingots [?] <^-__^ of gold, 58 fears [?] (^^<* (some lighter weight) twenty-four talents [?] ^ and 562 talents of silver III. The inscription which stands next in date and place is so exceedingly mutilated, that it is by no means easy to say what its import may have been.* It con- sists of sixty-seven short columns (about four feet high) of hieroglyphics. The mutilation is principally at the bottom. The first date that occurs is the 8th month (Pharmouthi) of the 22nd year of Thothmosis (c. 6). This was most probably the time of his return from the foreign Northern Expedition, commemorated in the first inscription.! On this occasion he was invested * Abt. iii. Bl. 31 b. t Above, p. 216. VOL. II. 2 H 234 AVARIS. — SEBENNYTUS. [chap. V by the king of the Delta, his futui'e connection, ^vith some high office in his dominions, the symbol or stan- dard of which is unhappily broken off from the end of the line : x^'^^;^ •• ^Mrer"^' [in the] lion-land [city]| (c. 7). We find in the fragment of the next column (8), that in virtue of this appointment, Thoth- Mosis " enlarged the borders of Egypt." ^Ye have already noticed the same expression connected with the same locality : so that our proof, that " the lion-land," or Avaris, is the Delta, is hereby rendered nearly com- plete. The next legible passage, however, still more stronglv confirms it. The tribute or spoil was collected at j' J y a name with which the inscription of <=:>\ □ the prince Amosis, at Eilethya, had already made us familiar. \ ^Ye have translated it " the garden-quarter of Henes," or Sebennytus, in the Eastern Delta. The same fact is expressly declared in the place before us. Hen or Hanes is said ( Z,^ to lie (Copt. ca-I- he * The young unfledged crane or stork is used initially to denote ''the bearer" of a standard, of a sceptre, or any other ensign of office. This use has probablj' arisen from the circumstance, that the parent-birds of this kind may often be seen in the breeding season flying with their young in their bills, or between their feet, to convey them to places of security. t It is not easy to ascertain the distinction between the cake, COK, BAKI, "a city," and the commoner determinative of the names of places, "the mountain." ^^^^^ They seem to inter- change with each other rather for pictorial eSect, thiin on account of any difference of meaning. X Above, p. 164. CHAP, v.] HERMOrOLIS IN THE DELTA. 235 down") 7n towards, "at the beginning," L I ''^^P'iJl^'Hx^^ " ^^^^ aare-tho," which is the phonetic transcription of Avaris, the primitive name of the Delta. It is so written here, instead of with the Hon, only for the convenience of filling up the column.* The whole fragment (cc. 12, 13) reads thus : " to the stronghold of Hanes, which lies on the border of Avaris, were brought the spoils [goods] of the cities [seats] of the land, and stored [or embarked] there for the king." Our examination, therefore, of these fragments has afforded us much valuable infor- mation, though it has not given us any clear conception of its import. We gather from it, that Thothmosis was presented with some district or tax in the Delta, the produce of which he brought to Sebennytus and embarked on the Nile for Thebes. The transaction, the narrative of which immediately follows, is dated the 4th of Mesore (the 12th month), in the 23rd year of Thothmosis. On that day all the ceremonies of his coronation were completed in the city of Hermopolis parva || ^ ^ , which is in the Western Delta f (c. 14). r^^^ The mode of writing this name [ar-tt] i.e. " the city of Thoth," shows * The last syllable in this name, A o tfu), is most probably the grammatical affix of the Hebrew, dh _ffK nn, which, thus united with the name of a place, signifies motion towards it. + The name Thothmosis had doubtless been assumed by his an- cestors on some occasion connected with this locality ; possibly, the founding of Hermopolis Magna, in Middle Egypt, 236 PERAMOUN. — MIGDOL. [chap. v. at once that this city also was subject to the king of Lower Egypt.* On the 5th day of the same month (c. 15) Thoth- Mosis went forth from that city to tranquilhze, by chastisement or victory, some locaUty whose name is erased, also (c. 16) "to watch over the fulfilment of the words [stipulations] of this twice-smitten evil race, and thereby to enlarge (c. 17) the borders of Egypt according to the command of his father, Amun-re, the tranquillizer, the victorious (c. 18), who leads into captivity [his enemies]." In the same year, on the 16th of the same month, he attacked a city, the name of which is thus written : r\ Ham. "\Ye believe this to be Peramoun I'^n r^^^ ill the Delta.f Its name is thus dis- guised because it was not in the hands of Thothmosis. "And he commanded (c. 19) his victorious soldiers to assault the gate, and to call upon this fallen race to .... [erased] (c. 20) of Chadasha. I Then the king marched and entered into Migdol [mhto]" ^sJv^T^ ' This is the Hebrew, and the q D Coptic, u6^yTuj.\, " a tower." ^Ye shall find, that it was a common appellative of all the frontier fortresses on the north-east border of Egypt, which were very numerous. It seems especially to have been applied to the strongholds on the sea-coast. (c. 21). " At this time he gathered together unto him all the chiefs of the land" (c. 22). "From all the waters of Egypt, even unto the borders of Naha- * Infra, p. 262. t See Map, vol. i. p. 230. :}: A city iu the desert of Suez. Its position we will hereafter endeavour to ascertain. CHAP, v.] ALKAM. — SIUPH. 237 rain " (c. 23). " The bondslaves of Tyre, and the bondslaves of Heth, then' horses and their war- riors" (c. 24). "That he might say unto them, ' I have cast you down by my victories ' " (c. 25). "At Migdol. Speak ye, therefore, unto me, the king" (c. 26). " They said unto his majesty all of them, ' Like a sun-god thou comest (c. 27). Strew ye with flowers this evil way [that is, this way through a countiy that did not belong to him] whereon he travels'" (c. 28). " Spoken were these words of the bondslaves as they stood before his majesty " (c. 29). " The ways are many, that behold a horse can- not pass along them " (c. 30). " The generations of men are like unto nothing [before him] " (c. 31). " They that would contend with him are as nothing. He makes for himself a broad path (c. 32) through this great land of Avaris. None contend against him, be- cause the broad paths wherein he marches " (c. 33). " He is the first to make plain the paths through it [Avaris]" (c. 34). " This great city of Ako." ^ ^ ■ This is most probably the city called at tins day Alkam. It is situated on the Canopic or western branch of the Nile.* It was the road made by Thoth- Mosis across the Delta, from east to west, that was commemorated in the obscure passages that precede. "Moreover" (c. 35). " We went forth the way of the north unto Siuph " tsfut. This city was also on the Canopic branch, and to the northward of Ako or Alkam. f * Champollion, Egypte sous Us Pltarcwns, il. 246. t Idem, p. 220. 238 HOESE-KOADS IN THE DELTA. [chap. v. (c. 36). "A sun-god he went forth, even our lord the king. Before his face our hearts [trembled]" (c. 37) " Let us go forth to make the ways [even unto] the borders, place thou" (c. 38). "The boundaries by smiting" (c. 39). "The chief of Lower ^OyP^ [probably the king of the Delta] ^ I spake unto them the words of his majesty in the inner house of his presence " ^ry n i r\ (c.40). "' I am the friend ^fpL-lT^^l of the sun, Phre [the god of Lower Egypt]. I celebrate in songs my father, Amun [the god of Upper Egypt]. I am his offspring (c. 41). From him is my pure life ; I command you to make plain this great path (c. 42) through the land of Avaris, that I may march through your country along these [paths] (c. 43) that ye have made plain. Ye are commanded, go ye (c. 44), with you is this service of his majesty, also with them, even with these (c. 45) the smitten ones, hateful to Phre [the god of Lower Egypt] ; them his majesty commands (c. 46) also. Make ye plain here a path for our footsteps, and for theirs also [the army]'"(c. 47). " They reply to his majesty, ' Perfect is thy father, Am an, the lord of the three capitals of both Eg}-pts in Thebes (c. 48). Let us serve thy majesty'" (c. 49). " Behold the carved work of the gate " [is com- pleted] (c. 50). " Before the face of the wai-riors; therefore" (c. 51) "made plain is the way of Amun " (c. 52). " Let me live through thy word " (c. 53). " The governor of Lower Eg}'pt and his majesty (c. 54) going forth to command his war- riors himself" (c. 55) "in marching, that a horse CHAP, v.] GREEK NOTICE OF THEM. 239 might travel through on his highway (c. 54) with these soldiers." These disjointed fragments of a composition, in itself most verbose and obscure, seem to convey the following facts ; — On the 16th of Mesore, in the 23rd year of his reign, Thothmosis was at Peramoun, and received an embassy of congratulation, with presents, from Chadasha in the desert. The ambassadors had proceeded thither from one of the frontier fortresses (Migdol), where, probably, they had left their present, borne, as it would appear, by Tyrian and Hittite slaves and horses.* It seems pretty certain that there were no great number of either. Had this been the case, the enumeration would have been given. Thothmosis, however, dis- covered that the roads across the Delta were in such a state, and so intersected with canals of irrigation, that horses could not travel on them. He therefore directed that a highway should be made, that horses might travel upon, from Peramoun to Alkam and Siuph, on the western branch of the Nile, where probably his flotilla lay at anchor. The soldiers, assisted by slaves brought from Canaan, were set to work for the per- formance of this service. Decidedly as this explanation gives to the entire document the air of " much ado about nothing" (which is the general character of these inscriptions), it, never- theless, affords an important verijBcation of our reading of the present text. Herodotus informs usf that the Delta was intersected everywhere with horse-roads ; and * If, indeed, the ambassadors themselves be not thus designated, t ii. c. 108. 240 SLAVES SENT TO KARXAK. [chap. v. that it was renowned throughout the ancient world for its adaptation to equestrian exercises and fights with chariots. We find in this inscription the distinct state- ment, that these horse-roads in the Delta were begun by Thothmosis and the king of Lower Egypt, in the 23rd year of the reign of the former; and that before this time the Delta was impassable for horses, which also became the condition to which it was afterwards again reduced by Sesostris, through the many chan- nels of irrigation which he opened in all directions, as Herodotus goes on to inform us in the same passage. We seem, therefore, to have rightly decided that the lion -land of this inscription is Avaris, or the Delta. (c. 56). " In the 23rd year [of Thothmosis], on the 19th day of ]\Iesore, the captives were brought (c. 57) to the dwelling of the king in the district or stronghold of Avaris, and he commanded (c. 58) that the slaves of his majesty should be embarked for the abode of his father Amun-re at Thebes" (c. 59) " in the presence of Phre, the god and king." The remaining lines are too much mutilated to admit of being so connected as to illustrate the import, which in itself is obvious enough. After having passed three days in giving directions for the construction of horse- roads in the Delta, Thothmosis embarked for Thebes, at Heliopolis, certain bondslaves whom he had pur- chased and devoted to Amun. The historical truth concealed beneath the pompous words and stilted phrases of this document amounts to this. Thothmosis, w4iile in the Delta, on the occasion perhaps of his marriage, suggested to the Lower CHAP, v.] EASTERN AND WESTERN DELTA. 241 Eg}-ptian king that horse-roads should be made through his dominions for their more effectual defence. The suggestion was adopted; and the armies of Lower Egypt, with the assistance of bondslaves, were set to work at their construction. Thothmosis then sent an oflfering by water from Heliopolis to the temple of Karnak. IV. A portion of entirely ruined wall separates the present inscription* from the preceding one, of which the dates show it to be the continuation and sequel. The first legible column informs us that Thothmosis, having conquered the Nether or Western Avaris with his armies (c. 2), went forth into the Former or Eastern Avaris to dig fosses. r\ <;5=> bidls, coios, geese " From hence to _^CI^ the end of the line, all is destroyed. The few grains of history embodied in this fragment are worth gathering up. The tone of it is decidedly more warlike than that of the previous inscriptions. It is not a mere gathering of spoil, like the former ones, which renders the reality of their testimony more * This is the hieroglj-phic name for the Great Pyramid. 260 MEMPHIS TAKEN AGAIN. [chap. v. than doubtful. On the other hand, here are five troops of soldiers sent (victorious, of course, in these inscriptions) to take a hostile city. The king's son, also, pleases his father greatly, doubtless by some ex- ploit in war. This precocious hero could not be more than four or five years old; but we have seen long ago at what a very tender age the kings of Egypt began to command armies and to achieve victories, according to the archives of the priests.* The war concluded, a religious assembly was held at Ghizeh, which is, as we have often explained, the site of the Great Pyramid, and the nortliern ex- tremity of the cemetery of Memphis. There can be no doubt that the immediate neighbourhood of this locality was the seat of the wai', and therefore that once more the subject of this boastful strain was a civil war. The fragment of the next column completely veri- fies this indication. Column 3. " We raise up these fallen ones of the land of Noph, . The tribute of the commander of this fortress r-^-^ was 329 [rings]; viz., rings of solid silver 100, rings of gold 100, bars of wrought metal, and vessels of copper, and of bronze, and of iron. These are embarked on a vessel." All again to the end of the line is mutilated. A very important fact is conveyed by this fragment. Memphis is once more in the hands of the enemy. Not only does the mode of writing the name tell this fact unmistakably, but the context is just as explicit. * Vol. i. pp. 52, 57. CHAP, v.] ITS NAME. HOW WRITTEN. 261 It seems to imply that Thothmosis had friends and partizans in Memphis. We quote here the entire sentence. The importance of the history contained in it renders this necessary. The word Noph (?id) has already oc- curred in the course of this series. It will not be altogether unknown to the English reader, as the Scripture name of a city of Egypt. It has long been familiar to scholars as the Hebrew name for Memphis. Cham- pollion was the first to point out its derivation from the vulgar or trivial name of this city, which so frequently occurs in hieroglyphics, * ^xx^ + ^ mn-nfr or mif ; foriiocipe /w\aa,Q @ and ijorqe equally mean " good " in the Coptic texts ; the final r being elided as usual. Noph, then, is the abbreviation of the trivial name of Memphis, mn-mif, whereby that city was known to the inhabitants of Canaan. This appears plainly from the Hebi'ew Bible. But the Noph of our text is also within the precincts of Eg}^pt, for we have already discovered that one of the actions of this same cam- paign took place at Ghizeh, which is a part of the cemetery of Memphis. We infer, therefore, that by the Noph of the inscription before us, we are to under- stand the city of Memphis, with its surrounding nome or province, which being once more in the possession * Above,, p. 92. 262 HERMOPOLIS. — HETH. [chap. v. of the Lower Egyptians, was again branded with its ordinary appellation in the language of Canaan. This name, it is needful to explain, was identical in meaning, as well as in sound, with the Egyptian word whence it was derived ; for ^"53, in Hebrew, means " fair," " good," like iioT<|e in Coptic. Column 4. "All the other good things [spoils] the Icing had sent in a ship to Upper Egypt [the hlack land] [distributing it] equitably [among the temples]. Afterwards his majesty attacked the fort of ar-ttu, and cut off its provisions, and the strength thereof altogether. Then " [a long erasure]. The spoils of the campaign being forwarded to Eg3 pt, Thothmosis makes a successful attack upon another city, the hieroglyphic name of which we have before read ar-ttu* The first syllable, ar, is a very common prefix to these hieroglyphic names of foreign cities to the northward. It is the Hebrew word, "T'y, ar, *' a city," which we have already detected in an exactly similar combination with the Coptic name of one of the cities of the Delta, nepAuoru.f The second syllable, ttu, or tut, is evidently a disguised mode of writing the name of the god Thoth ; because the city designated is in the hands of a foreign power. It scarcely, therefore, admits of question, that the next warlike exploit of Thothmosis was an attack on Hermopolis, which was situated on the extreme western border of the Delta, and in the vicinity of Alexandria. It is worthy of note, that at this latter city are many well-known memorials of the reign of Thothmosis. It is very * Above, p. 235. tVol. i. p. 340. CHAP, v.] A VICTORY NEAR MEMPHIS. 263 desirable that the ruins of HermopoHs, which are situated in a salt mai'sh about ten miles S.W. of Alex- andria, should be examined also. The one group that remains unerased of the rest of this column is the name of the Canaanite kingdom of Heth. i Tk \\ We shall hereafter consider it in its -mVP"^"^ present apparent connection. Column 5. " They brought wine to drink, also they brought vessels or jars of sweetmeats. Likewise the soldiers of the body-guard put on board the ships abun- dance of siveet-scented wood, of incense, and of myrrh. Also they cleared altogether the vines, and brought the fruit to his majesty in " This passage evidently discourses of some triumph. The tenor of it seems to imply that there were those in the enemies' quarters who rejoiced in the success of Phai-aoh. The soldiers are treated with delicacies, and presented with perfumes and with fruits, which they bring unto Pharaoh. Column 6. " Incense, jars of dried fruits, honey 470 measures, wine 6428 measures, iron, lead, wrought metal, beaten work [?], oxen 618, sheep or goats 3636, corn [lit. ' bread immense quantities [probably any amount that might be demanded] [a long erasure] for the ivhole district of Noph " /VAAA r-to-nb - iiuf. The last three characters, nuf, are, we presume, another mode of writing Noph, the Canaanitish name for Memphis. The enumeration of properties, there- fore, at the commencement of the line is the record of 264 THIRTIETH YEAR OF THOTHMOSIS. [chap. V. the tribute laid by Thothmosis -upon the nome of Memphis upon its recapture. Column 7. " Every day there were the like panegyries throughout the land of Egypt." With this fragment, the history of the 29th year of Thothmosis concludes. It seems to have been signalized by the recapture of Memphis with great spoil, and by the overthrow of Hermopolis in the Delta. These successes were cele- brated in religious festivals throughout Egypt. Column 7 (continued). "In his BOth ijear, then the Tcing u-as in the land of Arvad [Lower Egypt], and he sent forth* six troops of the soldiers \ of his majesty, which marched against the stronghold of Chadasha, and smote it, and destroyed the buildings, and hewed down the trees and put a tribute on the plains .... and quarried the mountains. Then they attached the strong- hold of " Column 8. " The mercy of the king was extended to [lit., came iqmn] the chiefs of Arvad in that year. Then came the children of those chiefs and their brethren, that they might be \ soldiers in Upper Egypt. Then, forsooth, he wlio was lord over these ghosts of dead chiefs besought the king to come and dispose of his throne and * f^^"^ ill col- 1 5 • ^oth the determinatives have powers closely allied, and signify "marching" or "trarelling." The cor- responding Coptic word is OVOT, "ready," "obedient." t See col. 1, lit., " of victorious ones." X This word, nsJU, means "soldier," "winner of victories;" also " troops of soldiers," as well as " victory." CHAP, v.] ITS HISTOEY. 265 of Ids house, and to he in all things the guardian of liis children, and to " Column 9. " Wrought in gold and silver hy the labour of forty smiths." This passage suggests the probabihty that the brother-in-law of Thothmosts, the king of Lower Egypt, was still in the close alliance with him which we found to exist in the former inscriptions. He, as well as the troops of Thothmosis, had suffered by the hostile aggression (from whatever quarter it came), which had wrested Memphis from their joint dominion; and it was doubtless at his instance that the present expedition was undertaken. The invaders, being driven from Memphis in the campaign of the 29th year, appear to have fled to the fortress of Chadasha in the desert. Six troops or cohorts, detached from the armies of Upper and Lower Egypt, followed them thither, sacked that fort, and another the name of which is erased, and returned to Egypt with considerable booty. In requital of these services, the king of Lower Egypt enlarged somewhat the kingly prerogative of Thoth- mosis at Memphis or Heliopohs, probably at both. The sons of Lower Egypt became officers in the army of Thothmosis ; and a superb throne, inlaid with silver and gold, and exercising the long-continued labours of forty artificers, was erected for Thothmosis in the palace of Heliopolis. Such appears to be the history of the 30th year of the reign and hfe of Thothmosis, recorded in these obscure fragments. Column 9 (continued). 31st year. " On the first VOL. II, 2 M 266 ATHRTBIS A STRONGHOLD. [chap. v. three days of the month Epep [the 11th month], his majesty assembled his captives, and he arose and brought his captives to the stronghold of Athribis, which is upon the borders of the land, [and] surrounded by a moat, even 490 living captives with [long erasure] of the smitten race The name of this stronghold has not before been ascertained. ^.^ — ^ ■r^ > The first character is in our Jl I ^ Alphabet.* It is the picture of a terminal mark, and the initial of the word pne; in Coptic, niiue, " a threshold," " a boundary." It begins thus the hieroglyphic name of another city of Eg}-pt, ^ which we have found to be On, or Heliopohs. Jj, ^ This city stood on the eastern confines of Egypt, and therefore it was called i.e., "border On," or " On, on the border." For exactly the same reason the place denoted by the present gi-oup was named pne-ritb,\ i.e., " Athribi, on the border." It was the city called Athribis by the Greeks, which stood on the same border, to the north-eastwai"d of Heliopolis, on the Phathmetic branch. ^^'''^^ nte, " which [is]." I hi, " upon." — H — spt, "extremity," "outward hmit" (Coptic, cton, "angle," "corner"). This group is ■* No. 103. t In the transcription of this name at Mediuet Abou, the t precedes the r. Such changes are verj' common. CHAP, v.] TEIUMPHANT MARCH. 267 determined by the picture of an irrigated field, bounded by two channels issuing from the same sluice. si (Coptic CA, "wrap," "surround"), " surrounded." /m^ "by." , "a" (Coptic or, indefinite article). ■) ( she-sJcr, "a moat," "a foss " (Coptic ^yHi P ^ same group that we found translated in the Y^fG Rosetta inscription, to jSao-jXixov, " the palace." We have the same authority for the rendering of the words " the healthy," or " whole." This group n i n also is translated by the word vyna.v, " health," f T^l in that document. It often denotes, " the presence of the king," which, according to this flatter}', im- parted " health." The position of this word in the sentence before us exemplifies a pecuhaiity of the syntax of the hieroglyphic writings, of which we like- wise found an instance in the Rosetta inscription. ^Ye noticed there a considerable departure from the natural arrangement of the words of two clauses of a sentence, in order that the two antagonist epithets, " old " and " new," might occur together. I The same inversion has taken place in the fragment before us, for the purpose of making the opposite quahties, " whole " and " sick," immediately to follow one another (Groups 7 and 8). The word translated "sick" or "maimed," will * tlosetta II. 8. t Ibid. V. 8. + Ibid. III. 16, 17. CHAP, v.] ATHOM AND HIS TITLES. 271 require a longer notice than we intended to have given to any single group. The meaning, however, which it seems to us to bear, is of importance enough to justify the explanation. The name of the local god of Heliopohs n ^ reads atm. We have found him to be a deification of Adam, the father of mankind. The mythic definitions of this divinity are singular. His name is frequently written thus:* ^rii^ i.e., "the double or second Athom;" "^^^^^^K^l® whereby it would appear, we are to understand that Athom existed both on earth and in heaven. He is also entitled everywhere, " Athom," or " Re- Athom, the father of the gods ; " and when the soul in the world of spirits is born of one of the mother-goddesses, it is said to become one of ^ n n a A e\ I v " the descendants (lineage) sfimr of the double (or second) Athom for ever."f These remarkable titles seem to have associated Athom with the paternity of the human race in the mythology of Ancient Egypt. Our inquiry now diverges in another and very different direction. The group before us (8) ^ n is, it will be observed, identical in characters '^HET^ with the name Athom. It is a verb or verbal noun of by no means uncommon occm-rence, and would seem to be an application of the proper name atm, or " Adam," to certain subjects of speech, of which that name was itself suggestive to the inventors of the * See Todtenbucb, § 3, 1, &c. i Id. § 17, title. Sarcophagus of Nitocris, British Museum, &c. 272 HIS IDENTITY WITH ADAM. [CHA . V. language. "To be sick, lame, or halt," was one of them, the equivalent for which still remains in the Coptic texts in the words tuju, 'Mame," blind;" tuh, " a mat or couch for the sick." We might also point out other words in the Coptic language which seem to have had their designations from this name. Such are oeuio, " dust," TAuiA, " to create," and others. The reasons, therefore, which have decided the import of the group before us are very obvious. The inventors of the system knew that Adam's disobedience "brought death into the world with all our woe," and therefore they applied his name to " disease," " infirmity," and *' death." These are but shadows, it is true, but it must be remembered that even a shadow is the indication both of the substance that casts it, and the light beyond which it intercepts. \Ye submit that both are here. We will only further remark, that it was the analogy of the other names of the gi-eater gods of Ancient Eg}^pt which alone led us to seek for Athom in the name Adam; and that we did not at all consider in so interpreting it, that the beatified spirits in the next world were called the children of the second Athom ; and that the name itself is associated with so many of the peculiar qualities of the first father of mankind in both transcriptions of the language of Ancient Egypt. One of the customs pecuhar to the remote age of the world of which we are treating, is also hinted at in the fragment before us. The expression, " many were the maimed in theh hands on account of that CHAP, v.] COLLECTION OF TEIBUTE. 273 which had been done to them when their country was taken," tells very plainly of the fearful usages of war that prevailed in the days of Thothmosis, and long afterwards. The revolting cruelties to which prisoners of war of all ranks and degrees were ex- posed in these ages, justify the rigorous decree which commanded Joshua to put all the Canaanites to the sword, as, on the whole, an act of humanity. 39nd year. The inscription is now becoming, un- happily, still more disjointed. The transactions we have just related, as well as those which follow next in order, are without date. The record of the commencement of the 32nd year of Thothmosis has perished; a circumstance which involves in great obscurity the whole of this part of the inscription. The 14th, 15th, and IGth columns are principally occupied with the enumeration of the spoils brought to Egypt, and the tribute imposed upon the conquered countries. The spoils were " corn in abundance, tim- ber, cakes of figs, jars of wine." These were borne by captives (cc. 14, 15). The tribute imposed in the 32nd year consisted of 343 great cattle, brought to Egypt in boats, the boats themselves to be built by the captives (c. 16). Ebony and ivory, in pieces of prescribed measure, are also mentioned before the mutilation occurs at the end of column 16. In column 17, the king commands the conquered country to bring their tribute in boats built by themselves, and that the boats, as well as their contents, shall likewise be part of the payment. VOL. II. 2 N 274 HETH IN HIEROGLYPHICS, [chap. v. Column 17 (continued). 33rd year. " In his 33rd! year, the king was in the land of Arvad " Column 18. " King Mesphres. Then the Mng brought all the prisoners from the plunder of the forts and the plunder of the lands of Heth, even the smitten of the land of Naharain " The broken sentence which begins this last frag- ment may possibly have related to the completion by Thothmosis of some work begun by his grandfather and father Mesphres. The prisoners named in the other part were probably employed upon it. The name of their country will require our attention; TL htu. We see no reason to doubt that JT ^^"^^ this is another mode of writing the name of a tribe of Canaauites, written here and else- where on the walls of the palace of Karnak with the following varieties of homophons. £2i suggestion, The inhabitants of this land are named in the same \Ye long ago hazarded the which we now see no reason to modify, that Heth and the Hittites are meant by these groups of hieroglyphics. Probably these were slaves imported from Canaan ; they are therefore said to be from Naharain, which is used, in these inscriptions, as the generic name for all countries over the north-eastern boundary of Egypt. Column 19. "To him leading also shepherds' dogs his [or their] land; then tlie horses " CHAP, v.] SENSE OF NAHAEAIN. 275 The dogs mentioned here were either shepherds' dogs, or dogs for hunting the gazelle. It is uncertain which. Column 20. " maid- servants 30, men-servants [lit., men of the fist, men grasped by the hair, prisoners of war] 80, men and women to he ransomed ivith their children 606. The ivomen were collected." This looks like the surprise and capture of a caravan of Hittites in the desert of Suez, who were admitted to ransom. Column 21. " [of] the city of Nineveh. All this [spoil] the hing brought, and emharhed in ships on the Nile [after] he had planted [or set up] his tablets [of separation or appropriation] in Naharain, to enlarge the borders of Egypt " It is to be regretted that the production from the well-known city of Nineveh has disappeared. We have akeady found, and shall soon find again, that Babylon was celebrated for the founding of bronze. The remainder of this fragment is very important to decide the sense in which Naharain is used in these inscriptions. We have often explained this sense to be indefinite, and to apply to all districts whatever without the north-eastern border of Egypt. We have here the full confirmation of this reading. Thoth- Mosis brings his spoil to embark on the Nile, and then sets up his tablets of separation j''' dividing a portion of uuf (Copt. OTU), OTO'I-, "to separate "). These tablets were termiual marks, set up by the victor or acquirer of a district without the bounds of 276 SPOILS OF THE SHEPHERDS, [chap. v. territoiy from Naharain, and adding it to Eg}'pt. Evidently, therefore, the two countries bordered on each other, and were in the vicinity of the Nile. This, we presume, is undeniable ; so that by Naharain the desert of Suez must here be understood. It is of great importance to the reading of these inscriptions, that this point should be well understood. The strong proof to be derived from it, that the first settlers came from Naharain, and therefore applied the name to the whole region in the dn-ection of their first journey from thence, will probably also interest some of our readers. Column 22. " men and women for ransom 513, horses 260, gold in solid rings 85, in ingots 9, silver and gold vessels of the fabric of the land of Heth " The land of Heth is here celebrated for the manu- facture of gold and silver vessels. We are not aware that this ancient fact is supported by any other au- thority. Column 23. " calves and draught oxen 28, great cattle 564, goats 5323, incense 828 measures, calces of figs " Column 24. " those of the land of the Shep- herds ivho had -petitioned that in all things according to their prayer their yearly tribute should be according to their means. Also, the artificers of Hermon [Phenicians] Egypt. They were set up by Nahrai and his family ou the lands they reclaimed on both boundaries ; e.g., " he set up a tablet on the south, he sculptured two to the northward " (cc. 32, 33). The tablets on the rocks of the Wady Meghara are of the same char- acter. CHAP, v.] TANIS IN THE DELTA. 277 /WW\ la that their yearly tribute should he according to their means. Also, the chiefs of Herman " The actual spoil of the expedition was the subject of the former line. In the column before us we have the settlement of the yearly tribute which the con- quered city or district was to remit to Egypt. The word we translate " shepherds," is identical with that we so translate in column 12. There is but one other word which will require any notice. fr^ tun, determined by the finger or I club, the sign of barbarism or mis- belief. It is the Coptic word. Timer, " to drive," " to wrest by force." It evidently means the forced levy (" tribute ") imposed upon a conquered nation. The palm branch with the sign of symbolism means, we need not say, " annual." The Phenician settlers of the ceded or conquered district, we find to be put to tribute by Thothmosis, as foreigners. There is every probability that the Israel- ites would be included in the epithet Hermonites, together with all other foreigners in the portion of the Delta, that on this occasion fell to Upper Egypt. Column 25. " to your land. Then the chiefs brought into the city of San [Tanis], in Lower Egypt, bronze in bars [number broken ofi"], bronze in solid rings 24, bronze of the land of Babel " The proper names in this column will require notice. This group is the disguised trans- ^^^j^^lC:^ scription of the name of the city of Tanis. We have often explained, that when the name 278 IN THE HANDS OF THE XOITES. [chap. v. is thus transcribed, it always denotes that the place is in possession of some foreign power. The two last characters read kri, and mean the " lower " or " northern gate " [" border "]. The name of the locahty is embodied in the two first characters s-n, in which there is no diffi- culty in recognizing the name of the city of Tanis ; the IV^, Zoan of the Hebrew Bible, and the xaiih * of the Coptic texts. This city is on the extreme north-eastern limit of Eg}'pt, and is therefore termed " northern " or " lower." It is near the sea, and surrounded by low marshy flats. Its trivial name alludes to this circum- stance. It is derived from the word xAiie, " low," " depressed." The extent of the vicissitude undergone by the kingdom established by Amosis in North Egypt is remarkably illustrated by this transcription. We found the record of the conquest of Tanis, as of Mem- phis, by him in the tomb of Eilethya. It now plainly appears that both had been wrested from his successors by the kings of the Delta. Memphis may, possibly, have been recovered by Thothmosts by treaty or as the marriage-portion of his queen. But we have seen sufficient evidence of the precarious nature of his tenure of it.f These indications of the gi-eat power and vigour of the Xoite kingdom in the Delta at this time, though indhect, are very decided. Tanis was not finally annexed to the Upper Egj-p- tian dominion until a century afterwards, by Sethos L It was now in the possession of the king of the Delta. * ChampoUion, EgyiJte sous les Pharaons, vol. ii. p. 108. t Above, p. 261. CHAP, v.] NAME OF THE CAMEL. 279 We have elsewhere noticed the occurrence of the name of Bahylon in connection with the manufacture of bronze. Column 26. " 15 ingots and bars of the land. Great ivas the yearly tribute, even bars of silver, 8 ; wrought rings, solid, 301 ; jasper and marble, great blocks borne " Column 27. " Naharain to enlarge the borders of Egypt. Three camels' [?] loads icere brought to the king from the city of Phenne for this year. Also heavy pearls, USA; gold " We venture here to translate "camels," a sin- gular character of not uncommon occurrence. » The camel was altogether unclean in Ancient Egypt, and therefore never permitted to cross its borders. The hieroglj^pts who executed these inscrip- tions had never seen the animal. The strange grotesque before us we believe to have been the impression carried to Thebes of this unknown beast, by some scribe who had accompanied Thothmosis, and seen the camels that brought this present (or purchase) crouching on the sand. We long ago identified Phenne in hieroglyphics as the city so named in the Greek itineraries, and the Punon of the Hebrew Bible. It was situated in the rocky ravines of Mount Hor, and was celebrated for the mines and quarries in its vicinity. The contribu- tion or purchase, specified in the passage before us, consists, it will be observed, altogether of the produce of such a locality. Column 28. " Calves 114, bulls total of great 280 HETH IN EGYPT. [chap. v. cattle 419; brought and embarhed in ships of burden, built of fir-ivood. Together with all the best produce of the land " Column 29. Bulls 60; total 104; brought and em- barked on ships of burden, tcith all the best produce, for the land-tribute, and for the ivater-tribute, and for the house-tribute likewise." This sum of the contributions of the 33rd year is far too much mutilated to afford us any clue whatever as to its actual value. Some inconsiderable act of war, and some trifling accession to Egj'pt from the eastern desert, are the only particulai-s wherein the record of this year differs from the accounts of former years. Column 29 (concluded). 34th yeai*. " In his Mth year ; then the king loas in the land of Heth " Column 30. " The yearly tribute of the captured fortresses. Each fortress \].it., fortress with fortress] com- pleted the delivery [assembly] of them in the land of On. The total [was] captives led icith the cord " The land of Heth was mentioned in the course of the 29th year, in a connection which seemed to in- dicate that this tribe of the Canaanite confederacy had possessions in the land of Eg}-pt. It would appear that Hermopolis was in the possession of Heth. The passage before us seems to imply that the conquered district of the 33rd year was also theirs. The Canaanite colonists, who settled in the Delta, carefully preserved their national distinctions, and no intermixture took place at this time, either with the other tribes of Canaan or with the Lower Egyptians. They dwelt in separate cities, and remained Hittites and Ai-vadites in CHAP, v.] FANCY WOODS AND TIMBER. 281 Egypt, just the same as on the other side of the desert of Suez. This want of national oneness among the subjects of the Xoite kingdom weakened it and led to its ultimate fall. It is scarcely to be doubted, that in the civil war actually before us, the Hittite subjects of the king of the Delta had revolted and seized upon Memphis. Thothmosis came to the assistance of his relative, and gained some advantages, the spoils of which he devoted to the construction of the palace of Karnak. The city of Heliopolis was the magazine in which he collected the fruits of the last year's campaign. It lay to the southward of Tanis, and therefore nearer to Thebes. We suspect that the enumeration was re- peated at length once more in these boastful and mendacious records. For this reason there is nothing to interest the reader in columns 31 and 32, which merely repeat the counting of the spoil of the preceding year, with the exception of a single passage in the latter fragment, which reads thus : " ebony, acacia ivood, knotted or mammellated wood in planlcs, completed (i. e., polished off), with great abundance Wit., many thousands] of planhs of timber for building, wrought with tools of metal. Also of polished blocks of egg-shaped jasper [pudding-stone ? ], and fair or beautiful tvood of every kind " Very little timber ever grew in the land of Egypt. It seems to have been at all periods an imported and valuable article there. Objects in wood of large dimen- sions are seldom found among the remains of Egypt. Mummy-cases, even the most elaborately carved and VOL. II. 2 0 98Q WOOD RARE IN EGYPT. [CECAP. V. painted of them, are merely masses of plaster upon a frame made up of small pieces of wood of irregular shapes, fastened together with wooden pins. Boxes and chests of all sizes, and even large statues, are all constructed in the same manner. ^Yood was too costly an article in Egypt to be expended in masses upon great objects. The taste for hard and costly woods for ornamental furniture prevailed in Egypt from a very early period ; and painted imitations are of very fi-equent occurrence in the most ancient tombs of Ghizeh and Sakkarah. It is not, therefore, at all surprising that wood or timber should be one of the contributions or purchases thus specially enumerated in the annals of the temple of Karnak. We omit the 34th column for the same reason. It merely concludes the repeated enumeration. A single clause only in it will require notice, which reads thus : " Then all the lords of the Shepherds besought the king that he ivould accept of all these good things." The word Shepherds here is the same as that we have so translated in the 12th column. We long ago stated our conviction that Champolhon had rightly thus translated a group with the same sound, but somewhat differently written, which he copied from monuments of a later date. The evidence of this has, however, been deemed insufficient. We therefore feel it incumbent upon us to state here the reasons why we still adhere to his rendering. The corresponding Coptic word is, as we have said, UOOIJ6, " shepherd," " cattle-feeder." It is thus CHAP, v.] "SHErHEED" IN HIEROGLYPHICS. 283 written twice (lines 12, 34) in the fragments before us. ,iiiti., TL ]] ^ Oil the monuments of the suc- 1 1 1 cessors of Thothmosis, the same group is constantly written thus, ^n..., The only difficulty in either trans- /wv«aP ^ ^ cription is presented by the characters which determine the groups. The two are identical in meaning, though different in form, and probably in sound also. The determinative of the former is a bundle of straws, reeds, or some similar substance, tied together, and used for the purpose of a float to a fishing-net or line. In the later hieroglyphic texts it is not uncommon as the initial of the syllable as, which represented the Egyptian word oTici, "to be swollen," "empty," "light." It is used in this group with another meaning. It denotes " a bundle tied together," " a confederacy of evil," for the ideas of "emptiness" and "evil," interchanged in the Egyptian language. The determinative of the latter transcription arrives at the same meaning through a different figure. It is a shuttle with the thread upon it, entangled so as to be useless. With the polisher below it reads nat, like the ordinary shuttle,* but with the sense of " to entangle," of which the Coptic equivalent MAT is also capable. The two variations of this group have therefore the same import. They mean " the evil confederation of the Shepherds," or " of the lands of the Shepherds." The land of Canaan appears, from the Bible, to have been inhabited at this time by different tribes or * Alphabet, No. 92. 284 REVOLT OF THE HITTJTES. [CHAP. V. nations, independent of each other in some senses, but of the same race, and often in confederacy. The Egyptian name of the inhabitants of Canaan alludes to this in both its transcriptions. The wealth specified in the fragments of columns 35, 36, and 37, was brought to Egypt by Thothmosis, and dedicated to the temple of Karnak from the op- posite border of his dominions. Cush, in the south, as well as Arvad, in the north, were both laid under contribution by this munificent monarch, for the gor- geous palace of Karnak. The tenor of the inscription renders it probable that a free-will offering from the southern dependencies of Upper Egypt is the subject of the present enumeration. It is needless to go through it. The tribute of Cush consisted of cattle, metals, and timber. They were brought down the Nile to Karnak in ships built ex- pressly for them, and also dedicated to the temple. Column 37. 35th yeai*. " In his '35th year, then the Icing sent forth ten full or complete cohorts against Heth. Then he approached the city of On. Then assembled there the smitten evil race " The very uncertain and precarious character of the name of the possessions of the Theban Pharaohs in Lower Egypt, which has already been made so appa- rent, receives yet another illustratiou from the present fragment. Heliopolis is once more threatened with a hostile aggression, and the king of Lower Egypt appeals to Thothmosis for help against an enemy in arms. The more extensive character of the expedition, which s the double of that of any former year, suffi- CHAP, v.] WATERS OF NAHAEAIN. 285 ciently indicates the formidable nature of the action of war. The enemy is once more Heth. Column 38. " from the hinder part [extreme borders] of the land, many reprobates came to fight with the hing. They pitched their [camp ?] The Mng urns over against them. The army of the Icing ivas drawn up in order [perfectly]. The Mng sent once to inquire luho ivere these weak ones, and whence they had come to draw dotvn [upo7i themselves] chastisement from the sceptre of the king " The truth is very palpable through all this arrogant phraseology. Thothmosis and his ally and relative were unable to cope with the invaders, and came to a parley with them. Column 39. " from the tvaters of Naharain, they had come ij) the chief of Loiver Egypt under his majesty [i.e., the Icing of Loiver Egijpt] overthrew them and cut them to pieces he smote them from flank to flank, they loere all in his fist [grasp]. The king himself came to the rendezvous with the smitten of the waters of Naharain " The waters of Naharain were, the rivulet which ran into the Mediterranean from the desert of Suez (and which was known to the Hebrews as " the river of Egypt"), and the streams from the Nile, that, dif- fusing themselves over the eastern desert, fertilized districts out of the bounds of Egypt. These collected together to form what was called by the Greeks the Pelusiac branch.* These we conceive to be included * From mXos, " mud." The Egyptian name of the city Pelusium, which stood upon it, was ct)Apoue i.e , " the city of mud." The 286 OFFERINGS TO KARNAK. [chap. v. in the expression, " the waters of Naharain." At the period before us, they seem to have been the extreme hmit of the personal geographical knowledge of the Egyptians, of the lands to the eastward. Their know- ledge advanced gradually with the lapse of time. This we shall also discover. The rencontre between Lower Egypt and Heth, spoken of in this ridiculous vaunt, seems to have taken place while Thothmosis was at Thebes, receiving the Cushite present. The king of Lower Egypt was de- feated, and, in consequence, demanded aid from him. The issue of the affair to the temple of Karnak is recorded in the two following lines, which are too much mutilated to admit of translation. Enough, however, remains to show that it was of no gi-eat value — " 10 slaves, 180 horses, 30 chariots" (c. 40), "15 shields covered with the skin of the lion shields of an inferior value, with. iron bosses, and C bows made of the wood of Tyre " (c. 41), are still legible. In ancient treaties, the victors and the vanquished alike made offerings to the temples of their respective gods. This was probably the offering to Karnak of the victorious Hittites. Nothing but morsels remain of the 13 columns that fill up the granite now at Paris. The subject was still wars or treaties with Heth, and further offerings to the temple of Karnak, as the issue of them. The subsidy Arabs call it Tineh, " mud," to tliis day. The hieroglyphic name and primitive history of Pelusium we will endeavour to ascertain hereafter. CHAP, v.] BAKASH. — POWER OF HETH. 287 granted to Thothmosis by the king of Lower Egypt for his aid would be an important item in them. YII. The last inscription* in this wantonly-destroyed series of records of a most ancient period, is so griev- ously mutilated by the displacement of the preceding fragment, that but little account can be given of it. We merely discover from the ruins that, during the three years that followed the 35th of Thothmosis, the yearly tribute from Cush was paid to the temple of Karnak, and that the troubles in Lower Egypt went on increasing. In one of them, probably the 37th, Thothmosis dispatched 13 cohorts to Heliopolis. This city was obviously in considerable danger. It fell somewhere about this time. It was not in the hands of any of the immediate successors of Thoth- mosis. The enemy was again Heth. When Lower Egypt is next brought under our notice by these in- scriptions, we shall find that Heth has obtained a strong footing there. There appears to have been a pacification in the course of the following year. Thothmosis sent to Thebes a contribution to the temple of Karnak, in ships built at a place called AAA^ Ro-she (c. 7), " the gate [opening] of the I I r-"^ two nvers, which can scarcely be any other than the point of division of the two principal mouths of the Nile, the name of which, Barash, is so infamous in the history of modern Egypt.f He likewise re- * Leps. iii. 31 a. t Vol. i. p. 276. If this name be ancient, nepA^, or without the article pAjy, is identical with the hieroglyphic name. But I suspect that Barash is an Arab version of the French hardge. 288 END OF INSCRIPTIONS. [chap. v. ceived, this year, an embassy from Sais in the western Delta, and from another city named || ^ Ar-rsh, (c. 8) in which it is not difficult to <=> i f^^"^ recog- nize the ancient name of the city at the mouth of the Bolbatine branch, on which Sais was situate, which is spelt in the Coptic books, px^f, and in Arabic, rashid, or ar-rasJiid* It is, as we have elsewhere explained, the Rosetta of modern geography. We infer from hence that the settlements of the Hittites in Egypt lay principally in the western Delta. The pacification was, however, a mere truce. In the 39th of Thothmosis, the war broke out afresh, and Thothmosis aided the king of the Delta with 14 cohorts. Heth, on this occasion, was confederate with the Shis, whom we have identified with the Zuzim of the Bible ; and hope, very shortly, fully to justify the identification. These, with fragments of lists of contributions, ai'e all the history of this year that is left on the walls of Karnak. "With it the whole series ended (cc. 12 — 14). Of the vast materials furnished by this series of inscriptions for the elucidation of the condition of the ancient world, of the state of the arts of design and utility, and of the condition of man generally, the limits of our present undertaking do not permit us to take advantage. We have merely to observe, re- garding them, that they discourse of a state of society * Champ. Eg. sous les Phar. ii. 241, where he also shows that the last letter, t, is a mere grammar form, and that the name of the city was jRashi, or A r-rashi. CHAP, v.] STATE OF EGYrT. 289 closely allied to that shadowed forth in the songs of Homer, and also in another Book, whose testimony to this point is very generally discarded by the deep thinkers of the present day. The history of Egypt, which we have derived from this same source of knowledge, is the subject which is proper to our investigation. It is important to the highest possible degree. It throws a flood of light upon the obscure fragments of history preserved by the Greeks — it reconciles with them altogether the Bible history of the same period. We have found that while Amenses, with her obscure succession of husbands, was reigning at Thebes, and over all Egypt and its dependencies to the southward, a hue of ignoble kings were exercising sovereignty in some parts of Middle Egypt, and a powerful and flourishing kingdom had also formed itself under the sceptre of the descendants of Asses in the Delta, This kingdom was composed of Canaanite immigrants (principally Arvadites and Hittites), of native Eg'}'ptians, and of the children of Israel, who were now rapidly multiplying and advancing in property and influence. The Chamber of Karnak has told us that Memphis had been wrested by them from the grasp of the sons of Amosis shortly before the epoch now under review. This capital, and probably Abydos also, seems to have been held by the Theban Pharaohs upon a tenure exactly like that wherewith their ancestors of the 11th dynasty maintained their conquests in the Delta. A con- siderable tract of country, under the sway of another and independent king, lay between the northern and VOL. II. 2 P 390 POWEK OF THE XOTTE KINGDOM. [chap. v. southern divisions of their kingdom. The hold of the Theban Pharaohs upon a distant and wide-lying de- pendency like Memphis, would necessarily be but feeble under these cu'cumstances. It is therefore not at all surprising that, during the war of Mesphres in Ethiopia, it should have been snatched away from them by their powerful neighbours on its northern frontier. The marriage of Thothmosis with the daughter and heiress of Middle Egjpt, and the accession thereby to the Theban crown of the whole valley, from the borders of Thebes up to the very walls of Memphis, would naturally suggest to him the desirableness of re- covering once more this appanage also of the kingdom of his forefathers. The Greek tradition regarding Thoth- mosis had told us that the advantages he obtained against the Shepherds were mainly procured, not by arms, but treaties. We have detected and, as we hope, made clear the same fact, lying hid among the boastful and warlike phrases of these inscriptions. This was accomplished at the termination of the 23rd year of the reign and life of Thothmosis, on the occasion; as we assume, of his marriage with the daughter of Middle Egypt. The probability of some previous matrimonial connection between this royal family and the Xoite kings of the Delta, is strongly suggested both by the circumstances of the two kingdoms, and by the terms of this hieroglyphic history. The very gTeat difficulty with which Thothmosis maintained his possessions in Lower Egypt, and the probability that he finally ceded Memphis to the Xoite Pharaoh in the 29th year of his CHAP, v.] TOMB OF KOS-SHE-RA. 291 reign, Heliopolis in the 35th, and the whole of his possessions in the Delta in his 39th year, will already have suflSciently appeared in the course of our trans- lation and analysis of these interesting but mutilated texts. Thus have we established the existence of a powerful, flourishing, and warlike kingdom in the Delta, during the reigns of Thothmosis and his mother at Thebes. So powerful was this monarchy, that all the force at the command of Upper Egypt was insufficient to retain the possessions and privileges in Lower Egypt, which had been ceded to Thothmosis by his marriage-treaty, against the aggressive policy of the Xoite kings and their Canaanite allies. This fact, so important to the history of Egypt, exactly coincides with the Jewish account of the sojourn of the Israelites in that country. They were the subjects of a great kingdom, strong in foreign alhances and foreign commerce, and there- fore their increase was very rapid. The Tomb of Ros-she-ea, at Gouenou. It will clearly be of the highest importance if we can, by other monumental evidence, establish and prove our assumption that the transactions with so-called foreigners, recorded in the inscriptions, were, for the most part, treaties of peace, and not actions of war. This proof is abundantly supplied to us by the paintings on the walls of the exquisitely beautiful tomb of Ros- she-ra, i.e., "a prince like the sun," who was one of 299 HIS OFFICES. — TEIBUTAPJES. [CHAP. V. the nobles of the court of Thothmosis. This tomb, being at present used as a stable for asses, has escaped the wholesale destruction which has befallen so many other tombs in its vicinity. Eos-she-ra, like other princes, had many titles, amongst which were those of " bearer of the land- tribute," and " superintendent of the royal construc- tions." The devices in this tomb which are now before us, represent him in the former of these capacities. It is a vast picture covering the whole wall, and entitled the reception of the tribute of the land brought in to the king by the captives [tributaries] in person." The picture thus described consists of five plains or registers, and above each of them is a horizontal hue of hiero- glyphics describing the scene below. At the end of the picture, opposite to that on which once stood a gigantic figure of Ros-she-ra, are the remains of scribes registering the various offerings. On the part of the wall now entirely defaced, which terminates the picture on the opposite side, there was doubtless once a portrait of the king on his throne. The uppermost register reads : " The bringing of the collections of the impure of the land of Phenne, lohich they bring in unto the footstool of his majesty, Mng Thothmosis, everliving. Justly, with all the goods of their lands, they ransom themselves from death [mutilated] I have made all their lands to be bound to Ids majesty, even I, the chief physician, d'C." The picture underneath begins with piles of offer- ings ; the principal being two obelisks of granite. CHAP, v.] PHENNE. — ITS MINES. 293 There are also three baskets of rings of pure gold, three baskets of the precious stones which we have named pearls, but which seem, from then- appearance in this picture, to have been jasper or cornehans; two baskets of brown stones, probably the sardonyx ; a basket with five packages of gold-dust ; and a basket with small tiles of marble. A procession of foreigners follows, with dark hair, and having the hght brown complexion of the Arabs of the desert. They are naked, with the exception of the cincture which extends from the waist to the middle of the thigh, and is white striped with blue. They bring along with them, as their personal gifts, panther- skins, a piece of ebony, an elephant's tooth, strings of red beads, two kinds of apes, an antelope or gazelle, a panther, and a tree still growing and with the roots in a basket of earth, evidently intended for plantation in the land of Egypt. Piinon, or Phenne, was in the Sinaitic peninsula, in the neighbourhood of Mount Hor.* The complexion and appearance of the people who are here depicted, agree exactly with those of the modern inhabitants of the desert of Sinai. The productions of their country were principally mineral. In this circumstance we find another agreement with Phenne, which was celebrated for its mines. One of their contributions also consisted of a pair of granite obelisks. Assuredly, therefore, their country was not farther distant from the borders of Egypt than Phenne. The labour of transporting two such masses across the desert would be so great, that it could only be efiected at the cost * Egypt j her Testimony to tlie Truth, p, 82. 294 SHEBA. — ITS TRIBUTE. [chap. v. of an enormous sacrifice of human life. We shall presently find granite constructions of the age of Thothmosis in great abundance on the westernmost point of the Delta. This granite is certainly more likely to have come from Sinai than from Syene in Upper Egypt. The account of Herodotus also, that the granite of the Pyramids was brought from the mountains of Arabia, is made very probable by this picture, which represents granite as one of the pro- ductions derived from thence by Ancient Eg)-pt. Gazelles and panthers are to this day the natives of the peninsula of Sinai. The monkeys, the ebony, and the ivory, were pro- bably the products of the foreign commerce which we know from the Bible the races in this vicinity had carried on from the very first. The second plane or register is thus entitled : " The bringing of the collections made by the impure of the land of Sheha, on the border of the sea, they prostrate them- selves before the face of the mercy of his majesty Thoth- mosis everliving [the rest illegible] " We have already stated our belief that this country is Sheba, which borders the eastern gulf of the Red Sea. The remains of it are still traceable in the modern Arab name of the same district, Akaha. The mountains in the vicinity of this gulf abound in minerals and in the traces of ancient mines ; and the contribu- tions of the country designated by the name before us are altogether minerals. The people who bring them have the complexion of Egyptians, and resemble them also in general appearance. CHAP, v.] LOWER EGYPT. — ARVAD. 295 In the third register of this picture is a procession of southern people, alternately red, brown, and black, bringing gold and silver, ostrich feathers and eggs, ivory, and minerals of other kinds peculiar to the south of Egypt. The inscription above this plane reads : " The bringing of the collections of the impure nations of the south." The fourth register is occupied by a file of men of the complexion which is seen to this day in Syria. It is of the pale-yellow of the gold plates that many of them are carrying. The inscription above reads : " The bringing in of the offerings of the impure races of the two lands of Arvad and of all the north." It is needless now to explain that Ai'vad is Lower Egypt ; a fact which also may be discerned in the large and rich ofiering represented in the plane below this register, and which consists of the foreign importations of the Delta as well as of its native productions. The tribute-bearers are represented with the countenances, complexions, and dress, of the inhabitants of North Canaan, so anxious was the Theban priesthood to conceal from posterity the fact that in the days of Thothmosis there were two independent kingdoms in Eg}Tt- The fifth and last plane of this picture is entitled the tribute of the nations of the south, and seems to have represented negroes bringing building materials ; but it is too much mutilated to be distinctly intelligible. This picture merely embodies a scene that we have just been reading on the walls of the temple of Karnak. The allies and dependencies of Egypt, both 296 BPJCK-MAKEES. [chap. v. to the northward and to the southward, brought con- tributions towards the building of the temples of Thebes in the days of Thothmosis. As president of the bearers of the land-tribute, it was the duty of Ros- she-ra to introduce them into the presence of the king. The scene when complete represented him in the act of doing so. There is yet another device in the tomb of Ros- she-ra which throws considerable light upon the histoiy of the reign of Thothmosis, in connection with the history of the northern frontier of his kingdom. It first appeared twenty-five years ago, in the splendid series of plates published by the Tuscan government, under the dkection of Rosellini. It has since that time been made veiy famihar in England, by its frequent repetition in works upon our subject, under the title of Jews making bricks in Egypt. The far more faithful and cai'efully-executed copy from the original of Dr. Lepsius has supplied many important particulars which did not appear in the older copy. It represents a group of slaves, prisoners of war or forced labourers, at work on aU the processes of brick- making, under the oversight of two task-masters, whose dark complexions and black eyes show them at once to have been Upper Egyptians. The prisoners are of two races. Six of them of the light or sallow complexion of Canaan, with blue eyes. They are employed in drawing the water, in tempering the clay, and in the other drudgeries of then- occupation. The complexion of the rest of the prisoners is of the red hue by which the inhabitants of Egypt were always denoted ; but it is CHAP, v.] SLAVES FROM LOWER EGYPT. ^97 of a considerably lighter tinge than that of their Upper Egj'ptian task-masters. Their eyes are likewise hazel or grey, not black ; their hair varies in the same manner. The countenances of very few of them have the Egyptian cast, but exhibit great and very ugly variations of feature, such as would arise from foreign intermixture. We see not how it is possible to doubt that this is a group of Lower Egyptians, brought by Thothmosis as forced labourers from his newly-acquired territory in the Delta. Some of the party were foreign immigrants (Canaanites or Jews), the rest were half- castes or Mulattoes, natives of the Delta, and the oflf- spring of Egyptian and Canaanite parents (see Plate, p. 86). The same degi^aded race is represented every- where throughout the tomb of Ros-she-ra performing acts of drudgery under the coercion of task-masters, their degradation being further symbolized by their torn and patched garments. We submit that these approximations completely establish the correctness of our reading of the history of Thothmosis on his northern frontier. We have already shown from 1 Chronicles ii. 1 — 9, 17, 18, that it was the universal custom of the ancient world to employ the forced labours of the in- habitants of newly - acquired countries in the con- struction of public buildings in the capital of the conqueror. Other portions of the temple of Karnak, besides those we have considered, have also been executed by Thothmosis. They are in the same high style of art as his other constructions. They are altogether mythic, VOL. II. 2 Q 298 MONUMENTS OF THOTHMOSIS. [chap. v. and merely relate his acts of worship to the gods. This is likewise the case on the opposite bank of the Nile, at Medinet Abou and El Asasif, where he made somewhat extensive additions to the temples begun by his mother and the rest of his relatives. They are all of beautiful execution, and embody mythological allusions only. There are hkewise some other tombs in the catacomb of Gournou which were excavated by the princes of Thothmosis, besides the one to which we have already called attention. The monumental indications of the presence of Thothmosis in the Delta, have hitherto been dis- covered at Heliopolis and Alexandria only. Two of the obelisks removed by the Romans from Heliopolis bear the name of Thothmosis. The one stands up- right before the cathedral of St. John Lateran at Rome, the other in the Atmeidan at Constantinople. There is but little to interest in the inscriptions of either of these obelisks, which are well known to all students of the subject. On the latter obeUsk is an allusion to conquests in Naharain, which, as our readers are aware, was a generic name for all countries without the north-eastern bounds of Eg^^-pt. Anotlier interesting memorial of the constructions of Thothmosis at Heliopolis has very recently been dug out of the sand at Matarea. It is the jamb of the gateway of the temple of Athom. The obelisks we have described stood in front of it. CHAP, v.] INSCEIPTION AT HELIOPOLIS. 299 DOORWAY OF THE TEMPLE OF ATHOM AT HELIOPOLIS. 300 cleopatea's needles. [chap. v. The hieroglyphics are superbly executed. It is evidently the temple whence the obelisks of St. John Lateran and Constantinople were removed by the Ptoraans. Lines 1 and 2 describe the colossus of Thothmosis, which sate immediately before the pro- pylon to which this jamb was attached. Line I. " The great Horns ruling in Upper Egypt, beloved of tlu sun. The king, the lord omnipotent [mn-chru-ra], beloved of Athom, living for ever." Line 2. "Lord of both Egypts, administering royal justice in both Egypts ; son of the sun from his loins, Thothmosis on the border ; beloved of the hawk, the lord of the great temple." Line 3 was at the immediate entrance of the temple. It is the address of the god to Thothmosis: " saith Athom, the lord of On, ' We give thee a pure life every day, for thou multipliest our festivals like [those of] the sun.' " The sitting colossus of Thothmosis at the propylon without the temple, and the upright one of Athom within the temple, were both seen by the reader of this inscription while yet the temple stood. It was for this reason they were made to discourse together. The two obelisks which once stood before the temple of Re-Athom at Alexandria, so well known as Cleo- patra's Needles, were designed and probably erected by Thothmosis. Two faces only of the upright one are now legible. Upon the prostrate obehsk, the name of Thothmosis in Lower Egypt and a detached gi-oup or two of characters are all that remain traceable. There does not appear to be any history in the inscriptions upon this obelisk (such is too often the case with the writings on these the most beautiful of all the remains CHAP. V.J PARENTAGE OF THOTHMOSIS. 301 of Ancient Eg}'pt), unless we choose to consider such, the erasure by Thothmosis of the name of his mother on the north face, of which so many examples abound in the ruins of Thebes. In the present instance, he has overwritten the name of Amenses or her husband with a legend, in which he claims to be the son of Ke-Athom of Heliopolis, by immediate and direct descent. This circumstance certainly confirms our conjecture that these erasures of the name of Amenses were dictated by his natural horror of the incest, of which he himself was the issue. The monuments of the reign of Thothmosis bear indisputable testimony to the fact that the transactions of his reign were successful in placing at his command a large amount of forced labour, however far they may sink below the lofty pretensions advanced for them by the mendacious writers of their hieroglyphic records. We have already been repeatedly under the necessity of expressing our apprehension that Thothmosis was the son of incest ; that his father was also his grand- father Mesphres, and that his mother Amenses was also his sister. This most revolting surmise seems to be made a certainty by the inscription on a statue in black basalt, which was found at Gournou many years ago by Athanasi, and brought to this country, where it was purchased, we believe, by Lepsius for the Royal Museum at Berlin. On the visit of this greatest of living archseologists to Thebes in 1843, he discovered in the mountain of Gournou the tomb in which the statue had been found ; and from the in- 302 EELIGIOUS CEREMONY. [chap. v. scription in it ascertained many particulars regarding the personage who had been buried there. He was superintendent of the constructions added to the temple of Amun at Gournou, by Amenses and the two queens of her husband or her son, whose names we have already given.* The name of this personage, with his titles and the rest of its accompaniments, was also found by the same investigator stamped on several bricks and balls of Nile-mud, burnt and unburnt, in the vicinity of the temple of Gournou. He likewise copied it from the sandstone quarries of Silsilis. It was everywhere accompanied by the name of Amenses. Those of the other two queens were likewise occa- sionally inscribed there also, and in one instance that of Mesphees. The name of this ofl&cer has been erased everywhere, both on his statue and on the walls of his tomb, together with that of Amenses. It is a very revolting one. It reads son-mautf, ia " brother of his mother." The suspicion which this name so strongly excites is confirmed to all but certainty by the rehgious rite which the statue repre- sents him in the act of performing. His beard is shaven off, he wears the head-dress of a woman, and muffled in a large flowing gai-- ment, he crouches, having be- tween his knees either the young Thothmosis or an image of him, which was doubtless brought forth I " ~ ~ \ at the conclusion of the ceremony, Above, p. 198. CHAP, v.] LENGTH OF REIGN. 303 and enshrined as the filial divinity of the temple. Son-mautf being thus officially the mythic mother of the son of Amenses, there is no room to doubt that the incestuous parentage of this son was implied by his revolting name. The queens of Thothmosis scarcely appear on the monuments. Ea-nephru accompanies him at El Asasif,* but most probably as the wife or daughter of Amenen- THES his father-in-law. We have already explained that the greater part of the works of Thothmosis were carried on while his mother and father-in-law were living and co-regent with him. The death of Mesphres, his grandfather and father, seems from the inscriptions at Karnak to have taken place in the 23rd year of his age and reign. "We find from the lists that he reigned alone for nine years only.f According to the tablet found by Lepsius at Heliopolis, his reign lasted for 47 years at least. If this be its extent, the death of Amenenthes took place in its 38th year. * Lepsius, Abt. 3, bl. 20. t Above, p. 208. 304 CHRONOLOGY. [chap. VI. CHAPTER VI. CHRONOLOGY. — 'ACHERRES SON OF THOTHMOSIS. — HIS REIGN AND MONU- MENTS.— LONG INSCRIPTION AT AMADA. — ARMAIS SON OF ACHERRES. — HIS WORKS. — HIS DEFEAT NEAR PHILiE BY THE PHUTIM. — THE GREAT SPHINX OF GHIZKH. — HIS MONUICENTS AT HELIOPOLIS AND ALEXAN-DRIA. EXPELLED FROM THEBES AND JODDLE EGYPT BY THE DISC-WORSHIPPERS. — AMENOPHIS - BEKENATEN. — HIS WORKS AT THEBES ANT) AUARNA. — ENCHERIS. — TAI, THE DAUGHTER OP AMENOPHIS. — MARRIED ARMAIS FOR HER THIRD HUSBAND. — KING AI HER FIRST HUSBANTJ. — CHEBRES HER SECONT) HUSBAND. — AMENOPHIS-MEMNON. — THE SON OF ARMAIS AND TAL — HIS MOTHER'S POLICY. — LONG ANT) PROSPEROUS REIGN. — GREAT WORKS. HORUS. HIS FANATICISM AGAINST THE DISC-WOR- SHIPPERS.— HIS CHARACTER IN CONSEQUENCE FOR PIETY. — ENT) OF THE 18th DYNASTY. . Before entering upon the narrative of the successors of Thothmosis, it will be needful to give such a summary of the reigns of him and his predecessors as shall guide us to some judgment as to the time that may probably have elapsed since we last made the computation. Having no guide but Manetho, it is satisfactory to know that all the four transcriptions of him are very unusually in harmony with each other on this point. We give from the tablet of Abydos and other monuments the hieroglyphic succession of the CHAP. TI.] LIST OF KINGS. 305 kings of this epoch, harmonizing with it the Greek names and the dates of the reign of each, as he has recorded them. Hieroglyphics. Manetho. Years of Eeiqn. Africanus. Joseph. Euseb. Armn. Ajiosls (Lists) MisPHRAGMOcTHOSis (no date). 25. (History) Chebron-Amenophis (son of Aiiosis) ^'^^^ Mesphres [Thoth- Mosis I.] (son of Chebron) > . SO tV] V I— I o o Q-( OS a o o O Q. (/) o o o ■ I- (/) < z >- Q X I- 2 g I" ? a, ►« I a i 8 I S UJ 111 I- X g X 2 " 55 S O Cm -ASTT. — EAiLSES THE SON OF HORUS. — HIS REIGN AND WORKS. — SETHOS. — HIS FANATICLSM. — SPEOS IRTEMIDOS. — THE HYPOSTYLE HALL AT KARNAK. — SERIES OF HISTORICAL RELIEFS ON ITS NORTH EXTERNAL WALL. — THE CA3IPAIGN IN LOWER EGYPT AND CANAAN IN HIS FIRST YEAR. — ITS DIPORTANT RESULTS. — HUMILIATION OF THE XOITE THRONE. — LARGE ACCESSIONS OF TERRnORY IN LOWER EGYPT. — THIS CA3IPAIGN THE GREAT EVENT IN THE LIFE OF SETHOS. — REPEATED AT REDESIEH IN THE EASTERN DESERT, IN HIS NINTH YEAR. — SETHOS OBSERVED THE STIPULATION'S OBTAINED BY JOSEPH FOR THE SONS OF ISRAEL. — THEY WERE NOT IN WORSE PLIGHT THAN THE LOWER EGYPTIANS IN THE CEDED DISTRICTS. — VISIBLE AND RAPID DECLINE OF THE XOITE KINGDOM IN THE REIGN OF SETHOS. — ITS DURATION. The history of the 18th dynasty, which we have just concluded, we have found to he that of a series of struggles, on the part of a line of illustrious monarchs, to realize the conception, the germs of which we had detected in the first onslaught of their founder Amosis on the Memphite Pharaohs, and which gradually de- veloped itself in the thoughts and actions of his suc- cessors. It was a lofty and amhitious imagination. It involved nothing less, than that Amun should he CHAP, vn.j THE 19th dynasty. 381 the supreme god in every city in Egypt, and that the sons of Amosis, as the earthly vicegerents of Amun, should be the sole kings of all that had ever been called Egypt, from the mouths of the Astaboras to the shores of the Mediterranean. Some considerable progress had been made towards the accomplishment of this design on the accession of Hokus. The com- pletion of it was reserved for the kings of the succeed- ing age. The 19th Dynasty. The position of the Theban crown appears to have been at this time highly favourable to the success of the pretensions of the family of Amosis. The disc- worshipping sect only existed in some very attenuated form, at Amarna. This was the only breach in the continuity of their dominion, from the uttermost bounds of Nubia to Alexandria in the Western Delta, including the city of Memphis, concerning which we have no evidence that it ever again fell into the power of the Xoite Pharaohs. In the Delta their possessions seem to have been strictly limited to the westernmost or Canopic branch. All to the eastward of this boundary appertained to the yet flourishing and important king- dom of the Xoite descendants of Aphophis. The overthrow of both these opposing pretensions, and the establishment of the Theban kingdom, as supreme over all Egypt, was the work of the illustrious dynasty whose history we have now to consider. The reasons why certain of the kings of Egypt are 382 NAME OF EAMSES. [chap. VII. made, in the Greek lists, the founders of new races or dynasties, are by no means clear. They certainly were not necessarily the heads of new families, ascending the throne by usurpation, or conquest, or collateral relationship, which is the ordinary import of a new dynasty. It was not so with the founders either of the 12th or ]8th dynasties. It is the same in the case before us. The head of the 19th dynasty was the son of HoRUS, the last king of the 18th, as well as his successor.* He therefore succeeded to the throne directly, hke Amenemes and Amosis. Both these heads of dynasties, however, conferred tangible benefits on Egypt. Amenemes brought to a close the civil war for the members of Osiris. Amosis took Memphis from the Shepherds. We naturally look, therefore, for some similar exploit in Ramses, the head of the 19 th dynasty. The name of this king is thus written: (^'Q\f^\ i.e., rrt-?nn-an, " sun strong in vigilance" ^r,,,.^ (over both Eg^'pts), ra-ms-su, " the sun Yk begat him." ^ The benefit conferred on Egypt by Ramses is not mentioned in the lists, and only appears from the monuments, without being formally stated even there. It was, we believe, the expulsion of the disc-wor- shippers, by war or treaty, from Tel-el-Amarna and the rest of Middle Egypt, that gave Ramses his place in the lists as head of a dynasty, and added to his Lower Egyptian name the title, " lion vigilant in both Egypts," which was first assumed by Amosis, the founder * Abydos, B. 48, 49. CHAP, vn.] DESTROYED THE DISC-WORSHIP. 383 of the 18th dynasty, and afterwards taken also by Ramerri, the founder of the 20th. The exploit, which procured these honours for Ramses, was doubtless performed in his father's lifetime. The monumental evidence of this is very strong. I. The disc-worshipping kings at Tel-el-Amarna seem to have ceased just about the time of his acces- sion. II. He is repeatedly worshipped by his son on his constructions at Karnak, at the temple of Gournou on the opposite bank, and elsewhere. His memoiy was as highly revered as that of any king that ever reigned in Eg}"pt. It is therefore evident that the lists have not erred in making him the founder of a dynasty. III. The conquest of Middle Egypt is never men- tioned among the exploits either of his son or grandson. We have, nevertheless, the monumental evidence of the Speos Artemidos, that Middle Eg^-pt was a part of the dominions of the Theban Pharaohs in the days of his son. The reign of Ramses was short ; but some remark- able memorials of it are still extant. At Thebes, the last four columns, which complete the most ancient part of the palace of Luxor, were finished in the days of Ramses, and therefore are inscribed with his name and title. At Wady- Haifa, in Upper Nubia, Ramses made certain additions to the temple of Sa-Amun, which was begun by his ancestor Sesoetosis,* and replaced by that of AcHERRES.f This was commemorated in an * Above, p. 20. t lUd. p. 315. 384 HIS TOMB IN THE VALLEY. [chap, vit inscription of eight lines of hieroglyphics, dated in the second year of his reign. The same monument like- wise relates that he gained a victory over the Phutim at Ibrim, and that he had dedicated a part of the prisoners and spoil to Sa-Amun at Wady- Haifa. The difficulties with which his ancestors had to contend on this frontier of Egypt, were therefore by no means at an end in the days of Ramses. It somewhat con- firms our conjecture as to the nature of the service rendered to the monarchy by Ramses, to find this only monumental record of his reign to be a war with the Phutim, the confederates of the negro disc-worshippers. The tomb of Ramses, in the valley of Biban-El- Malook, is the only remaining memorial of him in Egj'pt. The dimensions of the inclined corridor, which forms the entrance to it, show plainly the magnificence of the design. But the first hall only was begun, and the paintings were scarcely dry upon its walls, when it was wanted for the death sleep of its excavator. The huge block of red granite, intended for the sarco- phagus, was lowered down the inclined corridor, and placed in this single hall, the paintings of which show that it was designed for the entrance merely to a long suite of galleries, cabinets, and halls, as in other royal tombs. The undermost of the two masses, into which the granite block had been divided, was rudely hollowed out, so as to admit the mummy of the king. The uppermost block was then placed upon it, and the name of Ramses, with a few common mythic devices, was coarsely traced upon the outer surface of the granite in fresco. The paintings of the hall were never CHAP. VII.] SETHOS. HIS NAME. 385 finished, those of tlie corridor were never begun ; the tomb was closed, its entrance carefully hidden, and Ramses slept with bis fathers. Such was the strange custom that prevailed in Egypt. It seems to have been accounted profane to make any addition what- ever to the decorations of the tomb after the death of its inmate. The reign of Ramses is put down in the hsts as having lasted only 1^ years. Neither the monumental date nor his tomb, enables us to contradict this. The chronological use of the practice, to which we have just alluded, will now appear. Assuming that Ramses com- menced the structure of his tomb immediately on his accession (which was doubtless the custom both of kings and nobles), about two years' work was completed when he was buried. The construction of the king's tomb was the work of his entire reign, and additions were evidently made to it yearly; so that, to speak strictly, no tomb in Egypt was ever completed. Sethos I. The monumental fame of the son and successor of Ramses (Abydos, B 60), is far more conspicuous than his father's. His name was, Lowee Egypt, ra-i-wie-wm, " sun, firm in justice;" Upper Egypt, mei-n-pth-stei, Setei, beloved of Phtha." He is clearly the Sethos of the lists, who stands at the head of the 19th dynasty. His position on the tablet of Abydos, and other hieroglyphic VOL. II. 3 D 386 SPEOS ARTEMIDOS. [CHAP. Vll. genealogies, establishes his identity. Samuel Birch was the first to point this out. The word no J\ is written by Plutarch, StS-,* and given as one | Q ^ of the names of Typhon, or the evil principle. It is so used in all mythic hieroglyphic texts, but in the his- torical texts it means " a foreign god," " a god wor- shipped by some other nation than Egypt." At Beni-hassan, in Middle Egypt, a speos, or cavern- temple, has been hewn, in a deep ravine, in the lime- stone crags, that hem in the valley on the eastern side. It was called by the Greeks Speos Artemidos, " the cavern-temple of Diana." It was dedicated to the goddess Phi-chot, " the chastiser with fire," one of the lion-headed Eumenides or furies of the Egyptian my- thology, whose name the Greeks harmonized into Bubastis, and identified with the Artemis or Diana of their mythology.f The living symbol of this goddess was the lioness. The fanatical intolerant spirit that actuated Sethos is as remarkably exemplified here as at Karnak. The excavation was certainly finished to some extent by one of his ancestors ; Thothmosis, according to Wilkinson.;]: This is, however, doubtful. The name of the founder is everywhere so effectually erased, that the question * Also li^inis. The hieroglyphic name reads st-oni. The last character is a stone (Copt. OMi). It is the hieroglyphic transcrip- tion of the Hebrew word Satan. t Very probably in obedience to the well known superstition that prevailed among them, of always speaking civilly and respectfully of the avenging goddesses. % U.S. ii. 55. CHAP, vn.] HALL AT KARNAK. 387 is one of great difficulty. Lepsius supposes it to have been the work of Amenses, the mother of Thothmosts.* It seemed to us that the erased and overwritten name was the Lower Egyptian ring of Aemais. The name of Sethos replaces it in every instance we noticed. The worship of this obnoxious ancestor seems to have been as httle to the taste of Sethos as his name. Several of the gods are in the same manner defaced and overwritten. If, as we assume, the act of heroism which con- stituted Ramses the head of a dynasty was the destruc- tion of the last remnant of the disc-worshippers in Middle Egj-pt, it seems hkely that one of the first acts of his son on his accession would be the completion of this temple to the avenging divinity, to whose inter- position, doubtless, he ascribed his father's success. For this reason only we place the Speos Artemidos at the commencement of the reign of Sethos. There is no date to guide us. The great work of Sethos was the construction of the vast hypostyle hall in the palace of Karnak, which is 320 feet long by 164 feet broad. The stone roof was supported by 134 columns, each 40 feet high, and 27 feet in girth. Through the centre of the hall was a broad avenue, on both sides of which are six pillars, each 66 feet high, and 36 feet in circumference. So skilfully have these colossal dimensions been disposed of by the architect, that the hall of Karnak, even in its present devastation, produces upon the mind impressions of awe and sublimity more powerfully than any other * Abt. iii. Bl. 26, 27. 388 ITS EXTERNAL WALL. [chap vn. work of man upon the earth. In the north wall of this glorious construction is one of the portals of entrance, and on its external surface the picture-history of the campaigns of the first year of the reign of Sethos, the founder, is depicted so as to surround the gateway. On the side-posts of this portal is represented the god of the temple, Amun, coming forth and presenting Sethos with a sword. He leads eighteen prisoners. Their arms are tied behind them, and the same cord passes round the necks of the whole row. The end of it is in the hand of the god. It terminates in a tassel, representing the bud of the crimson lotus, which is the sign of the south country. Before each captive (as before, p. 20), is the ground-plot of an oval brick dungeon, in which the slaves of the temples were incarcerated at night ; and on it is inscribed the name of the country to which the prisoners belonged. Below Amun, is a goddess with a bow and arrows, the only weapon that ever appears in the hands of females in these pictures. She presents them to the colossal figure of Sethos. On the head of this goddess is a sceptre, surmounting the picture of an irrigated field, which has been assumed to denote " the land of Eg}'pt." The sceptre is the name of the land over which Mars {i.e., Month or Mendes) was tutelary. It therefore signifies the debatable land. We beheve that it means here the whole eastern frontier opposite to the Isthmus, and that the goddess impersonating this district is Maut, the wife of Amun at Karnak, and, as we have already found, the mythic queen of the CHAP. VII.] STRINGS OF CAPTIVES. 389 north. She holds in her left hand the cords whereby about forty captives are bound. Each of them termi- nates iu the tassel of the papyrus rush, which denotes the north country. We find, accordingly, that the names of all the prisoners led by this goddess are those of localities in Lower Egypt, in the desert of Suez, and iu Canaan. The symbolism of the whole device is clumsy and confused ; but the idea appears to have been that the captives led by Amun represented the people already subdued by the kings of Upper Egypt, and made tributary to the temple; while in the hands of the goddess were the nations, the subjugation of which was required of the conqueror, and which are here represented as captives by an uncouth prolepsis. It seems certain that nothing like. historical accuracy was intended by this design. Many of the ground- plots are left blank in both groups of captives. In other rings, the names first engraved have been erased, and others written over them. These changes must have been suggested by variations in the policy of Sethos, in the course of the long period that would be occupied in the construction of the temple of Karnak. The king is thus addressed by the god Amun. " Amun-Re, the lord of the three seats of justice of both Egypts, saith : O my son, the partaker of my uatiire, My beloved one, Sethos, the lord of both Egypts, Whose sword prevaileth over all lands ; Thou hast taken the scymitar of thy god, Thou hast prevailed therewith, Thou hast smitten the Phutim. HUMAN SACRIFICES. [chap. vn. I am thy father, I give to thy prowess Arvad, on thy northern border. Nubia lies slain beneath thy sandals ; At my command thou wentest forth against the ancient lands of the south, They brought presents unto thee, yea, thou receivedst their tributes. The rest is mutilated. The address of the goddess to Sethos is in a pre- cisely similar strain. I grant that thy majesty may be seen of all thine enemies. Thou dartest thy beams into their faces ; They are blasted with the splendour of thy majesty, 'tn-h'-t. Upper Arvad, that is, Lower Egj^t, ' (^V ! the Xoite kingdom [u. s. &c.). rtn-hr-t. Lotcer Arvad, that is, Arvad in ! Canaan, named also in the present design the Hermonites, as in the record of Thoth- iV* Mosis [above, p. 219, seq.). The Tynan settlers in Egypt. Both these last powers were the confederates of Sethos throughout the war; yet are they represented here as enemies and prisoners. Such is the boastful and lying spirit that has dictated these records. The names that follow will show very clearly that both these peoples must have been dwellers in Egypt. CHAP, vn.] TANIS. — ON. BUBASTIS. 395 I On, or Heliopolis {above, p. 2S I -M • character is the determinative, Tanis {above, p. 277). The mode of writing ^AA^f the name of this city shows, that from the jQ^.| days of Thothmosis to those of Sethos it ^w* had remained a part of the dominions of the Xoite kings. 127). The last and denotes a I ^ I pool of water. The word often the meaning of water iu ir the ancient Egyptian language, and especially means, as we believe, " the water of the annual overflow." Not improbably the transcription of this name, used v/hen On was subject to the Upper Egyptian Pharaohs, t D alludes to the position of the city. It stood on a ® the extreme eastern verge of the yearly overflow, and would therefore be well described by the epithet pne-on, or nu, " boundaiy of the inundation." 8 Mutilated. p~bsh. Hebrew, non-'^s, Pi-beseth ; the city I afterwards called by the Greeks Bubastis. J When in the hands of the Upper Egyptian kings, its hieroglyphic name was written pi-sht, which is the name of its tutelary goddess, one of the Egyptian furies {above, p. 386). Bubastis was situated on the Phathmetic branch of the Nile, to the northward of Heliopolis {see Map). As we have said, it was celebrated in the later history of Egypt as one of the capitals of the monarchy in the times of the 22nd dynasty. 10 Mutilated. 396 XOITE KINGDOM WEAK. [chap. vn. ^^^^ Sais. According to the monuments, this 11 i h ' ^^^^ returned to the possession of the ; 4 ^ I Upper Egyptian kings for the first time ^^vT since the conquest of Memphis by Saites {u.s. p. 36, seq.). These six locaUties were, doubtless, all in the Delta, as is the case with those that are legible ; which (as may be noted in the Map), ai'e Hkewise all frontier cities, and (with the exception of Sais), all on the eastern border. We know, by the evidence of the monuments, that Sethos was in some sense a sove- reign over Heliopolis. The obelisk in the Piazza del Popolo, at Rome, which was brought fi-om thence by the Caesars, was sculptured by him. It may have been a mere joint occupation, both of it and of the other cities named in this design, for the purpose of defend- ing the eastern frontier of both kingdoms against the Canaanites. The extremely mendacious character of the record, whence we derive our information, renders this caution needful. But, nevertheless, the formal cession to Upper Egypt of sovereign authority over six cities in the Delta, in any sense, which must be im- plied in it, clearly indicates weakness in the Xoite kingdom. This is the first symptom of its decay that has yet been presented to us. We have seen how rapidly it recovered itself after the loss of Memphis, and resumed the aggressive. We shall not hence- forward find any evidence of a similar revival. mnnus. Some locality in the eastern desert 19 2^^'^^°^®^ Manasseh, the son of Joseph (Egypt's Place, p. 157). CHAP, vn.] STATIONS IN THE DESEET. 397 14 13 Illegible. hair-nu. Samuel Birch was the first to point I out the true import of this name of a locality in the desert of Suez. It means "well of V — ir water." That it was the proper name written Barnea in the Hebrew Bible, had been before pointed out {u.s.). It was fully written Kadesh- Barnea. Another name for it was En-mishpat, " the well of judgment " (Gen, xiv, 7). 15 Illegible. ♦^^^ ain-sliu, i.e., nc5"l''3?, "fountain in a pit," , ' • " di'aw-well." It seems to be the Hebrew ; ! name of a station in the desert not men- Vrt*^ tioned in the Bible. Five stations in the desert of Suez, hitherto in the possession of the king of Lower Egypt, or of his Canaanite subjects, are here ceded to Sethos, in re- turn, doubtless, for assistance rendered by him in repelling a Canaanite invasion. This is a still further evidence of the decline of the Xoite kingdom. shasu. Hebrew, omr , the Zuzim. This war- like tribe of Canaanites was among the very first of the settlers in the Delta. Even in the times of Abraham they were known among their brethren as " the Zuzim that dwelt in Ham \i.e., Egypt] " (Gen. xiv. 5). 18 Tiv, Arad in South Canaan {Egypt, d-c, p. 157). 19 Phenne, perhaps Punon, in Mount Hor {Egypt, d-c, u. s.). 20 toro, Nahash, in South Canaan {Egypt, dc, U.S.). 398 THE ZUZIM IN CANAAN. [chap, vn. The Zuzim seem to have been at this time rangers of the desert of Suez, having possessions on both borders. It was on this account, and because of their constant colhsion with Egypt, that they made them- selves especially obnoxious there; so much so, that their name (iycoc, Copt.) became the appellative for " Shepherd," " ignominy," and other opprobrious epi- thets in the common speech of Egypt. Sethos boasts here of having taken from the Zuzim three strongholds in the desert, and on its eastern borders. We are persuaded that these twenty prisoners were all that were in the train of the goddess when the picture was first finished. They complete the two upper rows. The lower row, on both jambs, was added afterwards at different times in the course of the reign of Sethos. It consists altogether of localities in the Delta. This epitome of the war is repeated exactly on both the jambs of the portal. The war itself was represented on five planes or series of tableaux. Three of them abut upon the right jamb of the doorway, and two on the left. Each of these planes terminates in a triumph and dedication to Amun under various forms. They are so arranged, that the images of the gods in all of them stand nearest the door, with their backs to it, as if in the act of coming forth from the temple. This we also found to be the case with the gods depicted in the epitome. It is only by the study of this pictui'e-his- tory, in situ, that there is any chance of reading it aright. CHAP, vn.] PICTURE OF THE WAR. 399 The arrangement of these several actions of war was as follows : — Advance, on the right or the Doorway. I. Sethos took the fort of Hadasha. II. Sethos defeated Heth in two battles. III. Sethos defeated Sheth. Retreat, on the left of the Doorway. IV. Sethos took a fort in Hermon, and restored it to Lower Arvad or Tyre. V. Sethos defeated the Shos (Zuzim) before Kanah, received an embassy from Tyre, took Bashan, and returned to Egypt. The war, therefore, was an invasion of Canaan by Sethos. To the right of the doorway the advance is represented; the retreat to the left. The actions on all these five planes terminate in triumphs and dedica- tions of the spoil to Amun of Karnak, who, as we have said, appears in all the five, with his back to the door- way, as if coming forth from it, and under various impersonations. I. The Capture of Hadasha. At this visible commencement of the series; the wall is so mutilated that the only remains of the whole plane are the fort itself with its routed defendei's, a portion of the horses of Sethos at one end, and some 400 TAKING OF A FOET. [chap, vtl fragments of the gods at the other. The picture itself is hke all those that follow it — a ridiculous hyperbole. Sethos achieves the victory alone. He and his horses are dilated to colossal dimensions. Nothing can be more perfect than the defeat of his enemies before the fortress. There is not a man or horse in their anny that is not mortally wounded by his an-ows. The soldiers on the two battlements of the fort are in no better plight than their allies without. Of those of them that are not yet stricken with the an-ows of Sethos, some throw themselves headlong over the battlements, others hold up their broken bows, in token of submission, while their chief presents a firebrand to the conqueror, proposing thereby to set fire to the stronghold.* The only beings unhurt in the whole host of the enemy are a herdsman and his cattle, which he is driving off at full speed, endeavour- ing, of course in vain, to escape the conqueror. The only history which it is possible to derive from this monstrous cariacature would seem to be that the com- bined armies of Upper and Lower Egypt routed a considerable force of Canaanites, and took a fort. The name of the fort is inscribed upon it — " Atash or Chatash, in the land of Amor;" i.e., the Amorites. It is Avell known that the possessions of this tribe of Canaanites lay to the extreme south of the Holy Land, and bordered upon the desert of Suez.f * The forts in Canaan seem to liave been built chiefly of wood. They were probably stockades. The burning of them after their capture was one of the customs of war (see Deut. xx. 20; Joshua xi. 11, &c.). t See Joshua x., «tc. CHAP. VII.] HADASHA IN THE DESERT. 401 The stronghold we have ah'eady found repeatedly mentioned in the records of the wars of Thothmosis.* It was one of the very few localities of Egypt to the north-eastward, over which, in these ancient times, she pretended to the sovereignty. Her expeditions across the Isthmus were mere razzias, for the sake of slaves and plunder. This stronghold is represented in the picture on a wooded hill. Its title, " Hadasha in the land of the Amorite," seems so well to describe the position of Hadasha, " one of the uttermost cities of Judah to- wards the coast of Edom, southward,"!, 'the country whence the Amorites were expelled by Joshua,J that we were once decided to identify them. We are, however, now compelled to call this again into question. Chatash was situated on the extreme verge of the possessions of Canaan, and within a short distance of the Egyptian frontier. This is quite evi- dent. It must, therefore, be sought for among the localities in the desert of Suez. We have already found that one of the first con- quests, after passing the bounds of Egypt, recorded in the preface was Barnea, or Kaclesh-Barnea. We believe that it was to this place that the name Chatash ^ — ^ was applied, and that it represents the first, i^v^/-^ and as it appears most commonly used, of its appellatives, Kadesh,^ t27^P•ll Its exact position in the * Above, p. 236, &c. t Josli. xv. 21, 37. X Numb. xiii. 29. § The initial letter Jcoph was represented by the knife in hiero- glj^phics. II See Gen. xiv. 7 ; xvi. 14 ; Ps. xxix. 8. VOL. II. 3 F 402 HETH AND THE HITTITES. [CHAP. vn. desert we shall have ampler materials for discussing, when the monuments of the son of Sethos are before us. Nothing certain has hitherto been arrived at con- cerning it. II. The Defeat of Heth. The picture with which the history of this plane commences is well known in England, from the fine cast of it in the British Museum. It represents Sethos in the act of decapitating with his scymetar the chief of a foreign enemy, whom, having pierced with his javelin, he lifts up with the string of his bow. The hieroglyphic name of this enemy we have already found with its homophonic variations, reading them, " the land of Heth," and '*the Hittites." Sethos was last in the land of the Amorites ; he is now in that of the Hittites. The two are likewise thus associated in the Scripture history. The Hittites and the Amorites are frequently mentioned together.* Sethos fought two battles with Heth, of course routing them with in- credible slaughter in both. The second battle is hke the first — a personal encounter of Sethos with a prince of Heth. This peculiarity seems to allude to the prowess of the Hittites. The triumph of Sethos over Heth is of the ordinary character. Two files of wretches, the issue of his two battles, are subjected to the torture of the cord, to represent the two affairs in which he gained the victory over them. The heads of several slaughtered Hittites * Gen. xxxiii. 2, &c. CHAP, vn.] MOAB AND AMMON. 403 are suspended from his chariot. Heth had probably been the cause of the war.* The dedication presents the spoil to Amun, under his triple form of Amun, Maut, and Chonsis, as wor- shipped at Karnak. This seems to have been the household god of Sethos. A shrine containing these images accompanied him to the war. III. Sethos overthrows Sheth. The picture-history of this event is on the ground- plane of the first part of this vast series. The enemy defeated on this occasion is Sheth, whom we have elsewhere identified with the powerful race of Moab and Ammon, the descendants of the daughters of Lot. Not being of the race of Canaan, they were not included in the Shepherd confederacy in the epi- tome, like the Amorites and the Hittites, but Sheth is in a separate dungeon. The picture of the battle with Moab and Ammon f is more perfect than either of the two that precede it. Enough remains of them, however, to show that they were all alike gToss cariacatures, exaggerating intolerably the prowess of Pharaoh, and the pusillanimity of his enemies. The battle is a mere slaughter. A host of charioteers strive in vain to oppose the resistless rush of the war-chariot of Sethos. They are crushed be- neath the wheels of his chariot, and the hoofs of his * The Hittite settlers seem always to have been turbulent subjects in Lower Egypt (above, p. 280, &c.). + Eosellini, M. R. pi. Ivii. 404 CRUELTIES TO CAPTIVES. [chap, vil fiery steeds. He himself, dilated to the dimensions of a giant, achieves the victory alone, absolutely alone, unassisted by son, or chief, or soldier ! This monstrous hyperbole runs through the series. The circumstance that Sheth brought chariots to the battle strengthens our identification of this people with Moab and Ammon, who are celebrated in Scripture for the number of war-chariots they brought into the field. The inscription over the picture tells us that Sethos " having subdued the Shepherds, chastises the Sheth- ites." The two, it will be noted, are mentioned here separately, as in the epitome. The triumph is as before. Two files of prisoners are dragged by him to the shrine of his false gods. The arms of all are bound in torturing postures by the same cord, the end of which is in the hand of the conqueror, so that he could at his pleasure throw the whole into agonizing torment at the same time. There cannot be a doubt that the yells, the shrieks, and the groans of these hapless wretches, formed a necessary adjunct to the pomp of these truly diabolical rites, and that they were called forth by a jerk at the cords upon specified occasions. The inscription over this spirited design is as usual : March on, O Sethos ! Pass through the land of Sheth, thou devouring wolf ! It melteth before thee. Even as these smitten ones (are bound) [the prisoners], So is their whole laud bound before thee, r| /^3\-=j\T)rN >P " megtl -pene- setei ; i.e., J ' j|WiMo!li "the tower [fortress] built by Sethos." This was, therefore, a chain of forts along the sea-shore to the eastward of the Delta, of which Sethos was the constructer. 412 DATE OF THE EXPEDITION. [chap, til The name we have considered elsewhere, in another transcription.* The inscription over the king is much mutilated. The commencement, however, happily remains, and repeats the very important fact which was also recorded in another tableau. It reads : *' In the first year of him who is born son of the sun, the king, lord of the two Egypts, Sethos." The expedition, then, was begun and completed in the first year of his reign. This is the only date that appears anywhere in the series; and therefore there cannot be a doubt that it applies to the whole. It is of great value in the identification of the foreign enemies of Egypt depicted in the series. A fortress or town stands on the branch of the Nile depicted in this tableau. It is on both banks, and the two are connected with a bridge. The names of the river, the town, and the district, of Egypt, are all recorded in this picture. The fresh water, with reeds on the banks, and abounding with crocodiles, is named TV. fi ..j^ " hand [i. e., branch] of the Nile." The "^Jj^^^^S-^^ probability that such was the case is hereby rendered a certainty. The name of the city or town is written \ ^ p-slitm-et. The p is the Coptic definite '^Q.ui article. The group shtm, determined by a seal-ring, we have already explained to be the hieroglypliic equivalent of the Coptic verb ^tali, " to shut," *' close."! The initial ^, shei, is very often cut off from this word without any change in the sense ; so * Above, p. 236. + Vol. i. p. 163. CHAP, vn.] PITHOM WAS DAMIETTA. 413 that jyTAu and tu, or xtou, in the Coptic texts, are absolutely identical in meaning. From these circum- stances we have drawn several inferences. 1. The city before us was called "the lock" or " safeguard," because it was built on the extreme border of Egypt Proper, and served as a defence to the frontier, and also as a place of refuge, to which the herdsmen, on the neighbouring pastures to the east- ward, mioht betake themselves, in case of an invasion frQj4|8^iaan.* 2. This city is that which is called Pithom, ens, in the Bible. f It was one of the magazines or " treasure- cities," afterwai'ds fortified by the Israelites for Pha- raoh. 3. This city gave its ancient name to the branch of the Nile on which it stood — ^cc^y-nrmn, " Phathmetic; " i.e., Pithometic : exactly in the same manner as the " Tanitic," the " Mendesian," the " Pelusiac," and the other mouths of the Nile, all of which are named after the cities built upon them. 4. The name of this city in the Coptic texts is TAuiATi. This (with the omission of the article), is the hieroglyphic name tmet, with scarcely a variation. Its modern name has likewise undergone very little change. It is the city of Damietta, situated at the embouchure of the Phathmetic branch of the Nile. We have stated all this elsewhere.]; It has, however, been deemed insufficient to establish the identity, by those for whose opinions we entertain the highest * See Jer. xxxv. 10, 11, (fee. t Exod. i. 11. X Egypt ; her Testimony to the Truth, pp. 59—61, 106. 414 COMPLETION OF THE PROOF. [chap. possible value. We therefore add to it another proof, which has since occurred to us, and which, we submit, completes the identification. ^Ye have said that be- neath the group of northern captives in the prefaces, is another row of prisoners, all representing places in Lower Egypt, and evidently inserted after the original design was finished. The name of the first of these supplementary captives on both jambs is written thus : ,f^^ i-e-5 pt^n. This is palpably the disguised ■ transcription of the group before us. The place I it names was last represented in the picture, and within the bounds of Egypt; hence this variation in the writing and its place here, as the first city ceded after the termination of the war. Just as palpably the reading of the name must be Pithom. The name of the district is written here as well as elsewhere, in this vast battle-piece which we ^^^^ have already identified as the Avaris of the r--^^ Greeks, and an ancient name for the eastern Delta.* In the following picture, a crowd of Egyptian func- tionaries, civil and military, and of priests, congratulate Sethos on his return to Egypt. The priests bear * Above, p. 228, vhat- ever to the clearly fabulous exploits of the Egyptian hero of these ancient historians. We have already explained the vast number of the extant monuments of the reign of Sesostris-Ramses. So numerous are they that we shall not attempt any detailed notice of the whole of them, but confine our- selves to those that illustrate the history of his reign. Like his father, and many of his predecessors, tlie earliest of the warlike exploits of Sesosteis was the grand event of his reign. It took place in his fifth year, and, as this is the first date in which his name appears with the surcharge, we assume that it was the year of his father's death, and of his accession to the undivided sovereignty of Thebes. Such was the impor- tance of this campaign, that its details are commemo- rated upon the external walls of no fewer than three of the greatest constructions that remain in Egj'pt. In Eastern Thebes, this war covers the propylea that formed the entrance to the new palace of Luxor. They are again repeated in Western Thebes, on the propylea and outer wnWs of the great temple called by the French the Memnonium. Our third copy, which is the most perfect of all, covers the walls of the spacious vestibule which forms the entrance to the vast cavern-temple of Abou-Simbel, in Lower Nubia. As all three are in a veiy fair state of preservation, and CHAP, vm.] PALACE AT LUXOK. 457 as the last, which is also the largest, is nearly perfect, the particulars of this campaign are detailed very amply, though by no means very lucidly. The New Palace of Luxok. This construction is in the close vicinity of the palace of Tai and of Memnon, which we have already described;* but it is, nevertheless, altogether distinct from it. The only portion of the interior of this palace that is now traceable, is a large peristyle court or hall, every pillar and architrave of which bears the name of Sesosteis-Ramses. The plan of the original building is not now distinguishable ; for the entire city of Luxor is built upon the site, and the mud walls of its houses lean upon the ruins. The grand entrance faces the north, and, before the removal of the obelisk to the right by the French, was perfect. Two obelisks, each seventy feet high, stood furthest from the palace. Immediately behind them are two sitting colossi in red granite of Sesosteis -Ramses, and on each side of the gateway is a massive or propylon, in the form of a truncated pyramid, and more than fifty feet high. An architrave, which serves also for the lintel, passes from the one propylon to the other. On the massive, to the right on entering, is a picture which covers the whole outer surface, representing Ramses seated on his throne, in the midst of his camp, and receiving military chiefs and Asiatic strangers, some allies, but all foreigners are captives, bound with cords. The chariots * Above, p. 347, seq. VOL. 11. 3 N 458 PALACE AT GOUENOU. [CHAP. VIU. and armies of Egypt are drawn up in line on the back-ground. This is evidently the day after a victory. On the propylon to the left is the battle, which, like those already described, is a mere flight of Asiatics before Ramses and the army of Eg}-pt. The crossing of a river and the capture of a fort are also repre- sented. The accompanying hieroglyphics inform us that this action took place in the fifth year of the reign of Ramses, and on the ninth of the month Ephep. The Memnonium, oe Ramess^um of Westeex Thebes. This is the palace-temple, the remains of which were named by the French savans, who accompanied the Expedition to Eg}'pt in 1798, the Memnonium, which we retain. It was, however, begun and completed by Sesosteis-Ramses, and named after him, the Rames- saeum. It is situated on the plain at the foot of the cata- combs of Gournou, just beyond the limit of the inun- dation. The vast tract included in the square enclosure that surrounded it, was once enthely covered with constructions in granite and bricks of Nile - mud, stuccoed, all of which seem to have been halls for public purposes. The ruin itself is very extensive, but it bears the marks of having been at some time fortified and carried by storm ; so that at certain points it is greatly dismembered. It was in this temple that Ramses completed the amalgamation of Month, or CHAP. VIII.] THE SAME ACTION. 459 Mars, the god of Western Thebes, with Amun, the local divinity of Thebes on the other bank, and the tutelary of his own family. The temple itself consists of a suite of five magnifi- cent hypostyle halls or courts, arranged in a right line, and opening the one into the other; so that a central aisle or colonnade passed through the entire building. The last of these halls was a library, and the approach to it was through a gilded doorway, according to the inscription that still remains upon it. The entrance to the Ramessseum was also of wonderful magnificence, as its ruins testify; but the obelisks, the colossi at the entrance, and the outer faces of the two propyla, which are far larger than those of Luxor, have dis- appeared before the military operations already men- tioned. In the entrance hall, on the other side of the pro- pyla, are the remains of four sitting colossi, all monolith of black granite, and representing Ramses, the con- structor of the temple. The most perfect of them is the largest monolith colossus in granite in the world. The sitting figure is 33 feet high. Like its com- panions, however, it has been destroyed of purpose. On the inner faces of the propyla are sculptured in rehef the mihtary exploits of Ramses-Sesosteis. On that to the right is the picture repeated of the chief incident of the campaign, on the ninth of the tenth month (Ephep), in his fifth year. The other, which is much mutilated, is part of the same subject. It is therefore another account of the same event as that recorded at Luxor. 460 WORSHIP OF A NAME. [CHAP. vin. The Great Speos of Amun, at Abou-Simbel, OR Ipsambul. This wonderful excavation consists of a hall of vast dimensions, quarried in the bowels of a mountain, and extending inwards for more than 200 feet from the doorway. The approach is an hypsethral cutting in the side of the mountain, of about the same extent. Four colossi, each sixty feet high, and sculptured in bold relief on the sides of the cutting, guard the entrance to this most magnificent of vaults. They all represent Sesostris-Ramses, and are remarkable for the extreme beauty of their execution. They are coloured, and the tints still remain but little impaii-ed. The temple is dedicated to Amun-Re, and to Re or Phre {i.e., "the sun "), with an especial reference to the initial /q\ title in the first ring of the name, Sesostris, so that the god is invariably represented in- vested with the two attributes that constitute this title. This worship of the names of the kings of Egypt is by no means uncommon on the monu- ments of the Diospolitan Pharaohs. The eight or ten small cabinets which open out of the great hall are covered with mythic reliefs, representing acts of adoration paid by Ramses to the principal gods of Egypt. This is also the case with the eight pillai's that support the great hall. But the whole of its walls are covered with the pictorial details of the campaign of Ramses against the Asiatics, in the fifth year of his reign. CHAP, vni.] DEATH OF HIS FATHER. 461 Thus we have, on three of the temples of Egypt, three several versions of the picture -history of the same campaign. This circumstance alone shows it to have been a great event in the reign of Sesosteis- Ramses ; but we have evidence of its importance even still more direct and unequivocal. The speos of Abou- Simbel was begun long after its occurrence, and not completed until the 38th of this monarch. We cer- tainly infer from hence, that no other war of equal magnitude had occurred in the course of his reign, or it would have been selected for the subject of these reliefs. Up to this year, therefore, it had been by far the most notable feat of arms of Sesosteis-Ramses. We have also ascertained from the classical historians that the great expedition of this hero was undertaken on his first accession ; so that we can have no stronger evidence that the action before us is that which was celebrated in the tradition they have perpetuated. We will endeavour to combine these three trans- criptions, so as, if possible, to give its history con- tinuously. The fifth year of Sesosteis-Ramses was probably that of his father's death, and consequently of his own accession to the undivided throne of Egypt. We have already noticed the existence of a date of the fourth year of his co-regency. This abatement, at least from the duration of his reign, is imperatively required by the probabilities of chronology. It was the ambition of Sesostris to imitate the example of all his great ancestors, by signalizing the first year of his reign over Egypt by some great exploit of war. 462 PREFACE TO THE HISTORY. [CHAP. vm. The materials for the history of the campaign are, as we have said, very ample. The pictures of its events cover a vast surface of wall, and are described in hundreds of columns of hieroglyphics. Such, however, is the want of perspicuity in all the modes of recording thought in use among the Ancient Egyptians, that this multi- plicity of texts serves only to increase the difficulties of arriving at a clear understanding of their import. The paintings of Abou-Simbel alone, of all the three repetitions, relate the beginning of the campaign. If it ever existed at Luxor and Gournou, it is either covered with modern buildings or destroyed. The preface is as usual — a group of many kneeling captives, white, black, and the chocolate colour of Nubia and the desert. The conqueror grasps the hair of the group with his left hand, in which also he holds his bow. In his right, he brandishes the bill or battle- axe, in act to strike. Amun-Re holds forth to him a faulcliion, and says : Take thy faulchion, Smite therewith mightily. We grant thee to tranquillize the south, To conquer the north, To scatter the barbarous chiefs of the whole world, To raise thy palace, To extend the bounds of Egj'pt Unto the pillars of heaven in both hemispheres.* The relief which this inscription illustrates is in the north-east corner of the great hall. * Rosellini, M. E. Ixxix. CHAP, vm.] BEGINNING OF CAMPAIGN. 463 Immediately adjoining is a fort, the defenders of which are all transfixed hy the arrows of Ramses, who, like his father, takes it alone. He is rushing upon them in his chariot at full gallop, shooting arrows at them as he advances. The inscription is as usual : The good god, the son of Amun, Goes forth to conquer. His presence sustains his archers ; His vigilance on both borders forestals the fight ; His word is sure, His hand is firm on his chariot, like Mars. The lord conquering multitudes. The bull goring myriads. He makes to tremble all the rebels of the Jebusites ; He casts down their high mountains ; He casts them into their valleys, Like grasshoppers' eggs. Smite them, O victorious lord of the faulchion, Let their habitations be desolate for ever ! The first action of the war, therefore, was the suc- cessful attack upon a fortified town in the possession of the Jebusites. This must have been one of the cities in the Delta, because the march over the frontier is represented afterwards. The next action in the campaign is the defeat of an army, headed by two chiefs of the Hittites.* This is figuratively represented, by Sesostkis slaying the two commanders. About the same time some success was achieved against the blacks on the southern frontier. The inscription is as follows : * Rosellini, M. R. Ixxxii. 464 MOTIVE OF THE WAR. [chap vm. The good god Leading captive the Phutim ; * Putting to flight the nations of the North ; Their mountains are overthrown at his presence. His sword subdues like [the sword of] Mars ; He is gone forth to the land of the Nahasi (Xegroes), And to the northern land of those that are trodden down, + Even to the land of Nubia, Even to the land of the Zuzim, which had [before] been con- quered, Also to the land of the S [mutilated] (doubtless some southern tribe). When he had contended with the Hittites (land of Heth), In the plains of the North ; He built constructions with the captives of his victories. He prevails over you, O ye cutters up of Tyre ; O ye dividers of Arvad, He casts you down. He hews you in pieces. The motive of the war now becomes intelligible. Another aggression upon Tyre and Arvad, that is upon the Xoite kingdom, the ancient allies of his father, called the young king to the north-eastern frontier. Another proof of the increasing weakness of the now crumbling remains of the line and throne of Aphophis. Once more, as on so many former occasions, Heth is the aggressor. Nubia was also threatened by two Negro tribes, who were immediately subdued, and many * Two strings of Negro captives, represented in the following picture. t 'j^^ "^1 hmu, "tread under foot" (Copt. 2U2tOU, the same). The picture represents the conqueror trampling upon his northern enemies. CHAP, vni.] PEOGEESS OF EAMSES. 465 captives taken by the armies of Egypt. This invasion •was effectually repelled by the single action hinted at in this place. We hear no more of it. The affair was either one of little real importance, or it was made so in these records, because the king was not personally present at it. After the two files of African prisoners, the war on the northern frontier is resumed. Having defeated the Hittites, Sesosteis hastens across the desert in pursuit of the enemy. He is represented driving his chariot furiously. His tame lion runs by the side of it. In the explanatory text it is said : The great god Eamses follows after you, The king goes into their countries ; He passes through many lands. He has made a treaty with Arvad [Lower Egypt]. He has taken their chiefs for hostages, He has granted the requests of the chiefs of Hasi.* He goes on his way like fire, When it ruslieth forth where there is no water. His arm obtains the sovereignty. Having put to shame t the persons of the chiefs of the Jebusites, Having butted at their hind-quarters, He spares them. J Here we find that before Ramses crossed the borders of Eg}^pt, he made treaties with his allies, both to the north and the south. His northern allies were Upper Arvad, i.e., the Xoite king, and Lower Arvad, of which Tyre and Sidon were both cities. The foreign * The Negroes, elsewhere written Nahasi. + St nu (Copt. C.VTUOOt) mingere. X ^- pl- Ixxxiv, VOL. II. 3 0 466 SIEGE or PHENNE. [chap. vm. allies of Egypt represented at Abou-Simbel are accord- ingly Sidonians in arms and costume. They are, however, Egyptians in complexion, like the prisoners of Thothmosis. * There can be no doubt that they are the soldiers of the Xoite king, and that therefore the present war had the same motive as that of the preceding reign. The Xoite kingdom, too weak at this time to defend its eastern frontier, demanded the aid of Upper Eg}'pt. This Pharaoh and his subjects are, as usual, everywhere nicknamed Arvad, in the arrogant texts that accompany the pictures, and spoken of as foreign enemies. Nothing short of years of study of these texts suffices to distinguish in them the ally of Egypt from the enemy. The next event of the war is recorded at the Rames- saeum of \Yestern Thebes. It is the siege of a fort, the name of which is inscribed upon ^ ^ ^ it. We long ago explained that this ">^^v\ ^-"^ name was, soon after the epoch before us, that of a mining station in the desert of Sinai, at the foot of Mount Hor. It was the Punon of the Hebrew Bible,f the Phenne of the Greek Itineraries. We have hitherto left this assumed identification undisturbed. It now becomes needful closely to examine the grounds of it. The locality before us certainly may be Pan on at the foot of Mount Hor. There is nothing to render this impossible ; but we long ago expressed our sur- prise, that objects so weighty as granite obelisks should be brought from such a distance to Egj'pt I in the * Above p. 29G ; see Roselliui, M. R. pi. c. t Numb, xxxiii. 12. X See above, p. 293. CHAP, vin.] LOCALITY OF PHENNE. 467 days of Thothmosis. We have likewise found the capture of this place, one of the first exploits of the campaign of Sethos, immediately on his crossing the borders of Eg}'pt.* This, again, seems to bring it nearer to the Egyptian boundary. If we now consider the name itself, we find that it is significant. It means " a border town," "a strong- hold on the border." f Such a meaning certainly leads us to look for some locality much nearer to the border of Egypt Proper, than Mount Hor or the Wady- el-Arabah, which is separated from it by the entire Peninsula of Sinai, so that both from the meaning of the name itself, and from all the hints we are able to gather from the inscriptions, it seems probable that the place intended by it, is nearer to Egypt than Punon by Mount Hor. It will be remembered that the name Migdol, which is also significant, has in these texts an extended application to any fortress by the sea. J The word pen-ne is also capable of the same vague and general use. It is applied to towns on either border of Egypt. There was a Phenne in the south, besides this Phenne in the north. We have for these reasons been induced to believe, that by the Phenne of these texts, we are to understand, not Punon by Mount Hor, but the mining district § at the head of the Gulf of Suez, which had been the possession of Egypt from the foundation of the monarchy. The history now before * p. 398 &c. t Alphabet No. 103. See also above, p. 266. + pp. 236, 411. § That Phenne was a mining district, see above, p. 292, seq. 468 ITS SIEGE — AN EMBASSY. [chap. vni. US, we shall find to be just as imperative in its re- quirements that Phenne shall not be very far from the border of Egypt, as those we have already con- sidered. We need scarcely repeat, that the modern name of this district is the Wady Meghara. We have also ex- plained that its name in Ancient 'Egypt, was " the mountains of Monthra," * by which, of course, it would not be called in these texts, when it was in the hands of a foreign enemy. In the picture of the siege of this stronghold, at the Ramessaeum, six of the Heteri of the king assault the fortress, which is held by foreigners, with the costume and arms of the Jebusites, while Sesostpjs receives an embassy from Sheth. There is a long inscription in hieroglyphics over the picture. We have elsewhere given a translation of it ; f there is no reason for repeating here that which contains so little that is either pleasing or instructive. This strange composi- tion merely once casually alludes to the siege, the subject it might naturally be supposed to illustrate. It relates altogether to the embassy from Sheth. Nothing can be more humble than the demeanour of the ambassadors. The pictm-e of them recals forcibly to mind the Gibeonites in the camp of Joshua. I Neither would it be possible for terms more abject to be used than those which the inscription puts into their mouths. The reply of Pharaoh is in a tone of cor- responding arrogance. Yet the sequel shows that the * Vol. i. p. 255, &c. t Egypt, her Testimony, pp. 84, 85. i Josh. iv. CHAP, vm.] BATTLE OF KADESH. 469 war between Egypt and Sheth still proceeded, and therefore that the terms offered by the ambassadors were such as Sesosteis could not accept. Our readers are now so well aware of the mode in which history lies hid beneath these inscriptions, and of the difficulty of un- covering it, that there will be no need to trouble them with any further remark upon it. The next and only event of the war of the fifth of Sesosteis, according to all the three repetitions of its picture history, is the sanguinary defeat of Sheth before another stronghold, inscribed with the name of Hadasha or Kaclesli, which is already familiar to us.* There is, however, at the Ramessaeum and at Abou- Simbel, a long inscription over the picture of Pharaoh on his throne receiving an embassy, by the aid of which we may possibly be enabled to connect this last event with the siege of Phenne. [This battle was fought on] the 9th of Epep [the 11th month], in the 5th year of Sesostris-Ramses. The inscription is a part of the picture of the battle, it therefore commences with the date of that event. It then goes backward and recapitulates the history of the campaign : Behold the king was in the land of Heth at the beginning. We have just seen that the defeat of the Hittites was one of the first actions of the war. Then [afterwards] the army encamped in the district to the southward of the province of Kadesh. * Above, p. 400, &c. 470 A SECOND EMBASSY. [chap. Tin. For the king arose and received the ensigns of his father Monthra.* Then the king inarched [over the desert, lit., " sailed "]. t Then the king attacked the southern fortress of the Jebusites-X We need scarcely repeat our explanation of this history. After defeating the Hittites, Sesostris crossed the desert, and laid siege to Phenne, which at this time was held by the Jebusites. Then two princes of the Zuzim came to speak to the king Concerning the aggressions of the great ones of the race of Moah. § This, it will be perceived is another embassy received by Sesostris during the siege of Phenne. The former one came from Sheth with proposals for peace, which * i.e., Mars. There may be here an allusion to Phenne, the name of which in Egypt was " the mountains of Monthra." t Vol. i. p. 114. r^-^ shuhm. There can be no doubt that the foreigners designated by this and many other groups having the same sound, but written with other homophons, are of the same nation as those which appear on the tomb of Nahrai (above, pp. 31, 86). We have shown this elsewhere. Our reasonings have not been answered, though the fact is denied. § The second character of this group "the cord" {Al2)Ju:d)et, 'No. 7), has been written jj^j "the ground plot" {Alphabet, No. 48), in both transcriptions Q"^^^' " Rosellhii, M. R. cii. Lepsius iii. 153. From hence the whole has been read mahout. This error we believe to have been in the original copy. It is easily rectified by the collation of this with other texts relating to Sheth. ^Ye believe that the ground plot is never followed by the quail (No. 3), which in this case interprets the cord (Xo. 7) ; so that the right rendering is maht, perhaps the ri'"3S1!3 of the Bible. See Alphabet. CHAP, vm.] THE SHASU OR ZUZIM. 471 were rejected. The present one is from the alhes of Sesostris, complaimng of the aggressions of Sheth, which had followed upon that rejection. The ambas- sadors are represented in both copies undergoing examination, by scourging, before they were admitted into the presence of Pharaoh. They are named in the accompanying explanation, " the two tribute-bearers (ambassadors), concerning Sheth." In the coloured relief at Abou-Simbel, they are two youths with the complexion of Egypt, but with the hght hair and eyes of the inhabitants of the Delta. We have frequently before met with the people who sent this embassy, in the mYi\ Jt course of this our mquny. M-^i Jc^Y We have identified them with the Zuzim that dwelt in Ham, the first of the tribes of Canaan, who emigrated into the Delta, and formed settlements there. In the days of Sethos, they were at war with Egypt; and, according to the picture-history, sustained a defeat from bis army, and purchased peace by the concession to Egypt of three strongholds, all situated in the Desert of Suez.* We shall find that they are now at peace with Egypt, and that the object of their embassy is to ask for aid against another enemy. It must be borne in mind, that this embassy was certainly sent to the Xoite, as well as to the Theban, Pharaoh. The princes and soldiers of both kings are represented in the accompanying picture, though the name of the Xoite monarch is only once mentioned in the arrogant phrases of the inscription, under the nickname of Arvad. * Above, pp. 397, 408. 472 THE TWO EABBAHS. [chap. vin. The message of the Zuzite ambassadors, probably dehvered while undergoing examination by scourging, was as follows : We come in haste from fighting with Sheth, in the northern land, Even with Sheth, that dwelleth in the two Eabbahs. The group we translate " the two Rabbahs," is often ^<=:> n £1:^ used in the course of this inscription, // J I f-^-^ of which we have two ancient copies, as well as in other texts that relate to Sheth. Rabbah was the name of a chief city among all the Canaanite tribes. It is repeatedly applied in the Bible to the capitals of Moab and Ammon.* Nothing is therefore more likely than that this confederation would be known in Egypt as the land of the two Rabbahs. For these reasons, we still adhere to the interpretation of the group which we first proposed many years ago.f They have pitched their camp, They invade, they overrun. Behold the Zuzite ambassadors come to tell this to the king : They enter into our land. They lay waste the regions in which the eye of the king is not ; There they fear not to fight. Let, then, the king's armies contend with them, Even with the evil race of Sheth ; For, behold, Sheth comes with all the chiefs of their land, * See Deut. iii. 11 ; Josh. xiii. 25, &c. + To the objection, that this reading violates a rule of the hieroglyphic grammar, according to which the numeral ought to follow the noun it qualifies, we can only reply, that we are not aware of the existence of such a rule ; and also, that it would be impossible to wi-ite the phrase in hieroglyphics otherwise than as it appears in the gi'oup before us. CHAP, vm.] THE ZUZIM AND SHETH. 473 Their horsemen and their footmen ; They come to defy the armies of the king. They spread terror and dismay through the land of Kadesh ; Therefore, behold, the chief of that land [Kadesh] Supplicates the king With pure gold, which he sends as his personal tribute ; Yea, he saith vehemently : " Both the kiugs of Sheth are in battle array. Bonds are before them ; Yea, Sheth has invaded us." Such appears to have been the tenor of the in- formation extracted by the scourge from these luckless envoys. We trust that our translation will have so cleared the sense, as to render explanation all but needless. Immediately on the rejection by Pharaoh of the terms proposed by the Shethite ambassadors, that warlike confederacy suddenly invaded the territory of the ally of Lower Egypt (the Zuzim), and laid siege to the city of Kadesh. Altogether unable to resist the invaders, either by his own force or by that of his kindred in Canaan, the Zuzite monarch demands the aid of the Pharaohs of both Egypts, who were then actually engaged in chastising an aggression by the Jebusites upon their own territory at Phenne or the "Wady Meghara. We long ago called attention to the circumstance, that this hieroglyphic history places tbe Zuzim in antagonism with Moab and Ammon, and that the nearly contemporaneous history of the Bible has pre- served the record of the same war, which terminated in the utter destruction of the Zuzim.* We gather from * See Deut. ii. 19—21. VOL. II. 3 P 474 MESSAGE TO SHETH. [chap. tiu. hence the remarkable though probable conclusion, that the conquerors of the parent-stock of Zuz, in the mountains of Sheth, or Siddim, in Canaan, laid claim to their possessions in Ham, or Egypt, also. In prosecution of their claim, they were now invading the territory of the Xoite Pharaoh. We ask for this coin- cidence, only the amount of consideration which would be at once conceded to it, had it been recorded by Herodotus, or Diodorus, or Manetho, instead of by Moses. We are almost ashamed to say, that we have reached the furthest limit of the exact history related in the lengthy document before us. It is only by deduction that the facts implied in the rest of it can be anived at. The result of the examination of the two envoys is explained to Pharaoh, who, in reply, dispatches them to the camp of the enemy with a message, which, under pain of his heaviest displeasui'e, he chai-ges them to deliver word for word : Look out, O ye smitten Shethites ! Make ye ready in all your lands, Yea, in all the possessions that ye have. The king cometh with his armies, To fight against all the lands that are within the boundaries of Sheth ; Both in the district of Naharain (i.e., Canaan), And in the district of Heth (i.e., Lower Egypt) ; Therefore let them prepare their footmen and their horsemen, even all that they have. Call ye a religious assembly, offer meat-offerings and drink- offerings [for success in the war], O ye who have filled the land of Kadesh with dismay ! CHAP, vm.] TEACE WITH THE JEBUSITES. 475 This magniloquent threat was certainly never ful- filled. Still more deeply to dismay Sheth, Pharaoh sets before them the utter discomfiture of the Jebusites, which he has just accomplished at Phenne, and their most abject submission. He then concludes his message thus : Firm is the land of Sheth, in the district of the two Eabbahs, But the king shall entirely overrun it, When he shall give the word to arise and march against it. According to this (i.e., Phenne) explain to them, O ye Zuzites ! Yea, according to this will I do in the hour that I make war upon thee, O Sheth ! Ye say, land cometh together with land, with men, and with horses, like lizards for multitude, To put fear into the city of Kadesh. Behold this shall be unto you for a sin, 0 ye chiefs of the land, which shall never be expiated ; As the chiefs of this land (Phenne) have expiated their sin. Who have brought for their tribute timber [and laid it down] on ■y-^ H — y — /WV\A, c::-^::^:^ tlie hamk of the river. yvv\AA^ /vwv^ /WNAA £Ii 1 1 I I III ^vwv\ ^ I The picture below explains the import of these phrases. Pharaoh broke up his camp at Phenne, and arrived at Kadesh in time to raise the siege, and to overthrow Sheth, the besieger, in a pitched battle. The Zuzite embassy had arrived just at the time when Sesostkis had brought his war with the Jebusites to a termination, either by conquest or treaty. The locality of Kadesh is the question which it is now incumbent upon us carefully to consider. We 476 SITE OF KADESH-BAENEA. [chap. vin. have elsewhere * expressed our conviction that it is the place named Kadesh-Barnea and En-Mishpat in the Bihle. The collation of the two prefaces to the war of Sethos, on the north wall of Karnak, seems to make this pretty certain. The name Barnea, on the right jamb,-|- is written Kadesh in the corresponding dungeon on the left jamb. Kadesh-Barnea was the principal city to the east- ward of Egypt. It was at first situated without the bounds of Egypt Proper, which, as we have explained, terminated in tliese ancient times with the Phathmetic branch and its eastern tributaries. ;J Yet was it closely adjacent to Egypt, and the city itself was probably actually annexed to it by the Pharaoh whose history is now before us. It was at the Exodus the name of the whole desert of Suez. The children of Israel went thither in the second year of their wandering, for the purpose of attacking Canaan ;§ from which they were deterred by the evil report of the spies. || This name it retained long afterwards. ^ Our readers are aware that the channels and rivulets from the Nile, which flow from the Phathmetic branch over the bounds of Egypt, were collected together, and formed that which was afterwards called the Pelusiac branch.** These are comprehended in these texts under the general name of " the waters of Naharain." Their present debouchure is about twenty miles from * Above, p. 401. t Iklaut 14, above, p. 397. + Above, p. 413. § Numb. xiii. 24 ; Deut. i. 46 ; ii. 14. II Numb, xxxii. 8 ; Deut. ix. 23, itc. 11 Ps. xxix. 8. ** Above, p. 285. CHAP. \m..] THE CITY OF PELUSIUM. 477 Tanis, then the eastern border of Egypt, and about one- third the distance between that city and the river of Egypt, which is the western boundary of Canaan. It would be quite certain that the chief city or fortress of this dry and thii'sty land would be situated on the most favourable spot that could be selected for water. Accordingly, we find in all the pictures of the present war that the city of Kadesh stood on the banks of a river. In the war of Sethos, it is represented standing on a wooded hill. In the present pictures, this hill is shown to be a mound upon which it was built, like other cities of Lower Egypt. These circumstances seem to indicate that the Chatash of the pictures before us, the Kadesh-Barnea of the Bible, must have been the city afterwards called Pelusium by the Greeks, Avhich was not exactly on the sea-coast, though near it, and which also lay more than forty miles to the east- ward of the maritime boundary of Egypt at Damietta.* * Dr. Lepsius is most unsuccessful in an attempt to identify Pelusium with Avaris {Einhitung, pp. 337 — 344). He founds his argument upon a denial that Pelusium is from mnXos, " clay ; " forgetting that both its Egyptian name cf)Apoui, its later Hebrew- name y^'O (Ezek. XXX. 1.5), and its modern Arabic name Tineh, have all the same signification. We have elsewhere endeavoured to show that the city named Avaris was the Leontopolis of the Greeks, the Pharbethus of the Itineraries, and the Phelbes of the Copts and Arabs {above, p. 415). The Doctor supports his loose guess with some vague quotations from Chaeremon and other Alexandrian writers. He again overlooks a fact. In the many misfortunes that Egypt had undergone, many changes of the names of cities took place, and their ancient names were often lost ; so that very little precise knowledge upon these points remained in the days of Josephus and his cotem- poraries. 478 THE BATTLE BEFORE IT. [chap, tul The name of this city in all languages, from the days of the Greeks until now, has been derived from the vast tracts of marsh which surround it, and which at this day render its ruins all but inaccessible. This circumstance is another strong coincidence with the Chatash of the pictures before us. Sesostris is represented driving the Shethites into a marsh, where numbers of them perish, and whence many of his own people who had followed them in the ardour of pursuit were with difficulty extricated by their comrades ; so that the proof of the identity of Kadesh-Barnea with the Chatash of these pictures, and of this last with Pelusium in the desert of Suez, is, we submit, a suffi- cient one. The fulfilment of the pompous threat of Sesostris is the grand centre-piece of all the three pictures of the war that are now before us. The city is represented as surrounded on three sides by the waters of a narrow stream, which expand into a marsh on the opposite shore. The besiegers had pitched their camp on the land side. This is attacked by the Eg}-ptian ai'my. The infantry in solid square form the centre. The Upper Egyptian soldiers carry the high cylindrical shield, with the pavise or eye-hole at the top, and are armed with the long lance. They have the body defended with quilted linen, but the head is bare. The troops of Lower Eg^-pt have circular shields, with golden or brazen bosses, and are armed with two- edged swords of copper or bronze. Then- body-clothes are the same as the Upper Egyptians; but they have on their heads low helmets of silver, or some other white CHAP, vra.] THE CHARIOTS OF SHETH, 479 metal, surmounted with the horns and disc, after the exact fashion of those represented on Phenician coins. The chai'iots advance on both flanks, and complete the battle array. These chariots are drawn by a pair of horses, and carry three warriors, one armed with the lance, another with the bow, the third being the charioteer. Such seems to have been the universal practice throughout the ancient world. The besieged Zuzites in Kadesh merely man the chain of small forts, which is represented as surround- ing their city. They make no sally, nor take any part in the engagement. This is evidently for the purpose of giving the entire glory of the victory to the armies of Egypt. The force of Sheth, as far as it appears in the field, consisted entirely of war-chariots. "We have already noticed the same peculiarity in the armament of this people in another representation of them,* and pointed out its exact coincidence with the battle array of Moab and Ammon in the scripture history. The proof of this coincidence is still more pregnant in the instance now before us. The costume, arms, accoutrements, and personal appearance of the Shethites have been so amply described elsewhere, that we could merely repeat here the description of them which we have given there, f This we ai'e unwilling to do. Our subject is already copious enough, without the addition of any matter not strictly belonging to it. We therefore refer to our former work for these descriptions generally. * At Kamak, above p. 403, seq. + Egyptj her Testimony, pp. 130 — 137. 480 ART IN EGYPT. [chap, vtil The defeat of Sheth is just as signal in this vast battle-piece, as in all other reliefs which commemorate the wars of Egypt with her foreign enemies. The con- flict is depicted with wonderful spirit in all the three copies of it. The infantry advance in phalanx upon the chariots of Sheth. These merely face them long enough for the charioteers to receive mortal wounds. They are then driven pell-mell into the marsh. The Egyptian chariots on the flanks dash in among them, and commit a terrible slaughter. Even the horses in the Shethite chariots are all writhing with flesh wounds from the arrows of the Egyptian archers, which are sticking in them. The wounds inflicted both on men and horses, and their dying agonies, are portrayed in endless variety, and with a spirit and force which are truly Homeric. The enemy having been driven into the marsh by the footmen, the victory was completed by the charioteers, who followed them and cut them to pieces. The foot-soldiers seem thenceforward to have had no other occupation than that of rescuing the Eg}^ptian charioteers from the mud, into which they are floundering in their attempt to return after the defeat. Art in Egypt was altogether impatient of the tram- mels, not of ti'uth merely, but of probabihty. The conquests of Pharaoh must be achieved by the mere terror of the arms of Egypt, and by his own personal prowess. The fierce contention, the doubtful issue, the heroism of both parties, which give to the Homeric fictions their truth and thrilling interest, were alto- gether unknown to Egyptian ai*t. It had no human CHAP. vm.J THE GEEAT WAR OF THE REIGN. 481 sympathy with foreign enemies. They were noxious reptiles, whose portraiture could give no pleasure, un- less they were writhing with pain, or undergoing de- struction ; whose names were never mentioned in her songs unassociated with the bitterest aspersions, and the vilest and most degrading epithets. Of this pecu- liarity, our pages contain very ample illustrations ; and this it is which goes so far to deprive art in Egypt of all that can create either pleasure or interest. The size of these pictures altogether prevents their compression within the dimensions of our page. Sepa- rate groups from them have often been published ; but the subjects are in themselves unpleasing, and the effect of the originals is entirely lost in these reduc- tions, however correct. We do not, therefore, give them here. This defeat of Sheth before Pelusium was the grand action of the great war with which Sesostris signalized his accession to the undivided throne of Egypt on the death of his father. Such was its importance, that the very names of the Shethite chiefs who fell in the battle, and the places where they perished (some on dry land, but the greater part in the marsh) are commemo- rated in the three picture-histories of it. This war so far surpassed in magnitude and results all the other wars of his reign, that the vast cavern-temple of Abou- Simbel was hewn to perpetuate the memory of it, more than thirty years after its occurrence. Yet assuredly it consisted of nothing more than the expulsion of the Jebusites from a city of Lower Egypt and from the frontier mining district of Phenne, a battle with the VOL. II. 3 Q 482 AN INCONSIDERABLE ONE. [chap. vtii. Hittites, and the defeat of Sheth before Pelusiurn. For the reroainder or second part of the poem, en- graved by the throne of Pharaoh, contains nothing but the submission of Sheth to Sesosteis, and his petition for peace, which is gi-anted to him. Neither prisoners nor spoil of any importance were the fruits of this campaign. These additional glories would cer- tainly not have been overlooked had they existed; but there is no hint at either in any of the three pictures of the war. It is impossible to resist the conclusion to which these facts so unerringly point. The war of which we have this succession of colossal records, was a very in- considerable affair, both in its prosecution and its results, when compared with the exploits against Lower Egj^pt either of Thothmosis or of Sethos. It does not seem possible that it can have been a campaign of more than a few weeks. The incursion of the Jebusites was evi- dently merely a predatory one. They had seized upon a fortress on the western border of the desert, and upon the copper mines. The latter had been in the possession of Sethos in his twenty-second year.* Taking advantage of the weakness of the Xoite king, the division among his subjects, and doubtless, also, of the security and negligence of the Thejjan government after a long peace, they had probably made a sudden incursion, and surprised both positions. Then- dis- lodgment from both was a matter of easy accomphsh- ment, and shedding but a dim ray of gioiy upon the conqueror. This the pictures make perfectly evident. * Above, p. 425. CHAP. Tin.] ANOTHER WAR WITH SHETH. 483 Even the defeat of Sheth, however complete, neither checked the career of conquest of that powerful con- federacy, nor led to any other important result. The subsequent wars of Sesostris make this very evident. The records of these wars on the monuments require to be noticed, though it is needful to keep in mind that, however inflated the descriptions, the wars them- selves must, in the nature of things, have been very inferior in importance to the one we have related. In the ninth year of Sesostris-Ramses, in the month Paoni (the tenth month) he was again at war on the north-eastern frontier of Egypt, and the enemy was once more Sheth. We can have no stronger proof than this of the inconsiderable character and unim- portant results of the defeat before Pelusium. The power of Sheth was neither broken nor even dimin- ished by this check. Far from it ; he is again in the field, and again invading Egypt for the purpose of possessing himself of the strongholds of the Zuzim there. This unfortunate race was once more allied with Egypt. There were once two records of this war in existence. One of them is a papyrus formerly in the possession of M. Sallier, of Aix in Provence, but purchased from him by the British Museum about ten years ago. This interesting document has been found in the same tomb, and was written by the same scribes, and be- longed to the same library, as the one to which we have elsewhere referred.* It is said to be a poem describing a battle of Sesostris-Ramses with Sheth, in the month * Above, p. 91, note. 484 THE SALLTER PAPYEUS. [chap. vin. Paoni (the tenth month) of the ninth year of his reign. Sesostris of course won the victory, and the Shethites afterwards humbly sued for peace, and obtained it. This manuscript has been pubhshed by the Museum, but the author of the present work has not had the opportunity of examining it, which has been afforded to most other students of this uninviting subject. He is there- fore only in condition to say, in regard of it, that which appears in the letter of ChampoUion, who saw it while in the possession of M. Salher,* and in a few extracts from the same document in a paper read by Mr. Birch before the Royal Society of Literature.f From hence, it certainly follows that this invasion was partially suc- cessful. Pelusium (Kadesh-Barnea), Hehopolis, and Hermopolis, in the Delta, were once more in the hands of Sheth, and, according to this poem, were again rescued by Sesostris. The vast force of Sheth in chaiiots is here again commemorated. He is said to have taken the field on this occasion with 4500 chariots. On the north external wall of the vast hypostyle hall of Karnak, is another record of the war with Sheth in the ninth of Sesostets. The preface alone is now legible. It does not appear that any continuation of it ever existed. This was the custom with inconsiderable actions of war. The preface only commemorated them. Amun brings 12 prisoners, and Horus in the eastern desert 24 prisoners, to Sesosteis, who is braining his group of captives as usual. The names inscribed * L' Univers, Egypte, p. 333, &c. t Transactions (new series), vol. ii. 330, seq. CHAP, vni.] WAR WITH LOWER ARVAD. 485 in the dungeons led by the gods, are deeply disguised by variations in the homophons; probably enough, because of their near vicinity to the great battle-piece of Sethos, where the same names are often repeated. Many of them are traceable notwithstanding, and all of these are localities in the eastern Delta, and in the desert adjacent.* Among them appears the two Kab- bahs, which points to the identification of the device with the present war. It was dated the ninth year of Sesostris, which completes the identity .f There is yet another war of Sesostris, commemorated on the opposite external wall of Karnak. The enemy on this occasion was Lower Arvad or Hermon, whom we have found united with Sheth in the former war. Lower Egypt was again confederate with Sesostris in this war, while the Jebusites combined with the Tyrian settlers. The cause of the war was probably a re- bellion of these last. Its single action was the reduc- * Tanis is thus disguised : : " the district of Tanis in Avaris." Leontopolis stands thus : I'^i " the district of Avaris." Another desert station is named |y=fB " the thirsty land. Heliopolis appears under the strange disguise of ; ^| « ti^g fountain tCQC?"]'^!?- : Lower Arvad or Hermon is also concealed in this form "the lands and waters [the settlement] of Hermon," camp of the Tyrians" (above, p. 222). Lepsius iii. 144. t KoseUini : Monummti Istorid. This date has now perished. 486 THE TABLETS ON THE LYCUS. [CHAP. vin. tion of a city, doubtless a Tyrian settlement in the Delta, by the combined armies of Upper and Lower Egypt. Of the extremely decrepid and tottering con- dition of the Xoite kingdom, we can have no stronger proof than is furnished by the picture-record of this war. Inconsiderable as was the whole affair, it, never- theless, appears from the preface that Tanis, Manasseh, and two other cities, had been seized upon by the insurgents, and were restored to the Xoite king only by the aid of Sesostris. The date of this war has, unhappily, perished from the wall at Karnak. We have, therefore, no other course than to endeavour, from other monuments, to discover it. Our readers are aware that there are three tablets of Sesostrts on the rocks that overhang the Lycus, which was the northern boundary of the possessions in Canaan of Lower Arvad or Tyre. The hieroglyphic history of the wars of this hero (which we have now concluded), nevertheless makes it very apparent that he never left the bounds of Egypt further than Pelusium and the Wady Meghara. Strange as this may appear, it is, nevertheless, incontrovertibly true. The war of his fifth year was assuredly the great war of his reign, for it is commemorated in the central and lai-gest tablet on the Lycus, as well as in the three vast pictures we have considered. Yet, if its hierogh-phic record has not done the hero irreparable injustice, he never left the bounds of Egypt further than the edge of the desert, to achieve its glories. The two tablets CHAP, vm.] SETHOS NEVEK LEFT EGYPT. 487 on each side of this principal one were executed in the tenth year of Sesostkis; and these, we doubt not, commemorate the war with Lower Arvad, whose picture history at Karnak we have just considered. It was, in all probability, one stipulation in the treaty of peace, that Egyptian artists should be permitted to execute these tablets. The Tyrians would willingly barter an empty and mendacious boast, to the disadvantage of their northern neighbours, the Syrians, and even afford a free passage in their ships to the artists who executed them, for the solid commercial advantages which were doubtless secured to them in exchange. We know of no other mode of accounting for this very singular monumental fact. The circumstance that Sesosteis never was out of Eg\'pt, although tablets of him still exist in Canaan, seems utterly to destroy the assumption that his far less renowned predecessor, Sethos, of whose victories no tablet ever existed there, surpassed him in so brilliant an achievement. The Canaanite expedition of Sethos, therefore,* must be added to the long list of fables and kompologies which we have detected in the course of our present investigation. It was a mere border war for the defence of the eastern frontier of the Xoite Pharaoh against the aggressions of the bold rangers of the Desert of Suez. The whole detail of its history, which we have considered, renders this higlily probable. Its chief result, the rescue of the forests of Hermon from the Zuzites, was a point just as likely * Above, pp. 387—415. 488 END OF WARS OF SESOSTPJS. [CHAP. viir. to be accomplished by treaty as by invasion and con- quest. In the same manner, we must assume that the capture of Kanah, and the rest of the actions of war in Canaan, must have been achieved by Lower Arvad or Tyre, the ally of Egypt, and that the embassy from this power really had their interview with Sethos in Egypt. The small amount of geographical coincidence we have detected in the reliefs of this war, may have been the work of Tyrian artists, sent to Thebes for the purpose, as afterwards Egyptian artists were sent to Tyre to engrave the rocks on the Lycus. In any case, all the knowledge we have acquired from the monu- ments, of the customs and modes of thought that pre- vailed in Ancient Egypt, renders it simply impossible that Sethos should have successfully invaded Canaan without leaving the abundant records of his victories engraven on the rocks of the conquered countries. No such are in existence, or have been known to exist at any period. These considerations are, we submit, fatal to the hypothesis that Sethos ever was in Canaan. We have now completed our history of the wars of Sesosteis, according to his own monumental record of them. We find it to agree with the Greek tradition in a single point only. They terminated in the ninth or tenth year of his reign. In no other particular do they bear the remotest relation to the fables regarding Sesostris, Sesoosis and Pihamses, related by the Eg}'p- tian priests to the Greeks and Romans. Our examina- tion of these romances will have fully prepared our readers for this result. CHAP. Till.] SESOSTRIS IN EGYPT. 489 It will now be needful for us to return to our Greek authorities, in order to collect from them their history of Sesostris at peace, and as king of Egypt, We shall find here, as on so many former occasions, that, notwithstanding the colossal falsehood we have just detected in it, the tradition regarding Sesosteis is by no means to be rejected on this account as a fiction from end to end. Like all other wilful deceivers, the Egyptian priests always erected their creations upon a basis of truth. On this occasion also, as on several former ones, we can in some measure comprehend the motive of their fabling. It was plainly, in the first in- stance, to make their hero greater than the several heroes of their days. They had, besides this, another end in view. Sesosteis certainly had at his command an enormous amount of human labour ; but the means by which he had obtained it reflected no credit whatever, either upon his own personal character or upon the policy of Egypt. Their fables covered up this weak place so effectually, that for more than 2000 years the truth regarding it has never been suspected. All this will, we trust, appear in the sequel. According to Herodotus, when Sesosteis was rein- stated on the throne of Egypt after his return from his foreign wars, he employed the vast host of prisoners he had brought with him in hewing stones in the quarries, and in dragging them from thence to the sites on which he erected temples to the gods. The stones of the temple of Phtha at Memphis, which exceeded in magnitude those of any other temple in Egypt, he especially mentions as having been quarried and VOL. II. 3 E 490 DUG CANALS IN THE DELTA. [chap. VIII. brought thither by the prisoners of Sesosteis.* The historian describes two andriantes (human figures sup- porting entablatures), each 32 cubits high, representing Sesostris and his queen, and of four of his sons, each 20 cubits high, that stood in front of this temple. f In proof of the perfect accuracy of the Greek his- torian, the statue of Sesosteis has long been known still to remain prostrate at Metrahenny, on the site of Memphis. The excavation of the French Commission, now in progress, will probably also have brought to hght the remains of the accompanying figures, so as completely to verify the description of the temple by Herodotus.]: Sesosteis, likewise, according to the same authority, dug all the canals and channels that fertilized Egypt at the time of the historian's visit, so as to make it altogether unfit for travelling, either by chariots or horses. It had formerly been celebrated for its horse- roads, but Sesosteis entirely broke them up by the canals and channels which he dug, intersecting them ; so that this mode of travelhng was entirely disused. We need scarcely explain, that by Egypt the historian here and everywhere meant that part of Eg}-pt with which he and his countrymen were best acquainted — the Delta.§ * ii. 108. t Idem, 109. X The priests added to this account of the temple of Phtha a story, that Darius, the Persian, was overwhelmed with astonishment at the sight of these amlriantes. This is by no means probable. The colossal sculptures, both of AssjTia and Persia, were nearly equal to them, and, doubtless, to the taste and preconceptions of Darius, would be far more imposing. § u.s. CH.VP. vni.] APPOETIONED OUT THE LAND. 491 We have quoted this passage before.* It will appear from its collation with the text we were then illustrating, that Sesosteis hereby undid the work accomplished by his warhke ancestor Thothmosis, who drove horse- roads in many directions across the Delta, for the convenience of his military operations. He goes on to tell us, that by this system of irrigation the Egyptians were enabled to build cities in places where before it had been impracticable ; for in that country water can only be had in sufficient quantities from the river. A very small supply can be obtained there by digging wells. He afterwards divided the land thus reclaimed into square blocks, which he dis- tributed to the Egyptians by lot. He hkewise appointed land-surveyors, and other officers, to regulate the just proportion of water from the river to each allotment. Two facts, very important to the history of Egypt, are embodied in this statement. The first is, that new cities were built in the district reclaimed in consequence of the system of channels dug by the prisoners of Sesostpjs. The second is, that the district thus re- claimed had not been hitherto accounted a part of Eg}'pt Proper, neither had its surface been in the possession of Egyptians. The direction which our long-continued investigation has taken, almost from the beginning, will have fully prepared our readers for this last fact, and have rendered to them perfectly intelligible and natural, that which has hitherto pre- sented itself as a formidable difficulty, in the narrative of Herodotus. * Above, p. 239. 492 THE SESOOSIS OF DIODOEUS. [chap. vm. We must now consider the account given by Diodorus Siculus of the works of this hero in peace. Having completed his wars, he became ambitious of fame, as a benefactor of mankind, and especially of Eg}'pt. He began with the gods, and built in every city in Egypt a temple to the god that was principally worshipped there.* It is impossible for a stronger proof to be adduced, from monumental evidence, than that which we are able to furnish from this passage, that the monarch before us must be the Sesoosis of this historian. There is not a mound of ruins in the entire Delta, there is scarcely one either in Middle or Upper Eg}'pt, in which the name of Sesosteis-Ramses has not been inscribed. In the Delta, especially, not only is it read everywhere, but there are not more than four localities in which any other royal name occurs.f Thus clear is it that our monumental monarch is the Sesoosis of Diodorus, as well as the Sesosteis of Herodotus. In all these constructions he never employed Egyp- tian workmen, but only the prisoners he had taken in his wars, and therefore he inscribed over eveiy temple that he built, "No native Eg}'ptian hath laboured at this construction." | Herodotus had given us exactly the same account of the works of this hero. It was by the forced labours of his prisoners, and not by the oppression of his * i. 56. t Wilkinson : Modern Egypt, pp. 423 — 455. Lepsius : Einlei- tuny, pp. 337 — 359. + U.S. CHAP, vin.] DELTA LIABLE TO INVASION. 493 subjects, that Sesosteis covered the Delta with cities and cornfields, and all Egypt with temples and other gorgeous constructions. The monumental verification of this fact also, it will be in our power to oflTer. This king likewise constructed many great mounds of earth for the purpose of defending from the waters of the inundation those cities which had hitherto been exposed to them. These mounds, which afforded most convenient refuges, both for men and cattle, at the time of the overflow, were still in existence when Diodorus was in Egypt, and many of them were shown to him as the works of Scsoosis* The great work of irrigation ascribed to Sesostris by Herodotus, was in like manner performed by the Seso- osis of Diodorus. He dug many canals, intersecting the whole country from Memphis to the Sea. This both increased the fertility of the land and facilitated the commerce of its inhabitants ; but the most important reason of all was, that it rendered the country im- possible to traverse by chariots and horses ; for this part of Egypt had before been perfectly adapted for equestrian warfare, and had sufiered greatly from the incursions of its warlike neighbours to the eastward; but after this it was no longer liable to invasion from chariots and horsemen.f It is impossible not to recall here the monumental facts which our present investigation has produced, and which so fully establish the truth of this statement. The wars of Sesostris-Ramses were principally with Sheth, who repeatedly invaded the Delta with a vast * zi.s. + Idem, 57. 494 FORTIFIED THE FRONTIER. [chap, viil force of chariotry. Upon this point, the Greek tradition and the monuments mutually confirm one another. Another fact connected with the interpretation of the picture-histories of wars on the temples of Egypt, is likewise implied in the passage now before us. The north-eastern frontier of Egypt had frequently suflFered invasion from the neighbouring tribes in the early days of Sesostris, and in the times that preceded him. This account was given by the priests to Diodorus; and had it not been a fact, they certainly were not the men to invent a circumstance so little creditable to their countiy. Such being the case on this frontier, it appears to us far more probable, at first sight, that these vast reliefs represent the expulsion of foreign invaders from Egypt, than conquests in Central Asia. Yet has this last interpretation been hitherto the only one admitted by the leading authorities on our subject. The writer of the present work has stood for years alone in advocating the opposite opinion. In addition to these benefits, Scsoosis fortified the eastern frontier of Egypt against the attacks of Syria and Arabia, from Pelusium across the desert to Helio- polis, a distance of 1500 stadia (172 miles).* We shall be able to adduce monumental evidence confirmatory of the truth of this statement. It is also worthy of note, that he includes Pelusium in his chain of fortification. It seems from thenceforth to have be- come a part of Egypt, and its possession was no longer debated with the Canaanites. It is mentioned for the * U.S. CHAP. VIII.] SESOSTRIS AT THEBES. 495 last time on the monuments of Egypt, in the pictures of the wars of Sesostris. Sesoosis also built a sacred bark to Amun of Thebes, of cedar wood, which was 280 cubits (425 feet) long. This was overlaid with gold on the outside, and silver in the inside. He likewise erected two granite obehsks, each 120 cubits high, upon which he inscribed the greatness of his power, and the multitude of his ex- peditions, and the number of nations he had subdued. In Memphis he erected two monolith statues of him- self and his wife, 30 cubits high, and also statues of his sons, 20 cubits high. So great was this king, that many kings of conquered nations came to his court at appointed times with their tribute. They were honour- ably entertained ; but when Sesoosis would go forth to the temple or to the city, they were yoked to his chariot instead of horses, so that he went forth drawn by four kings or princes, to show his great superiority over all other monarchs. In short, this king very far surpassed all the kings that have ever reigned in Egypt in deeds of war and in works of peace, both sacred and secular.* The remains of Thebes at this day show that the works of the hero of Diodorus in that capital are greatly understated by him. Two of its greatest palace- temples were begun and finished by Sesostris, and there is scarcely a ruin remaining in Eastern or Western Thebes to which he did not make large additions. The traveller has evidently described the objects which were pointed out to him as the works of Sesostris, * 57, 58. 496 BUILDING THE CHAIN OF FORTS. [chap. vm. of which he retained the recollection. The story of the kings in the chariot is a mere Persian fiction ; but the superiority of Sesostris, as the benefactor of Eg}-pt, over all the kings that reigned before or after him, is a fact the literal truth of which, the monuments of his reign triumphantly establish. Our monumental history of Sesostris-Ramses must now be renewed. We shall confine ourselves to those documents which seem to possess interest, because they illustrate his internal policy, or his external political relations, or his individual character. The monuments of his reign, we repeat it, cover Egypt, and fill the museums of Europe. A mere descriptive cata- logue of them would be at once tedious and uninstruc- tive. We proceed in chronological order. The fortification of the north-eastern frontier, men- tioned by DiodoruSj proves, like so many other par- ticulars of this Greek tradition, to be perfectly true. It is commemorated on the western propylon of the Memnonium. It consisted of a chain of small forts or towers. More than twenty of them were originally in this relief, which is now much mutilated.* They were commenced in his eighth year. The building of each of these towers was entrusted to one of the Heteri of the king, who are represented, one by each fort driving a gang of bound prisoners to work at it. The name of each »f these forts was also inscribed on it iu the picture. Of the few that remain unerased, there are none that we have been able clearly to identify Avith known ancient or existing modern names. It is, how- * Leps. iii. 156. CHAP, vm.] FORCED LABOURERS. 497 ever, worthy of note, that one of them, tope-re, "the cemetery,"* is said to be in the land of the Amorite. We found on the rehefs of Sethos, that Pelusium in his days also belonged to the same people. It would therefore appear that both they and the Jebusites had pushed their possessions in the Desert of Suez, close to the borders of Egypt, at this time. The facts that Sesostris-Ramses fortified the eastern frontier of Egypt, that he employed in this work persons in the condition of prisoners of war, and that he began this great work in his eighth year, are very clearly established by this relief. It took many years to complete it. The war with Lower Arvad in his ninth and tenth years (which, as we have seen, was his last recorded war), may probably have been connected with it. The two preceding ones with Sheth certainly would not yield a supply of prisoners at all adequate to the present undertaking. This may be very soberly and safely stated. Yet would the necessity of such a defence be strongly impressed, both upon the Xoite and Theban Pharaohs, by these events. Under such circumstances, nothing is more probable than that the latter should suggest to his weaker brother the sub- jection of the Canaanite settlers throughout the whole Delta to forced labour as strangers. From this degrada- tion they had hitherto been free under the rule of the sons of Aphophts, as natives of the sante foreign country as Joseph. Lower Arvad, that is. Tyre, was not exempted from this decree; and in this circum- stance we believe the war of the ninth and tenth years * Vol. i. p. 327, note t VOL. II. 3 s 498 CHARACTEK OF SESOSTEIS. [chap. vm. may have originated. Notwithstanding the powerful support of Sesostris, the war was not a successful one to the Xoite Pharaoh. The wall was certainly not continued at this time, for the Delta was again invaded by Sheth long afterwards. It would be unlikely that Israel would support the king of Lower Egypt in such a course of policy ; and without him the Xoite sceptre was utterly powerless. Sesostris, who was a great politician, made the best for himself of this defeat of his ally ; one of the terms of the treaty was, as we have said, the sculpture of the mendacious tablets on the banks of the Lycus. As we have now a considerable interval of the long reign of Sesostris, during which there are no dated monuments of historical interest, we take the oppor- tunity of considering the character and government of this manifestly greatest of the Pharaohs, and also the condition of Egypt at the earher periods of his long reign. If the testimony of the monuments is to be received, it was to the statesmanship and policy of Sesostris rather than to his military exploits, that Egypt was indebted for the unparalleled prosperity that doubtless befel her under his rule. The many likenesses of him that still exist show, that in point of personal appearance he had considerably the advantage of any king of Eg}pt that went before or followed him. These, as the historian of another epoch has wisely said concerning another hero,* " are advantages despised by none save those to whom they are denied." He must likewise have been * Gibbon on Mahomed. Decline and Fall, vol. ii. CHAP, vm.] HIS LIBERAL POLICY. 499 largely endowed with those mental qualities which made the best and the utmost of all circumstances within his reach, and therefore eminently befitted a ruler. It is true, there is one point only in which we are able distinctly to trace the workings of this quality, such is the imperfect nature of these monumental records. But this point was religion, in his day and countiy by far the most influential and telling of all the motives whereby mankind were actuated. The Amonian fanaticism, the outbursts of which we have traced so frequently in our review of the long line of his ancestry, disappears altogether from the religious monuments of Sesosteis. Not at all behind the most zealous of them in the adoration of Amun, the tutelary of his family, he did not, nevertheless, seek to exalt him by heaping insults upon the gods of other cities in Egypt. We believe that not a monument of Sesostrfs is in existence whence the names and effigies of other gods have been erased to make room for those of Amun, according to the constant practice of all his immediate predecessors. Neither are the other gods pourtrayed in his temples as the mere ministers and remote inferiors of Amun, always behind him in place, and often one-third, and even one-sixth of his height. These insults to the gods of all other cities than Thebes are especially common on the monuments of Sethos his father, but nothing of this kind, we repeat, appears in the temples and other religious devices of Sesosteis. Far from it, we find in them an earnest desire to honour all the gods as well as Amun. To such an extent was this carried by him, that even the disc of 500 WORSHIP OF PHTHA. [chap. viii. the sun, the especial abomination of his immediate predecessors, was worshipped by him in a votive tablet at Djebel-Silsili.* Of all these local gods, however, there is certainly not one to whom Sesostpjs was so prominently assiduous in his devotions, as Phtha of Memphis. There is scarcely a mythic device on any of the numberless monuments of his reign that still exist, on which he does not record his devotion to this god, whom the whole line of his ancestors from Amosis had insulted and vihfied. He even carries this so far in many instances, as to place him second only to Amun himself. Even Maut, the wife of Amun, and Chonsis their son, are made to follow the Phtha of Memphis. These very remarkable changes in religion are so con- spicuous ever}' where, when the monuments of Sesosteis are compared with those of his predecessors, that it is scarcely possible to select examples of them. They appear very conspicuously at Karnak, at Gournou, and other temples which Sesosteis completed, or to which he made additions. They may be detected in almost every religious device of his reign. We have often before had occasion to point out the utter mistake, now so commonly prevalent, of assuming that the Egyptian mytholog}^ was a great system, completed at its first invention and never after- wards altered. The fallacy of this will appear just as conspicuously in the myths of the epoch now before us, as in those of any that have preceded it. Sesosteis evidently copied the examples of his illustrious ancestors, queen Tai, and her sou Ameno- * Wilkinson, u. s. CHAP, vm.] SUCCESS OF HIS POLICY. 501 phis-Memnon, in these religious changes. He set before him the prosperous reign and the wide domi- nions of the hitter, and he had the sagacity and clearness of judgment to connect them "with the politic and comprehensive mythic modifications of the former, as effect with cause. He perceived, that to be a great king over Egypt, he must conform as far as possible to the religious prepossessions of all the cities of Egypt ; not exalt Amun and Thebes at the expense of every other locality. It is, moreover, highly pro- bable, that the ill effects of the opposite policy, which his ancestors had so long and obstinately persevered in, were already beginning to show themselves. They had been perceptible even in the days of Sethos. We have noticed his essay at Grournou in Western Thebes, to conciliate to the worship of Amun, the votaries of Monthra, the primitive deity of that locality. * Sesostkis, his son, followed him fully out in this eflfort at conciliation. He did not content himself with merely completing the temple at Gournou, which was dedicated to Amun and Monthra combined into one god. He likewise founded and finished another and far more gorgeous structure (the Memnonium), to the same compound god, in the same locality. Neither did he limit his conciliatory measures to Western Thebes only. We have already noticed the evidence of this hberal and comprehensive spirit, which shows itself so clearly on all the mythic monuments of his reign. Sesosteis was not mistaken in his calculated issue of the hne of policy which he so vigorously pursued. He * ibove p. 424. 502 HIS FOEEIGN POLICY. [chap, viil reigned over the hearts of his subjects as well as over their persons and properties, and even from his acces- sion, Upper Egypt and her dependencies, to the very confines of Ethiopia, began a career of peaceful pro- gress, wherein she soon attained to an elevation in national prosperity altogether unparalleled at any other period of her history. The policy of Sesosteis toward Lower Egypt, or the Xoite kingdom, must now be considered. The weak and crippled condition of the throne of Aphophis at this period, we have often had occasion to notice. It could not be otherwise, if the Mosaic account of Israel in Eg}pt is to be regarded. The swarming myriads of these strangers crowded the cities of the Delta, and covered with their flocks its grassy plains ; and before them the native Egyptians, the de- scendants of the old king-worshippers of the pyramids, were fast passing away, either by absorption or mi- gration. The Israelites were rich as well as numerous. The wealth of Egypt was being daily transferred into their hands. The allegiance of these immigrants to the Xoite throne would necessarily be very ill-defined and equivocal. Strangers in the land, yet having both possessions and immunities in it, and in all pro- bability passing the months of overflow every year in the Desert of Suez and in the plains of Canaan, their obligation to the laws of Egypt would be of a mixed and anomalous character. In the frequent wars with Canaan, to which, as we have seen from the monuments, the Xoite throne was incessantly exposed, the aid of Israel would be given or withholden CHAP, viil.] STATE OF THE XOITE KINGDOM. 603 from it, as best suited the interests and inclina- tions of the several tribes ; and it is highly improbable that Pharaoh would be in possession of any means whereby to enforce his claims. This we take to be one of the chief causes of the rapid decline of the Xoite kingdom. Another very active agent was also at work for its decay ; this was its Canaanitish population : groups from many different tribes, each dwelling in its own stronghold, rigidly keeping up its own customs, and sympathizing in all the movements of its kindred across the desert, whether of peace or war. The ordinary turbulence of these warlike races had at this time suffered a grievous aggravation, from the com- mencement of one of those great revolutions, which so frequently befel them. The coeval monuments of Egypt satisfactorily certify the reality of this occur- rence, even though we had otherwise no better authority for it, than a prophecy written in one of the books of Moses, and a short historical passage in another, re- lating the fulfilment of that prophecy. The Divine promise to Abraham, regarding the land of Canaan, had at this time begun to receive its accomphshment. The collateral branches of his family and kindred were dispossessing the septs and clans of Canaan from the whole of the south-east of their land. Esau, now a great and mighty nation, was already in possession of all the habitable places in the districts of Mount Seir, to the eastward of Sinai; many of them, to this day, of exceeding fertility. Moab and Ammon, the children of Lot, had in like manner multiphed exceedingly in the 504 ITS EXTEEISIE DEPEESSION. [CHAP. vin. mountains of Sheth or Siddim, and the various tribes of Canaanites, their inhabitants, were sufifering extermi- nation from the frequent and fierce onslaughts of their hosts of charioteers.* The most considerable of these tribes, the Zuzim,f fled in vast numbers across the desert, to their possessions in Ham, and sought and found, as we have seen, the aid of Pharaoh. They also discovered, like Israel long afterwards, that " the Egyptians were men and not God, and their horses flesh and not spirit."]: This respite was doubt- less sold at a costly price. The Zuzim lost all their rights in the land. Their name as a nation dis- appears altogether from the monuments, after the war of the ninth of Sesosteis, and thenceforward only appears in her language as the appellative for degra- dation and ignominy. They were stripped of their privileges and immunities in Egypt, and were thence- forward liable to forced service as strangers in the land, until they were finally absorbed in the bulk of the population. In these circumstances, we conceive that the use of their name in the Egyptian language, as a common noun signifying degradation, must have originated. The disastrous consequences of the wars, tumults, and immigrations of warlike strangers, consequent upon this great revolution, to a government already so weak * See Deut. ii. t Called by the Ammouites Zumzumtuim, which seems to be a compound word for D''Q"'S QniT. "the terrible Zuzim" (v. 20). They were noted both for stature, strength, and prowess. X Is. xxxi. 3. CHAP. VIII.] HIS LIBERAL POLICY. 505 and divided as that of the Xoite Pharaohs, may he easily imagined. The single example of these troubles supplied by the monuments, is a highly inslructive one. In the wars now before us, it cannot for a moment be imagined that Israel would unite with Egypt and the Zuzim against his kindred Sheth, if he had the power to assert his independence, which assuredly he had.* Here, then, would be an element of weakness and depression to the Xoite king, which all the power and policy of his Theban brother could by no means cast out at this time, and which his utmost aid could scarcely counterwork. Such was the enfeebled state of the Xoite kingdom at the epoch before us. It was crumbling to pieces through want of coherency among the particles of which it was composed. The many traits we have discovered on the monu- ments, of the liberal and comprehensive policy of Sesos- TEis, will have prepared us to expect that his dealings with the Xoite government would be similarly charac- terized. It was in every particular the reverse of his father's. So carefully did he abstain from the insults which breathe from almost every device in the reliefs of Sethos against the Xoite kingdom, that only once is this power mentioned at all in any of the three pictures of the battle of Pelusium. We beheve that the disguised transcriptions of the names of cities in the Delta in the second war with Sheth f were as much dictated by delicacy towards the Xoite king as by ostentation. The very conspicuous honours paid by * See Exod. i. 9, 10. t Above, p. 485. VOL. II. 3 T 506 KESTOEES MEMPHIS. [chap, tiil Sesostris to Phtha of Memphis, of which we have given so many instances, will likewise be perceived as an obvious issue of the same course of pohcy. We are likewise prepared to state that he still more strikingly reversed the narrow and destructive fana'ticism of his father. He restored Memphis to the Xoite kingdom. This remarkable fact is plainly stated in the picture of the battle of Pelusiura, at the Memnonium. Mem- phis is there again named Noph ; therefore assuredly Memphis was once more in the hands of the Xoite Pharaoh. This daring outrage upon all the traditions of his family exhibits to us Sesosteis as a bold and fearless, as well as a wise and politic ruler. This great king was just as successful in his external as in his internal policy, as will abundantly appear in the sequel of his history. He certainly may have foreseen all the consequences of his concessions; but this is to assign to him an amount of foresight and sagacity such as rarely falls to the lot of mortals. We rather incline to the opinion that the policy of Sesos- teis was in the first instance the dictate of a kindly disposition and generous heart, revolted from his father's maxims of state by their narrow bigotry, and that it was the success of his first beginnings that induced him to persevere in it. We were anxious to state here our convictions regarding the general character and policy of Sesosteis, because the circumstances of his reign, which immediately follow, will, in a large measure, associate him with questions and investigations that interest the sons of men now upon the earth; and these circumstances are by no means calculated to create a favourable impression of him. CHAP, vin.] FINAL TREATY WITH SHETH. 507 The aid so freely rendered to the Xoite kingdom from the now ample resom'ces of Sesosteis proved insufficient to save it from the destruction which was visibly impending. Sheth returned to the charge. We know nothing but the issue of this expedition. City after city in the Delta fell before him, and he, with Israel, seems to have acquired the supremacy, pro- bably keeping up the shadow of a king upon the Xoite throne. Such appears to have been the condition of Lower Egypt when we again recover the thread of our monumental history in the twenty-first year of Sesos- TRIS. The document which once more continues the story of the reign of this great king, is one, the value of which we very recently ascertained and pointed out,* though our acquaintance with it was then confined to a by no means faultless copy, and to our own very hasty and imperfect notes from the original, taken under the burning sun of July in Egypt. The subsequent publication of the German copy,f places before us a far more reliable transcript of a monument, the importance of which, to the history of mankind, will not be found inferior to that of the arch of Titus at Rome, should it prove that we have rightly interpreted its meaning. The inscription to which we allude is engraven on the southern outer wall of the hypostyle hall of Karnak. Sethos, at his death, left, as we have said, this portion of the grand work of his life still incomplete. His son finished it, and seems to have made it the archive of all the great transactions of his reign, whether of peace or war, save the battle of Pelusium. * Israel in Egypt : Seeleys, 1854. t Lepsius ili. 146, 508 ITS EECORD DESCRIBED. [CHAP. vm. The record itself consists of 38 horizontal lines of hieroglyphics, enclosed at the sides by two broad up- right bauds, containing the names and titles of Sesos- tris-Ramses in very large characters. It is headed by a double act of worship. In that to the right, Sesos- TRis adores the Amun of the palace of Karnak, together with Maut, his wife. In that to the left, he worships the same god, and Phtha of Memphis. It is dated the 21st day of the 5th month (Tobi), of the •21st year of Sesostris-Ramses, who is declared to be beloved (that is, under the special protection) of certain gods in the following order : Amux-Ee, of Karnak. Athom, of Heliopolis. Phtha, of Memphis. Maut, of Karnak. Chonsis, of Karnak.* It will be observed, that in this arrangement, Athom of Heliopolis, and Phtha of Memphis, are second only to the father-god of the temple, and that both the goddess and the filial god of the shrine, are made inferior to them. This is a very conspicuous instance of the liberal and comprehensive policy of Sesostris. No such concession to the gods of Lower Egypt is to be found on the monuments, either of his father or of any other of his immediate ancestors. The inscription, which has, unhappily, sustained many mutilations, commences its narrative by relating, that at this date Sesostris was in the palace dedi- cated to and named after his Upper Egyptian name, * Line i. CHAP, vm] P.iLACE (ok city) OF EAMSES. 509 tshe an-lie {me-amn ramss), doubt- less in the same manner as the cave of Abou-Simbel was dedicated to his name in Lower Egypt.* In this palace he was singing the songs of his fathers Amun-Re, Re-Athom, lord of both Egypts in On, the Amun of {me-amn ramss), and the Phtha of the same Upper Eg}^ptian name ; that is, he wor- shipped Amun-Re of Karnak, and the gods of the three capitals of Egypt — Athom of Heliopolis, Amun of Thebes, and Phtha of Memphis, who were also the gods to whom the palace was dedicated. The circumstance that Sesosteis constructed a temple to his Lower Egyptian name at Abou-Simbel, on the uttermost border of Upper Egypt, is in itself suggestive of the conclusion that the palace of his Upper Egyptian name must have been situated in Lower Egypt. The order in which the three capitular gods are named in the text, and the mode of their nom- ination, not only confirm the suggestion, but furnish us with a clue to the locality of the palace. Re-Athom i u stands first, with his full title, whereas \ viilO the other two are strictly localized in the palace. h^(4^m Amun of Ramses, m p 1 Phtha 0/ Ramses. These particulars point, with a distinctness by no means usual in hiero- glyphic writings, to the conclusion that the palace of Ramses was situated in the great division of Egypt, * Above, p. 460, 610 THE KING OF SHETH. [chap. vni. over which the city of HeUopohs was especially the capital — that is, Lower Egypt, or the Delta, if not in that city itself. The occasion upon which he held this high festival was, indeed, a solemn and momentous one. All that ever had been called Egypt was his. " The mountains and the plains of the whole land," in the phrase of the inscription, "were beneath his sandals."* Here, then, was the fulfilment of the boldest flight of ambition that had ever fired the breast of the greatest of the long line of his ancestors. The thought was as old as the monarchy. It had stirred in the bosom of Menes. It had been the pretence of every individual who had sat upon his throne, and whose name was encircled with his venerated symbol. And now, for the first time through the lapse of centuries, this long-cherished idea comes forth embodied as a reality. Sesostkis- Ramses is the undisputed king over all Egypt and its dependencies. Well might the achiever of such a consummation be great in his country's annals, and the hero of the priestly fables of long succeeding ages. The entire erasure of the third line unhappily breaks the continuity of the narrative. In the fourth line we find Sesostris m treaty with the king of Sheth Ml g D whose name was Shethsiri. O n \\\ ^ X] This personage bad come into the presence [] i ^ of his majesty to treat concerning two sprina wells =^ ^^^^ ' ' '-1 + * Line ii. t Biri; Copt. Btoujpe, to "spring up," which seems to be the root of the Hebrew word -iS2, " a well." CHAP, vm.] PARTICULARS OF TREATY. 511 which had been dug by a chief named Sehu 0 I ^ f) on his birthday. [.JA vJ Sesostris-Ramses having enlarged his boundaries, so that they included the whole land of Egypt, the possessions [in Egypt] of Shethsiri, king of Sheth, the son of Moabrisiri, the king of Sheth, the son of [name erased] tvere included in them (?) therefore he came to supplicate with jewels set in silver, ^ — * Sesostris [name in Lower Egypt], the great o Q © m king of Egypt, the son of Sethos [Lower Egypt], the great king of Egypt, the son of Ramessu [Lower Egypt], the great king of Egypt, for these his pos- sessions. It would seem that meat, drink, and incense offer- ings to the gods of Egypt, accompanied the request of the king of Sheth. There is, however, but a fragment remaining of the sentence which alludes to this. The cause of the disagreement had been that the prince (or duke) of Ar-Moab, the brother of Shethsiri, had attempted to set up for worship, in some locality in Eg}-pt, the statue of one of the gods of Moab. Sesosteis resented this procedure, and compelled the prince of Ar-Moah, ^ — 0 \ whose name was Moab * Or with " rings of silver." The first word, annu, may be the root of the Latin word annulus, a ring. The determinative seems to be a bag. t He is elsewhere named Ar-Moab only. The princes of Moab were named after the cities of Moab. Thus the king who had pro- bably annexed the Canaanite city of Eglon to Moab (Josh. x. 3, &c.), was named Eglon (Judges iii. 12). 512 STRIFE BETWEEN THE GODS. [chap. vm. Tanir, r\n .Q , to desist. The king of Sheth visited Egypt upon this occasion, and by treaty conceded the possessions of Sheth in Egypt to the crown of Sesostris.* We infer from the conspicuous part taken by Sheth in this remarkable transaction, that, far from having suffered annihilation from the defeat he had sustained at Pelusium, sixteen years before, this great power had steadily pursued his career of conquest against the Zuzim, both in Canaan and Egypt ; and that the latter were now exterminated. It was, likewise, stipulated, that the strife between Phre, i.e., " Re-Athom," the god of the Delta, and (p ^ Seth or Sethonis,\ the god of Sheth, should ■ ^ XJ cease in the land of Egypt, and in Ar-Moab, in the land of Sheth, and, also, that the forms of the demons, 1 \\ L| I| ^ I or false gods, should be mutilated * Lines 5 — 8. t Above, p. 386. The round stone, which in this text only repre- sents the syllable oni, instead of the ordinary square one P , has, I doubt not, been introduced in allusion to some sacred stone of this form, worshipped by the Shethites in Egypt. X The meaning of the word was first ascertained by ^Ir. Birch. A classified system of demonulogy seems to have formed a part of the belief of Ancient Eg3^5t from the first. In the inscription on the tomb of Amunei at Beni-hassan, mention is made of " the avenging demons," " the tearing demons," and " the watching demons," all the enemies of the dead. This tomb is of the era of Sesortosis T. In the text before us the word " demon " invariably denotes a strange or foreign god. CHAP. Tin.] EGYPT AT PEACE WITH MOAB. 613 ^ R and cast down for ever. In confirmation of "^^^-^^-J^ the whole treaty, ofFermgs and incense were thenceforward to be perpetually presented to the gods of Egypt. The phraseology of this passage is very remarkable : " Sbetbsir, the king of Sheth, explained unto the king, that the possessions of Ar-Moab [in Egypt] were those of Sesostbis from that day. Also that he would offer to the whole of the gods of Egypt * offerings of incense. Also that that which had been cast down [the gods of Sheth] should remain so for ever. [The prince of] Ar-Moab added incense. [The prince of] Ar-Moab added offerings. [The prince of] Ar-Moab added incense again. [The prince of] Ar-Moab added offerings again. In token that [the treaty] should be for ever and ever. Even Moab-Tanir, the chief of Sheth. He was the brother of the king, t Our readers must not forget the caution we have so often had occasion to administer, regarding the history embodied in these writings. The glory of Egypt, and not historical truth, was the object aimed at by their composers. This they strove to compass by the most grievous exaggerations, and by every other conceivable form of falsehood. A fortiori, therefore, we might have inferred that such writers would make no scruple of lies of omission, and that consequently the concessions of Egypt to Sheth in the treaty, would find no place in * Lit., " good creators" or "creations." + Lines 9, 10. VOL. II. 8 U 514 THE CONTRACTING PARTIES. [chap. vui. their chronicles. Such is accordingly the case. Yet that so powerful a nation as we find Sheth to have been at this time, from these very documents, should have given up valuable possessions in the Delta without a struggle or a compensation, is on the face of it absurdly impossible. No doubt, therefore, can remain, that the treaty before us was one of mutual concession. "What may have been the compensation given by Eg}'pt to Sheth, cannot of course be said certainly; but we may with no improbability conjecture, that they would con- sist of immunities for trade, and of stations in the Desert of Suez, to which Egypt had hitherto laid claim. The rest of the preliminaries of this treaty ai"e rendered unintelligible by the many erasures which the twelfth and thirteenth lines of the insci'iption have sustained. It appears from the fragments, that the presents or offerings of Sheth were to be in the form of a perpetual obligation or tribute. The treaty or alliance ^^-^ (Coptic roreo, " unite "), between the strong race ^—^^J^^^ weak race, that is, between Eg}'pt and Sheth, is at length con- cluded ; the high contracting parties being Sesostris- Ramses, king of Egypt, and Shethsiri, king of Sheth.* The rest of the document seems to be occupied with the account of the fulfilment of the terms of the treaty on the part of Sheth. The next legible phrase is in the ordinai'y style of all these inscriptions. Sheth, which we may now at * Lines 13, li. CHAP, vin.] SCOENFUL LANGUAGE. 516 any rate identify with Moab * divests himself of the ■u'hole of his possessions, and empties the treasury of his father in the gated city of Aroer. In hke \ ^C^^ manner, his brother Moab-Tanir had ex- ^^^.S^^::^ hausted the treasuries of Ar-Moab. Still the demands of Pharaoh are not satisfied. It seemed, therefore, that a new stipulation was entered into between them. The terms of it are in a strain of arrogance and in- solence, unparalleled even on the temple walls of Egypt. Thus saith Sesostris, Let the tail-king t come, And his soldiers with him, Even this king of Sheth ; X Let him and his soldiers [we supply these words ; a mutilation here], Overthrow the idols [demons] of Sheth Which are in the land of Egypt [ayiother mutilation]. The king of Sheth refused to attend in person to this unheard-of summons, but seems to have proposed * We are by no means certain that the identification of Sheth •with Moab and Ammon has yet received the sanction of the higher authorities on our subject. Bunsen believes Sheth to be the Hittites ; De Rouge inclines to the same opinion. Another class of ■writers still adhere to the notion, that Sheth is the Scythians, being manifestly unwilling that the visions of civilizations in the heart of Africa and far in central Asia, 1500 years before the vulgar era, which had been called up by the fables of Herodotus, should be dispelled. For ourselves, we must confess, notwithstanding, that the evidence of the identity of Sheth with Moab and Ammon, seems strong enough to establish it as a fact. t The first character is the tail of an animal. The same character is used as the initial of the name of the star Sothis in the tomb of Sethos, and elsewhere. We have said (vol. i. p. 459), that Sothis means " tail." % I^i^e 15. 516 SLAVES SUPPLIED BY MOAB [chap. Tin. that the destruction of the idols of Sheth in Egypt should be done by proxy. The place is, however, so greatly mutilated,* that it is scarcely possible to ascer- tain from the few remaining fragments what the import of this part of the inscription may have been. Enough remains to show that the destruction of the gods of Moab in Egypt, by the Moabites themselves, was still the condition insisted upon by Sesostris. This strange passage introduces another stipulation into the treaty between Sheth and Egypt ; by the terms of which Sheth engaged to supply Sesosteis with slaves, for the purpose of ohhterating all trace of this proscribed or demon worship from the land of Egypt.f We have repeatedly in the course of this our inquiry pointed out the destructive propensities of the race of kings, the greatest of whom is now before us. This remarkable passage shows us that Sesostris, notwith- standing his liberal and comprehensive policy, yielded to none of his predecessors in his zeal against all unauthorized modifications of idolatry in Eg^pt, and against their authors. Doubtless the race of the Xoite or Shepherd kings, together with the changes which they had made in the idols of Egypt, unsanctioned by the Theban priesthood, would be included in his pro- scription. No w^onder that all traces of the Xoite Pharaohs have perished, and that, therefore, their history (as we shall now immediately find) lies buried in such deep obscurity. The utter destruction of all the memorials of them from the face of Egypt, formed the express pretext under which Sesostris demanded * Lines 16—19. t Line 19. CHAP, vni.] IN EEPAKATION OF WRONGS. 517 slaves from Sheth, in the inscription before us. Who these slaves must have been, will now soon be made apparent. The erasures which occur in the part of the inscrip- tion now before us, again render it unintelhgible. A fragment of the 22u([ hne informs us that the king of Sheth bound himself by strong obligations against the nonfulfilment of his part of the treaty. It would also seem that the viceroys or delegates of Sesosteis were empowered to see to this fulfilment, one part of which was, that the lands of Sheth should be [from thenceforth] the lands of Sesostris. In the 23rd line (still miserably mutilated) we find that captives were brought from the land of Sheth, and presented to Ramses. The remaining fragment of the 24th line informs us that [these captives] were brought to Ramses (Upper Egypt) to compensate for wrongs done to Sesostris (Lower Egypt). A disjointed sentence of the 25th line repeats the fact, the captives were collected in the land of Sheth, which were presented to Sesostris in reparation of wrongs done to him. These broken sentences have preserved facts of much importance. Sesostris-Ramses is in the first place king of the Delta, as well as of Thebes. His Lower Egyptian name denotes the reality, not the mere empty boast, of his sovereignty over Lower Egypt. How he acquired this sovereignty will appear hereafter. The other fact is also of great weight. One principal 518 NATURE OF THE GODS. [chap. vm. article of the obligation of Sheth consisted in the delivery of slaves or hostages. The fragment that remains of the 27th line is an extraordinary one. The present of Sheth, whether con- sisting of silver rings, or of jewels set in silver, was the issue of the many words [that had passed] between the destroying gods and the avenging goddesses of the land of Sheth, and the destroying gods and the avenging goddesses of the land of Egypt. They were cast down before the gates, probably, " of the palace of Ramses." The present treaty then, like every other transaction in this monumental history, is an affair of religion. The gods of the two countries, as well as the kings, are the contracting parties. By them, also, have its terms been discussed, and the amount of their share of the interchanged presents has been determined by themselves. It is not for a moment to be imagined that the divinities, whose temples and images were thus de- stroyed, were assumed by their spoliators to be false gods, much less nonentities,* according to our own persuasions on this point. The gods of Sheth were not only realities, but powerful beings, in the estimation of Ancient Eg}'pt. Their expulsion or modification, therefore, even in their usurped domiciles in the Delta, could not be safely accomplished without their own consent, which, as we shall find, could only be had on the condition of ample compensation. The remains of the 27th line also treat of the same subject. * oi2iy t'^ii/Xo> It ico'iT/Ai.' (I Cor. viii. 4). CHAP, vin.] NAMES OF CITIES. 519 [Now] the god [lit., Seth] of the land of Sheth Was the god [Seth] of the city of l^nutUated]. And the god of the city of Arnath. And the god of the city of Pilku. And the god of the city of Sachisu. And the god of the city of Sele. And the god of the city of And the god After a long mutilation, both at the end of the 27th and the beginniag of the 28th lines, the enumeration still continues : And the god of the city of Sepua. We have, happily, the beginning and the end of this mutilated catalogue. There were seven cities named in the 27th line; the names of four of them being still legible. In the 28th line the name of the last city in the list only remains. The erased space would admit of four other names. So that the list, when perfect, has consisted of twelve cities. We must consider these names in the order of their occurrence. 1 Erased. the mode of disguising the names of cities in Egypt in these writings, when in the hands of a rival dynasty or of a foreign settler. Ar-nath, " the city of Neith," can be no other than Sais in the Delta, which has so long been familiar to us as the city of the goddess Neith. That the name appears elsewhere, under a different disguise,* is a circumstance for which we are fully I There can be no difficulty here, r^^'H with our present experience of * Above, p. 396. 520 PHELBIS. SUCCOTH. [chap, vul prepared, now that we know the object of their con- trivance, which was to conceal, as far as possible, from the reader, the unpalatable fact, that a city in Eg}'pt was in the hands of a rival or a foreigner. 2 This name is likewise beset ^\[^ ^ith no particular difficulty. It is the city on the edge of the eastern desert, named noAOK and bgaka, in the different lists of the bishop- ricks of Egypt.* It was near Bubastis, and somewhat to the north of Heliopohs. ^ ® \\ [qi ^ Chasisu, or Sachisu. We have al- 'D' ' n-^^ ready identified this name with the cijtuov of the Copts, the Sakha of the Ai-abs, the Succoth of the Bible, and the Xois of the Greeks {above, p, 168). i Its occurrence here implies a fact all-im- portant to our history. The Xoite rivalry is at an end, and the ancient capital of the sons of Aphophis is now for the first time a part of the dominions of the king of Thebes. If, then, our reading of the inscription before us is correct, it commemorates the final extinction of the schism which began with the wars of Mencheres,]: and which had now dismembered the monarchy for more than eight hundred years. ^Ye have traced the fortunes of this hitherto unknown kingdom, hidden beneath the purposely obscured and mystified annals of the rival throne, up to this the period of its ex- tinction. It fell through sheer exhaustion into the arms of its great ally, Sesosteis. The twelve cities, * Champollioa : Egypte sous les PJtaraom, ii. pp. oG, 96. t U.S. p. 211. X Yol. i. chap. vi. CHAP, vin.] TSALEH. SEBENNYTUS. 521 whose names are actually before us, were all that remained to it; and its precarious independence was only maintained by the aid of the Shethites. 1 Sele. A city of this name is mentioned i^L^ in the Greek Itineraries. It was near Bubastis, in the eastern Delta. The modern Arab town built upon its ruins has been called after it, Tsaleh* 6 The name of this city is partly gone, so that it is no longer legible. 7 Entirely erased. 8 „ ,9 9 >j >> 10 •11 12 Sepna. Here, again, it does not I i^y'^^^ r-^^ seem possible that we can be mistaken. The name thus written cannot be any other than that of the city of Sebennytus, which we long ago detected in a Hebrew transcription; the name of its tutelary god Henes being disguised under the inversion Seveneh.\ Thus does it prove that all the legible names of the twelve cities, ceded by the king of Sheth to Sesostris, are satisfactorily identified with localities in the Delta. It is, we conceive, impossible to bring stronger evidence of the fact, that the possession of this portion of Egypt was the subject of the treaty before us. The inscription now proceeds to name the god whose * Champollion ii. 77. t Vol. i. pp. 343, 350, C' is by no means uncommon in mythic texts of later times. y^'Tr alternates with two other groups without any appre- ciable variation in the sense. All three initials are frequently interpreted by the same phonetic, \v the censer, to which we have already assigned the power of b \_J or u, {Alphabet, 31). Cham- polliou rightly interpreted all the three groups to mean " soul," and supposed that they were all transcriptions of the word jSa/, which accor- ding to Horapollo {Hieroghjpldca, \. 1. h. 7). meant "life" "soul" {■^-vyr)), in ancient Egyptian. No such word, however, is to be found in the Coptic texts. The corresponding sense is expressed there by the word A?6 : but Champollion, with much sagacity, conjectured, that this word, affected by the definite article (nA^e), might be the probable original of the transcription in Greek letters of Horapollo. If this be correct (and we see not how it is to be denied) the seeming approximation of the groups, before us, to /3ai (through the use of the censer and ram, as b in Greek and Eoman proper names) is palpably delusive. All the three groups have initials (in some cases interpreted), which denote the first letter of the word, and not a mere grammatical prefix. Champolhon was, nevertheless, right in the meaning. The Coptic word A^e is the transcription, in Gr£eco-Egyptian characters, of a group which in the older texts was identical, both in sound and meaning, with the word TI hhai, "life." The resemblance between A^e and '^n is as close as their identity of meaning is obvious. The group, therefore, reads hi, and the rara here has the same sound as we have already assigned to it in the mythic name of Noah (vol. i. p. 339, &c.). The identity of Chnouphis, the water-god, with Noah deified, is fully established by this further proof that the ram represents the sound h. This must be our apology for going at length into these particulars. 552 WORKS OF HIS EEIGN. [chap IX. The monumental history of the reign of Amenephthis is scanty and but of httle interest. He has inscribed his name on the lotus columns of the temple of Araun- Rakotij at Alexandria, which was begun by Armais.* His name is, likewise, written in large characters on the rocky walls of the vast soffit, in which stands the pyramid of Chephrenes, at Ghizeh. He also dedicated, at the quarries of Djebel-e-Tayr in Middle Eg}-pt, a little speos to " Phtha administering justice in the pal- aces of the south," to Hathor (the Egyptian Venus), to Amun-Ra, and to other divinities. It is small but neatly executed. The reliefs are coloured, the tints are yet visible. We believe it to be the only construction remaining in Egypt, which Amenephthis began and completed. The name of Amenephthis appears likewise on one or two columns of the last hall of the palace of Luxor in Eastern Thebes. He seems to have, made some trifling additions to it. It is read also at El Asasif, in Western Thebes, at the Ramessaeum, and posthu- mously at Medinet Abou. At the quarries of Djebel Silsili, two tablets bear date of the second year of his reign, and a third, the date of which is effaced, com- memorates the commencement of quanying stones for a palace of Amenephthis at Thebes. No trace of it, however, is to be found, and most probably the stones never reached Thebes. His reign is variously stated in the lists to have lasted for 20, 19, 40, and 8 years. The monuments do not extend beyond it 4 years. The tomb of Amenephthis is close to that of his * Above, p. 322. CHAP IX.] THOUORIS. SIPHTHA. — SETHOS II. 553 father, in one of the branches of the valley of Biban-el- Malook. It is of noble design, but only commenced. The inscriptions do not extend beyond the inclined cori-idor. These monumental indications of a short reign are so clear, that they appear to us far to overbalance the very equivocal evidence of the lists ; much more any convenience of synchronism with astronomical eras, which may have induced others to assign to Amen- EPHTHis a reign of 2U years and upwards.* One of the tablets at Djebel Silsili has preserved the name of the queen of Amenephthis, isi-nfr, and the fact that he had three sons, the eldest of whom was also his successor to the throne of Egypt. Queen Thouoris and Si-Phtha her Husband. Amenemnes, or Sethos 11. The hieroglyphic name of the son of Amenephthis stands thus; Lower Egypt, 7-o/s-c/mt-ra meh-n-amn, " sun vigilant over the creations, full of Amun." Upper Egypt, Sctei meh-n- Phtha, "Sethos absorbed in [or full of] Phtha." The name in the lists, Amenemnes, is the last title in the L. E. ring; meh-n-amn, pronounced Amun mehn, for the purpose, doubtless, of placing the divine name first. This epithet was taken because the first in the upper ring, Sethos, had already been appropri- ated. A very great difficulty in the succession meets us in considering the monumental records of this king. * Lepsius, Einl. p. 331. VOL. II. 4 B 11 to 554 THEIR HIEROGLYPHIC NAMES. [chap. IX. A queen and her husband make their appearance as co-regent with him. Her name is thus written : \^ i.e., tha-rois, " she who is vigilant," which there /^tn If 0 □ I can scarcely be a doubt is the name of the suc- cessor of Amenephthis, which is written in the lists, Thouoris.* The name of her husband is also preserved upon the monuments. It is written thus: r^fnTh ^^^^^ entered in the hsts. -^^Y '^^^^^ ^'^ exact accordance with the universal custom of Ancient Eg}-pt. The husband of a queen regnant took the name of his wife in all public records. The husband's name reads ra-bsh stp~n-ra {pth-mn si-plitlia), " shining sun, proved by the sun," first ring ; " absorbed in Phtha, the son of Phtha," second ring. The names neither of queen Thouoris nor her husband appear in the hieroglyphic genealogies, nor in any other cotemporary succession. Yet are both names inscribed on a tolerably extensive range of monu- ments. One of them is in the palace at Gouruou, where two tablets are still extant, on both of which the husband Siphtha pays divine honours to Sethos I. and his son Sesostris-Ramses, as to their ancestors. Their tomb also at the Biban-el-Malook is verv * The name in the lists is the last in the 19th dynasty. It is made into that of a king, and has a note appended to it, which curiously illustrates the mode in which the Alexandrian philosophers wrote history. Their chronological computations made the era of Thouoris to correspond with that of the Trojan war. Now Homer says, that the king of Thebes who entertained Menelaus was named Polybus {Odys. iv. 12(j) : ergo, Thouoris is Polybus. If the word Thouoris is Egyptian, it is the name of a woman. CHAP. IX.] HOW THEY CAME TO BE KINGS. 555 spacious, and highly and elaborately decorated through- out, the unerring proof of a long, quiet reign. We have now collected the materials. The history we have deduced from them has already been given briefly by anticipation, in our account of the reign of Sesostris. It will require to be more fully considered here. The circumstance, that Amenephthis survived his father and predecessor for a short time only, renders it probable that he died young. Such seems to have been the case. His son and successor was an infant, born, in all probability, after his father's accession. During his nonage, therefore, the government of Egypt must, of necessity, have been confided to a regency. In selecting the regent, Amenephthis (sup- posing him not to have died a violent death), or the estates of Egypt, would naturally look to the other members of the family of Sesosteis, and to a daughter rather than a son, because thereby the chances of an usurpation would be diminished. Thouopjs, therefore, was the daughter of Kamses; and she and her husband exercised the sovereignty in Egypt during the minority of Sethos II., their nephew. The arrangement appears to have been satisfactory, not only to Egypt, but to their ward also. The erasures which appeal* on the monuments of Egypt under similar circumstances at a former period* do not occur in this instance. Sethos and his guard- ians have left no monumental record of their quarrels. The name of the rightful monarch was inscribed on all the great public works. His guardians wrote theirs * Above, p. 193, &c. 656 TOMB OF SETHOS II. [chap. IX. only in their tombs, and on the commemorations of their acts of private devotion. The monumental evidence that Amenemnes, or Sethos II., and queen Thouoeis, with Siphtha her husband, were all living and reigning at the same time, is derived from their tombs, and appears to us to be quite conclusive. Tlieir excavations are adjacent to each other in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes. That of Sethos II. (we adopt the name given him by others, in order to avoid confusion) is a cave of considerable extent.* It pierces the mountain to the depth of feet. The walls, however, both of the halls and cor- ridors, are left unfinished in various stages. The reliefs and inscriptions at the entrance are complete, and in the highest style of Egyptian art; but the first hall has been merely quarried out roughly. The second corridor, in like manner, is begun, and the stuccoing of the walls has proceeded so far, that the paintings are traced, and some of them completed. Then once again the hall that follows is a mere hole in the rock, roughed out by the quarrymen. This strange alterna- tion characterizes the whole tomb. In the last hall, which is in the same state of incompleteness, are the fragments of the king's sarcophagus in red gTanite. When perfect, it must have surpassed, as a work of art, any monument of Ancient Egypt now in existence. It has been covered with reliefs and inscriptions very beautifully designed and most elaborately finished. It must have occupied the artists by whom it was executed for many years. Precisely the same indication is like- * No. 15, Wilkinson. CHAP. IX.] TOMB OF THOUOPJS. 557 wise afforded by the state of the tomb of this king. Notwithstanding its imperfect condition, so extensive an excavation must have been the work of many years. Now our readers are well aware that all further work of every description in these tombs ceased the moment the king died. It follows, therefore, inevitably, that Sethos II. was for many years king of Egypt. Nothing can be more complete than the contrast to this, which is presented by the tomb of queen Thouoeis, and her husband Siphtha.* In extent of design, it scarcely yields to the largest in the valley. Its total length is 363 feet. In extreme beauty and delicacy of execution, it has been superior to all of them. There is a chamber in it especially deserving of notice. The walls are covered with reliefs exquisitely designed and coloured, representing a vast collection of gold, silver, and porphyry jars and vases, of very elegant shapes. Perhaps nowhere else in Egypt will so striking an example be found of the close, intense labour of finish applied to their designs by these ancient ailists. Many of them must have worked, and for many years, to complete this gorgeous chamber. The most remarkable circumstance connected with this tomb, and one to which there is scarcely a parallel elsewhere in the valley or in Egypt, has yet to be related. The names and effigies of its foundei's have been twice stuccoed over. Sethos II. was the first to commit this impiety ; for his name is written on the lowest layer of stucco. Now we know that the sepul- ture of the king always took place as soon as the * No. 14, Wilkinson. 658 HISTOEY IN TOMBS AND NAMES. [chap. ix. embalming of his mummy was finished, and then the tomb was finally closed. Sethos II., therefore, must have been reigning cotemporarily with Thouoeis and SiPHTHA, and have survived both of them. Had they reigned in succession, he could not have before ex- cavated his own tomb as king of Eg}'pt. Had the thought of this usurpation occurred to him long after, when the founders had been dead many years, the tomb of Thouoeis would then assuredly have been closed and inaccessible to him. We can therefore conceive of no other alternative than that they reigned cotemporarily, according to our arrangement, and that Sethos was the survivor of the whole. Having thus, we submit, established the fact of this co-regency, it remains for us to explain the circum- stances under which it occurred. We have repeatedly found much history written in the names of the kings of Egypt. That of the husband of Thouoeis is one of them. The titles in it make mention only of the gods of Memphis and Heliopolis. Assuredly, therefore, their sovereignty had, in the first instance, some especial connection with Lower Eg}-pt. For this circumstance we shall find the solution on the monuments, and in the Mosaic narrative. Siphtha was the last of the Xoite kings. He was but an infant when his father died, and he succeeded to the throne. Sesosteis, the king of Upper Egypt, who had been, as we have seen, his father's ally, married to this infant his daughter Thouoeis, who was then at mature age. By this means, the whole of the Delta was placed under his protection, and virtually annexed to his domi- CHAP. IX.] VrCE-EEGENCY OF THOUORIS. 559 nions. Thouokis had been previously devoted to the service of the gods in an especial manner, according to the prevailing custom with the princesses of Egypt.* The sincerity of her devotion is evidenced by all the monuments of her reign. She seems, by the reliefs on her tomb, to have been a priestess of Hathor and Neith, the two great primeval goddesses. The heart- less arrangement, whereby she was at mature age espoused to an infant of days, to whom, in all proba- bility, she might, in the ordinary course of nature, have given birth but a month or two before, was brought about by the deep craft and utterly reckless policy of her father. He endeavoured to compensate her, by investing her with a high vice-regal power in the Delta. The frequent allusions to the vicegerents of the autho- rity of Sesostris, which we noticed in his final treaty with Sheth,f may, we conceive, be probably enough assumed to refer to the rule of the Xoite Pharaohs, now embodied in Thouoris his daughter, as the queen of the last of them. In the first-recorded instance of the exercise of sovereign power in the Delta by Thouoris, our history once more steps forth from the stern array of the shadows of kings and times, whose memories have long since departed, and links itself with the destinies of the whole human race, and with the living sympathies of all times. Jochebed, the mother of Moses, was, most probably, one of the domestic slaves in the palace * She was one of the •naX'Kdlts, or TcaXXxxis, of the Greek historians. See Herod, i. 84, &c. + Above, p. 517, &c. 560 THE MOTHEE OF MOSES. [chap. IX. of Thouoris and Siphtha at Heliopolis. She was in this capacity cognizant of the queen's movements, and therefore placed the hasket, which contained her infant son, near the quay or terrace, to which the queen would that day be called by some religious ceremony to descend to the river's edge for the performance of an ablution. How Thouoets at once obeyed the promptings of nature, and of nature's God, within her, and how, as a queen, and in her own right, she cast aside and set at nought the infanticidal edict of her father, and adopted the outcast as her own child, we have elsewhere ex- plained, and the details of the history are far too well known to need repetition. The inspired narrative of these events has solved, we submit, completely, another of the formidable difficulties which beset the monu- mental history of Egypt. Thouoeis, the daughter of Phai-aoh Sesostris, exercised the regal power in the Delta, in right of her infant husband Siphtha, duiing all the later years of the reign of her father, and also through that of her brother Amenephthis. For these reasons, as well as for those others we have already enumerated, on the death of the latter, she and her husband were made co-regent in all Egj'pt, with his infant son Sethos II., and likewise the child's guar- dians. An interval of forty years is interposed by the in- spired narrative, between the adoption of Moses by Pharaoh's daughter, and the next event recorded on its unerring authority. Its history must, therefore, be written from the monuments, and vague and general as their indications may at first sight appear, they are. CHAP. IX.] CHARACTER UF THOUORIS. 561 nevertheless, by no means wanting either in precision or in importance. The few and inconsiderable remains in Egypt of the short reign of Amenephthis, when compared to those of his father, convey, nevertheless, a fact regard- ing both himself and his co-regents in Egypt in the highest degree creditable to them. The children of Israel were still in captivity when Amenephthis suc- ceeded to the throne ; for the death of Sesostris took place in the 392nd year of the sojourn, according to our computation. He had, therefore, at his command the whole amount of forced labour, with which the continually increasing myriads of Israel could furnish him. We have elsewhere accounted for the remark- able fact, that he must have forborne to avail him- self of it, to anything like the same extent, by ascribing it to the influence over him obtained by his sister, the queen Thouoris.* A fuller and closer examination of the whole question, has entirely confirmed this conviction. The whole of the circumstances under which Thouoris had been invested with sovereign power in the Delta, would inevitably tend to work in her a distaste for the subtle and cruel policy of her father, and a leaning towards the victims of his duplicity. Her own necessarily barren espousals, and the cruel mockery thereby inflicted upon all her womanly in- stincts, would not fail to rankle deeply within her. The first exhibition of this feeling was her adoption of the outcast Moses. Another step in the same direction VOL. TI. * Israel in Egypt, u. s. 4 c 562 UNCEETAINTIES IN LISTS. [CHAP. IX. she would likewise not fail to take, if human nature was the same then as now. Her infant husband would awaken in her bosom the cares, the solicitudes, the affections of a mother. She would love both the children of her adoption with an earnest depth of affec- tion, which would identify their interests, their hopes, and their family traditions with herself. Doubtless, during the lifetime of her father, she had, to the extent of her power, mitigated the horrors of the captivity to the Israelites, in other instances besides those on record ; thereby subserving instrumentally the Divine purpose, to bring to nought the designs of their enemies. Her affection for her husband, of which the monuments afford many unequivocal instances, and for the traditions of his family, would doubtless prompt her to such a course. This influence appears unequi- vocally at the death of her father, in the paucity of the monuments both of her brother Amenephthis, and, as we shall afterwards find, of her nephew Sethos IL The period at which the death of Amenephthis took place, must now be considered. We have already noticed the extreme vagueness of the lists, in regard of the duration of his reign. The knowledge we have now acquired of the customs of Egypt would prompt us to ascribe such uncertainties to doubts regarding the event in which the reign began, rather than as to the time when it ended. The practice so uni- versally prevalent with all the Pharaohs, of associating their successors with them on the throne, during their lifetime, and the utter absence of all uniformity as to the time when this association took place, will satis- CHAP. IX.] MOSES IN EGYPT. 563 factorily account for the present, and for other similar discrepancies. It was probably not easy to discover from the annals of Egypt, the year of his actual accession. The very advanced age likewise at which Sesostris must have died, renders it pretty certain, that his son and successor had been for many years associated with him on the throne, when this event took place. For these reasons, which appear to us conclusive, we assume that, whatever may have been the time during which Amenephthis was king of Egypt, he survived his father for two years only. His death, therefore, took place in or about the 394th year of the sojourn of Israel in Egypt. At this epoch, the inspired narrative again returns to our assistance. Moses, at the new epoch of this resumption, is declared to have been full forty years old.''' Our coin- putation makes him to have been forty-four years old, which is far more probable than the Rabbinical figment so generally adopted, which divides his whole life into into three exactly equal portions. f The first event narrated concerning this eminent personage, at the time now before us, " when he was come to years," is one directly bearing upon the history of Egypt. He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.]: It may be remembered that we have already ascertained that another event, which we also knew only upon the same authority, proved, neverthe- * See Acts vii. 23. + Forty years ia Egypt, forty years in Midian, and forty years in the desert. X Hebrews xi. 2i. 564 EEFUSES THE CROWN OF EGYPT. [CHAP. ix. less, by the testimony of the monuments, to be literally true ; and also to have a very important bearing upon the history of Egypt. We believe this to be the case in the present instance also, and that the visit of Abraham to Egypt did not exercise a stronger influence upon the after destiny of the monarchy, than did the refusal of Moses to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. This act, therefore cannot, if the account of it be true, have been done in a corner. It was a solemn overt act, in the face of all Egypt, on the occasion of some great historical occurrence. Now we have seen, that imme- diately on the death of Amenephthis, Thouopjs and her husband became sovereign in all Egypt, as well as Sethos II. This, then, we believe to have been the occasion on which the refusal of Moses took place. In air probability, the crown of Egypt was conferred unconditionally upon Thouoris on the death of her brother, when she immediately proposed to make Moses her co-regcnt and successor. She was now advanced in years, very far beyond all hope of a family of her own. Nothing, therefore, was more natural, than her pro- posal publicly to recognize as her son, the man whom for forty years she had cherished with a mother's love. This view of the case brings out the refusal of Moses in its full proportions, as the act of high principle, which his history everywhere infers it to have been. It would be in consequence of this refusal that Thouoeis, doubtless with the consent of Siphtha her husband, went to Thebes, where she not only adopted the infant son of Amenephthis as her heir, but had CHAP. IX.] DESIGNS OF QUEEN THOUORIS. 565 him at once crowned king, though he was not yet a year old. A procedure for which an inquiry after the history of Egypt has furnished us with many pre- cedents. We can even discern in the proposal itself, and in the little insight which the sacred history and the monuments have given us into the character of this illustrious queen, a bolder conception. She saw and appreciated the high mental qualities and consummate wisdom of her adopted son. She perceived in him capa- bilities for the accomplishment of lofty designs, which she knew to be wanting in her husband Siphtha. There is no improbability in the conjecture, that in Moses she hoped to see the revival of the Aphophean line of Pha- raohs (through his marriage probably with a sister of Siphtha) * and of the Aphophean policy, so that Israel and Egypt should be one people. Such were probably the designs of Pharaoh's daughter, in proposing the crown of Egypt to Moses. Such, however, was not the design of the God of Moses and of Israel, and therefore her purpose came to nothing. We may well suppose that this disappointment would be deeply felt by the aged queen. It may have been in consequence of it that she, from thenceforth to the time of her death, resided at Thebes ; leaving to her husband the administration of the affairs of the Delta, which seems to have been all of which he was capable. We are persuaded, also, that it was the same mistrust of his capacity, which prompted her to conclude the extraordinary arrangement, which appears on the monu- * Moses, it will be remembered, was unmarried at this time. 566 EDUCATION OF SETHOS II. [CHAP. n. merits of this epoch. All public acts and constructions were carried on under the name of her nephew. Her own name and that of her husband appear nowhere save in their acts of private devotion, principally ad- dressed to their ancestry of the Theban line, and in their tombs. It was, we repeat it, the incapacity of SiPHTHA as a governor, and her consciousness of that incapacity, that alone can, in our judgment, account for this extraordinary arrangement. That a character so exalted as that of Thouoeis would not be betrayed by this disappointment into the neglect of the duties incumbent upon her, we might have anticipated. We are able to deduce but one in- stance of her care for the education of her nephew ; but this is, for its epoch, a remarkable one. She provided for him books and, doubtless, instruction in tlie art of reading them. A staff of scribes was appointed to write for the young king histories of the exploits of his ancestors, and stories or romances inculcating the fear of the gods. The tomb of one of these scribes was happily discovered, some years ago, at Thebes, and in it were deposited the books he had written for Sethos II. We have already twice quoted from theii' most interesting contents.* If, then, Sethos II. failed in becoming a wise and great king, it was through no fault of his tutors and guardians. Queen Thouoeis appears to have divided her time at Thebes between the education of her nephew and her acts of devotion, the principal of which was the decoration of her own and husband's tomb. According * Above, pp. 91, 483. CHAP. ix.J MOSES SLAYS THE EGYPTIAN. 567 to the lists she survived this disappointment only seven years.* The event next in order, with which we are acquain- ted, is once more recorded in the books of Moses.f Immediately on his refusal to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, " Moses went down unto his brethren, and looked at their burdens." The expres- sion here is another confirmation of the justice of our estimate of the character of Thouokis. The scene was a new one to Moses, whose whole life had been passed in the palace and presence of the queen. Had the well-known act of tyranny and oppression which roused his indignation and rash vengeance, been one of frequent occurrence, at the command or through the connivance of his foster-mother, there would Imve been no novelty in it to him, and his slaying of the Egyptian task-master would be a mere wanton murder. It is only upon the assumption that the sight was altogether new and strange to Moses, that we can either justify or account for his rashness. On the following day Moses discovered the mistake he had made. The Hebrews themselves had been his betrayers. This is, in the first place, a probable effect of the degradation consequent upon their state of * There is a strange confusion of names of kings huddled together to form a list of thirty-eight kings, between Menes and Amunti- M/EUS. This list the chronologer, Syncellus, quotes at third hand from Erastosthenes (Buusen : Eytjpt's Place, p. 668). The 36th name in it is l