Books on 
 
 Mm 
 
 Egypt and Chaldaea 
 
 
 
FEB 2H 1903 * 
 
 Division X) T § 3 
 
 v. 4- 
 
PUBLISHERS' NOTE 
 
 Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., beg to 
 announce that they have still in stock a limited number of the 
 larger edition of the hieroglyphic text and translation of the 
 Theban Recension of the Book of the Dead, with the hiero- 
 glyphic vocabulary by Dr. Wallis Budge, which appeared in 
 three volumes under the title " Chapter of Coming Forth 
 by Day," late in 1897. 
 
 Price for the Entire Work, £2 10s. 
 
 Volume I. contains all the known Chapters of the Theban 
 Recension of the Book of the Dead, printed in hieroglyphic 
 type (pp. 1 — 517), and a description of the papyri in the British 
 Museum from which they have been edited, and a list of 
 Chapters, etc. (pp. i. — xl.). This edition is the most complete 
 which has hitherto been published. 
 
 Volume II. contains a full vocabulary (pp. 1 — 386) to all the 
 hieroglyphic texts of the Chapters of the Theban Recension of 
 the Book of the Dead and to the supplementary Chapters from 
 the Sa'ite Recension which are given therewith in Volume I. 
 The volume contains about 35,000 references. 
 
 Volume III. contains : — 
 
 Preface and list of Chapters (i.-xxxvi.). 
 
 1. Introduction (pp. xxxvii.-cciv.) : — 
 Chap. I.— The History of the Book of the Dead. This 
 Chapter is accompanied by eighteen plates which illus- 
 trate the palaeography of the various Recensions of the 
 Book of the Dead from the Vth Dynasty to the Roman 
 Period. 
 
 VOL. IV. 
 
 A 
 
Chap. II.— Osiris and the Resurrection. 
 „ III. — The Judgment of the Dead. 
 
 „ IV. — The Elysian Fields or Heaven. With extracts 
 
 from the Pyramid Texts. 
 „ V. — The Magic of the Book of the Dead. 
 „ VI. — The Object and Contents of the Book of the Dead. 
 „ VII. — The Book of the Dead of Nesi-Khonsu, about 
 
 B.C. 1000 (English translation). 
 „ VIII. — The Book of Breathings (English translation). 
 „ IX. — The Papyrus of Takhert-puru-abt (English 
 
 translation). 
 
 2. English Translation of the Book of the Dead 
 (pp. 1 — 354). The volume also contains three scenes from the 
 famous Papyrus of Ani representing the Judgment Scene, the 
 Funeral Procession, and the Elysian Fields, which have been 
 reproduced in full colours by Mr. W. Griggs, the eminent 
 photo-lithographer. 
 
iJBoofes on l£G£Pt anfc Cbalfcaea 
 
 A HISTORY OF EGYPT 
 
 From the End of the Neolithic Period to 
 the Death of Cleopatra VII. b.c. 30 
 
 Vol. IV. 
 
 EGYPT AND HER ASIATIC EMPIRE 
 
Books on )£0£pt ant> Cbalbaea 
 
 EGYPT 
 
 AND HER 
 
 ASIATIC EMPIRE 
 
 E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, M.A, Litt.D., D.Lit. 
 
 KEEPER OF THE EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN ANTIQUITIES 
 IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY FROWDE 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 AMERICAN BRANCH 
 1902 
 
 V 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The period of Egyptian History treated in the present 
 volume has been continued from the end of the reign 
 of Thothmes EE. to the end of the rule of the XVIIIth 
 Dynasty, i.e., from about 1550 to 1400 B.C. This period, 
 though comparatively short, is one of extreme interest, 
 for in it the Egyptians succeeded in establishing their 
 empire in Palestine and Syria, and extended their rule 
 as far eastwards as the city of Ni, which cannot have 
 been very far from the river Euphrates. In this 
 period, moreover, are included the reigns of Thothmes 
 III. and Amen-hetep III., whose energy and ability 
 raised Egypt to an exalted position among the civilized 
 nations of the world, and made her feared by Nubians, 
 Libyans, and the Semitic tribes of the Eastern Desert, 
 and of Sinai, and of Western Asia. Thothmes III. 
 consolidated the Egyptian power in Nubia and Syria, 
 and Amen-hetep III. administered the vast empire 
 which his great ancestor had won by his sword. On 
 the death of Amen-hetep III. Egypt may be said to 
 have extended from the Atbara river in the Eastern 
 Sudan to the city of Aleppo in Northern Syria. Hand 
 in hand with the growth of power went increase in the 
 wealth of Egypt, and the buildings which the greatest 
 kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty set up in their capital, 
 Thebes, testify to the lavishness with which they spent 
 the money that had been given to them by Amen-Pui, 
 the king of the gods. The shrines of local gods which 
 
viii 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 had fallen into ruin were restored with a generous 
 hand, and on a scale never before equalled and never 
 surpassed. The endowments set apart for the main- 
 tenance of the sanctuary and priesthood of Amen-Ka 
 were on a hitherto unknown scale, and the power 
 which the priests enjoyed in consequence was little 
 inferior to that of the reigning family. Painters, 
 sculptors, architects, and engineers found abundant 
 employment in the capital in connection with the 
 temples of the gods, and the granite obelisks, and 
 colossal statues, and fine bas-reliefs prove their skill 
 and ability. In short, the period of the XYIIIth 
 Dynasty included the Golden Age of Egypt, and 
 though the kings of the succeeding dynasties were 
 more boastful than those of the XYIIIth Dynasty, 
 their works and merits were far inferior to theirs. 
 
 The most interesting, though certainly not the most 
 important of the kings of the XYIIIth Dynasty, was 
 Ainen-hetep IY., the son of Amen-hetep III. by the 
 Mitannian princess Thi. This remarkable woman 
 appears to have been as intelligent as she was beautiful, 
 and the influence which she exerted on the mind of 
 her son during his boyhood produced some very un- 
 expected results. He seems to have imbibed a strong 
 hatred of the religion and worship which were in- 
 culcated by the powerful priesthood of Amen-Ra at 
 Thebes, but whether this was the result of his mother's 
 teaching or of his own wish is unknown. This hatred 
 made itself apparent soon after his accession to the 
 throne, and he lost no time in declaring himself to be a 
 devout believer in the worship of that form of the Sim- 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ix 
 
 god which is now generally known as the heresy of 
 the Disk. Among his titles he adopted that of high 
 priest of Ka-Harmaehis, but although he was tolerant 
 of the worship of all the ancient forms of the Sun-god 
 of Heliopolis he was very hostile to the cult of Amen- 
 Ka, the Sun-god of Thebes ; he even went so far as to 
 build a shrine in honour of Harmachis within the 
 temple precincts at Thebes. At length an open rupture 
 took place between the priests of Amen and himself, 
 and, as a result, he forsook the old capital and built 
 himself a new one further to the north at a place near 
 the modern Tell el-'Amarna. Here he founded a 
 temple in honour of the Disk, and changed his name to 
 Khu-en-Aten, i.e., Glory of the Disk, and gathered 
 about him painters, sculptors, and handicraftsmen of 
 every kind, who developed a new style of Egyptian art, 
 which is characterized by great realism and freedom 
 from conventionality. The king, his family, and his 
 courtiers led a life of pleasure here for a few years, and 
 he himself was perfectly content to neglect the affairs 
 of his empire, provided he could play the part of a 
 priest and bestow gifts upon his favourites. Mean- 
 while, the peoples who were subject to him in Asia 
 were hard pressed by the Kheta and the allied nations, 
 who had by this time become very powerful, and the 
 tribute which had been paid for many years past by 
 the great cities of Syria and Palestine to Egypt was 
 now diverted from that country. The few governors of 
 cities who were strong enough to remain loyal to Egypt 
 sent numerous despatches to Amen-hetep IV. to warn 
 him of the growth of disaffection and revolt throughout 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 their territories, and asked that help might be speedily 
 sent to enable them to maintain their authority and the 
 interests of Egypt. But their appeals fell on deaf ears, 
 and as no reinforcements came the possessions of Egypt 
 in Western Asia fell, one after another, into the hands 
 of the nomadic tribes who were strong enough to seize 
 whatever territory they wished. A very strong light 
 is thrown upon this phase of Egyptian history by the 
 Tell el-'Amarna Tablets, from which we are able to 
 trace the growth of the revolt from its beginning to the 
 period when Egypt was compelled to abandon her 
 Syrian dependencies. These letters are of such im- 
 portance for Egyptian history that it has been thought 
 well to give a tolerably complete summary of their 
 contents; this will be found on pp. 184-241 of the 
 present volume. The power of Egypt in Syria was 
 much shaken during the regency of Hatshepset, but 
 she at least maintained the old traditions of the 
 country, and supported the national priesthood by 
 every means in her power, and spared no pains to make 
 her capital great and splendid. Her descendant Amen- 
 hetep IV., however, forsook his capital, reviled the 
 national god, undermined as far as possible the power 
 of the national priesthood, and, in addition to all this, 
 succeeded in finally destroying the empire in Asia 
 which the earlier Amen-hetep and Thothmes kings 
 had built up with such great expenditure of labour 
 and blood, for Egypt never again was really mistress 
 of that Asiatic empire as she had been in the days of 
 Thothmes III. 
 
 E. A. Wallis Budge. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter L — Queen Hatshepset. Her titles. Her 
 
 ROYAL DESCENT. HER REGENCY. HER EXPEDITION 
 
 to Punt and its great results. The assembly 
 of nobles in the ninth year of her reign. the 
 temple of der al-bahari and the architect 
 Sen-Mut. The obelisks of Hatshepset and 
 their inscriptions. her mining operations and 
 the temple speos artemidos. hatshepset the 
 daughter of amen incarnate in her father. 
 Story of her divine conception and the creation 
 of her body by khnemu. her birth and 
 education. Acknowledged by Amen as his 
 daughter. Her journey through Egypt. Her 
 
 CORONATION AND REIGN. ThOTHMES III. HlS 
 
 accession and titles. hls reign of fifty-three 
 years. hls hatred of his aunt hitshepset. 
 His campaigns in Syria. The battle of Megiddo. 
 Attack upon Kadesh on the Orontes. Capture 
 and sack of Megiddo. Conquest of Northern 
 Syria, Cyprus, Kush, and Uauat. Clearing of 
 the Canal in the Cataract. Tomb of Thothmes 
 III. Annals of Thothmes III. Summary of 
 
xii 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 conquests. Building of Thothmes III. Obelisks 
 at Karnak. Puam and Eekh-ma-EI. Eomance 
 of Tehuti-a and the taking of Joppa. The 
 Apure. Amen-hetep II. Expedition against 
 Thakisa. Arrival in Ni. Eebellion at Akathi. 
 Slaughter of seven kings. Tomb of Amen- 
 hetep II. Discovery of his mummy. Thothmes 
 IV. Expeditions to Nubia and Phoenicia. 
 The official Amen-hetep. The Sphinx buried 
 in sand. Dream of Thothmes IV. Eestoration 
 
 OF THE TEMPLE OF THE SPHINX. TABLET OF THE 
 
 Sphinx. Thothmes IV. and Artatama of Baby- 
 lonia. Amen-hetep III. Great prosperity of 
 Egypt. Expedition into Nubia. His wives from 
 Western Asia. Gilukhipa, Tatumkhipa, Thi. 
 Scarabs and lion hunts of Amen-hetep III. His 
 divine origin. The temple of Luxor. The 
 Colossi. Amen-hetep, son of Hap, and his 
 worship. Temples of El-Kab and Soleb. Tomb 
 of Amen-hetep III. His son Amen-hetep IV. 
 Queen Nefertith. Introduction of Aten wor- 
 ship. The Benben at Thebes. Amen-hetep IV. 
 forsakes Thebes, builds a new capital, and 
 
 CHANGES HIS NAME TO KhU-EN-AtEN. WORSHIP OF 
 
 Aten a glorified materialism. The king a 
 priest of Aten. His palace. Bek the architect. 
 Realism of Egyptian art. Hymns to Aten. 
 Physical characteristics of Amen-hetep IV. 
 His tomb and mummy. Family of Amen-hetep IV. 
 The Tell el-'Amarna Tablets. Eevolts in 
 Palestine. Decline of Egypt's power in Syria. 
 Character of Amen-hetep IV. Se-aa-ka-Ea. 
 Tut-ankh-Amen. Eoyal son of Kusii. The 
 capital of khu-en-aten deserted. thebes once 
 again the capital. klng al. heru-em-heb. 
 His life and history. His courts of justice 
 and administration. expedition into syria . 1 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 xiii 
 
 Chapter II. — XVII Ith Dynasty — Summary. Decline 
 op Egypt's power in Syria. A viceroy estab- 
 lished in Nubia. Cuneiform writing in Syria. 
 Eelations of Egypt with Babylonia, Assyria, 
 Mitanni, etc. Rise of the Kheta power. The 
 Keftiu, Lycians, Lukki. The new capital 
 Khut-en-Aten. Exclusiveness of Aten worship. 
 The tombs of the kings at Thebes. Eealistic 
 development of art. the temples and obelisks 
 of Karnak and Luxor. Architecture. The 
 
 PRIESTHOOD OF AmEN. EGYPTIAN OFFICIALS. THE 
 
 horse introduced into the egyptian army. the 
 Golden Age of Egypt 160 
 
 Chapter III. — The Tell el-'Amarna Tablets. Their 
 
 DISCOVERY AND NUMBER. LETTER FROM AmEN-HETEP 
 
 III. to Kallimma-Sin. Letters from Kallimma- 
 Sin to Amen-hetep III. Letters from Tushratta 
 to Amen-hetep III. Letters from Burraburi- 
 yash to Amen-hetep IV. Letter from Ashur- 
 
 UBALLIT TO AmEN-HETEP IV. LETTERS FROM 
 
 Tushratta to Amen-hetep IV. Letter from 
 Tushratta to Thi, Queen of Egypt. Letters 
 to the king of egypt from alashiya j from 
 Adad-nirari, king of Nuhashshi ; from Abd- 
 ashratum, governor of amurri j from the 
 people of tunip ; from aziru to the king, and 
 
 FROM THE KING TO AziRU ; FROM RlB-ADDA, KING 
 
 of gebal ; from rlb-adda to amanappa ; from 
 Rabimur to the king ; from the people of Ir- 
 
 KATA J FROM AMMUNIRA, GOVERNOR OF BeRUT ; 
 FROM AKIZZI, GOVERNOR OF KATNA J FROM NAM- 
 YAWIZA, GOVERNOR OF KUMIDI ; FROM ITAKAMA, 
 GOVERNOR OF KADESH ; FROM ZlMRIDA, GOVERNOR 
 OF SlDON ; FROM AbI-MILKI,' KING OF TYRE ; FROM 
 SURATA OF ACCHO ; FROM ZATANA OF ACCHO ; FROM 
 Artamanya, KING OF ZlR-BASHAN J FROM Lapaya 
 
xiv 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 AND SHUARDATA ; FROM MlLKILI AND FROM A 
 
 royal lady j from abdi-khiba, governor of 
 Jerusalem ; from Addu-mihir and Tagi ; from 
 
 BlRIDIYA OF MEGIDDO ; FROM WYASHDATA AND 
 
 Shuardata ; from Abdi-Tirshi of Hazor ; from 
 Yapakhi, governor of Gezer; from Widya, 
 governor of askelon ; from yabitiri, governor 
 of Gaza and Joppa ; from Dagan-Takala ; 
 from zlmrida and yabni-ilu of lachish ; etc. . 184 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. Hatshepset, the " Morning Star " . . . . 3 
 
 2. The King and Queen of Punt and their sons 
 
 and daughters bringing gifts of the produce 
 
 of the land to the envoy of hltshepset . 7 
 
 3. The loading of Hatshepset's ships in a harbour 
 
 at Punt with the Products of Punt . . 9 
 
 4. A Negro from Nubia 45 
 
 5. Stele inscribed with a summary of the conquests 
 
 of Thothmes III 49 
 
 6. A Libyan . . .55 
 
 7. Statue of Netchem, an official of Thothmes III. 62 
 
 8. Statue of the royal mother Teta-Khart . . 64 
 
 9. ushabti figure of amen-hetep ii 71 
 
 10. Upper portion of the Stele of the Sphinx . . 81 
 
 11. The royal sculptor Autha at work on a statue 
 
 of princess baket-aten 91 
 
 12. The royal wife, the great lady of the two 
 
 lands, queen of the two lands, thi ... 97 
 
 13. Hunting Scarab of Amen-hetep III. . . . 100 
 
 14. Scarab of Amen-hetep III. describing the limits 
 
 of his empire 101 
 
 15. Amen-hetep III. and his double being presented 
 
 to Amen-ra . 103 
 
xvi 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 16. The Colossi of Amen-hetep III 107 
 
 17. Aten shining on the names of Amen-hetep IV. 
 
 and his wife 120 
 
 18. The rays of Aten bestowing "life" and "sove- 
 
 reignty" 121 
 
 19. Amen-hetep IV. and his wife bestowing gifts 
 
 UPON COURTIERS 123 
 
 20. Aten shining upon Amen-hetep IV. and his wife, 
 
 etc " 127 
 
 21. Aten shining upon Amen-hetep IV. seated on his 
 
 THRONE 133 
 
 22. The Sarcophagus of Ai 147 
 
 23. Letter of Tushratta, king of Mitanni, to Amen- 
 
 hetep III 193 
 
 24. Letter of Rib- Adda to the king of Egypt . .211 
 
EGYPT 
 
 AND HER 
 
 ASIATIC EMPIRE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. FROM THEBES. 
 
 Maat-ka, son of the Sun, Amen-khnernet-HATSHEPSET. 
 
 Queen Hatshepset, the widow of 
 Thothmes II., though unmentioned in 
 the Egyptian King Lists, as much de- 
 serves to be commemorated among the 
 great monarchs of Egypt as any king or 
 queen who ever sat upon its throne 
 during the XVIIIth Dynasty, and for 
 
 USERT-KAU, & m . 
 
 the Horus name of this reason she is here included, and the 
 
 Hatshepset. 
 
 great events of her rule are considered in 
 separate paragraphs without reference to the narrative 
 of the life and deeds of her nephew Thothmes III. 
 The inscriptions which this great queen has left behind 
 her show that she adopted the following series of 
 vol. rv. b 
 
 U 
 
 uu 
 
2 
 
 THE REIGN OF HATSHEPSET [B.C. 1533 
 
 titles : — " Bestower of years, the Horns of gold, the 
 "goddess of risings [like the Sun], the conqueror of all 
 " lands, i.e., the world, beautiful goddess, lady of the 
 " two lands, the vivifier of hearts, the mighty one of 
 " Jiau, i.e., doubles," etc. One of her earliest titles was 
 " Amen khnemet-hat," which means something like 
 " the chief bride of Amen," but later she called herself 
 Hat-shepset, i.e., " the first among the favourite 
 " women," and still later, apparently being wearied of 
 what seemed to her an unworthy title, she gave herself 
 the name of Hat-shepsu, i.e., " the first among the 
 " great and honourable nobles of the kingdom." 1 
 Hatshepset was associated with her father Thothmes I. 
 in the rule of the kingdom shortly before his death, 
 and at this time she appears to have been unmarried ; 
 but there is reason for thinking that, before his death, 
 the old king married her to her half-brother Thothmes 
 II., foreseeing the trouble in the matter of succession 
 which would inevitably arise unless he did so. 
 Thothmes II. was of royal descent only on his father's 
 side, but Hatshepset was of royal descent on her 
 mothers side as well, a most important thing in such 
 cases, and if she married her brother he would be able 
 to succeed to the throne of Egypt without difficulty. 
 As soon as Thothmes I. was dead, his daughter Hat- 
 shepset and his son Thothmes II. became the rulers of 
 
 Egypt- 
 
 1 This point was first made by M. Naville in Recueil, torn, xviii. 
 p. 91; and see Maspero, Hist. Anc, torn. ii. p. 238. 
 
The Neter Tuat or high-priestess of Amen-Ra, the king of the gods, Maat-ka-Ra, 
 or Hatshepset. 
 
4 
 
 THE REIGN OF HATSHEPSET [B.C. 1533 
 
 It has been generally supposed that Thothmes II. 
 was a man who was strong neither physically nor 
 mentally, and that he was unable to emulate the 
 exploits of his ancestors and personally conduct the 
 military expeditions which, we know, were carried out 
 during his reign ; this being so, much of the govern- 
 ment of the country fell into his queen's hands, and it 
 is pretty certain that, though Thothmes II. gained the 
 credit for whatsoever was done, Hfitshepset supplied 
 the plan for it, and indicated the methods which were 
 to be employed in carrying it out. The experience 
 which she gained in the time of her father was of the 
 greatest use to her, and her natural ability made her to 
 profit by it to the utmost. After a comparatively 
 short reign the king died, probably of the disease 
 which has left so many marks on his body, and as 
 Thothmes III., the son of her husband by another wife 
 called Aset, was then a mere child, Hatshepset naturally 
 undertook the rule of Egypt, and we are quite justified 
 in saying that the interests of the country suffered in 
 no way through being in her hands. As far as is 
 known, no really great military expedition was under- 
 taken by Hatshepset, and when she had made all 
 arrangements for the succession of Thothmes III., and 
 also for his marriage in future years with her own 
 daughter, who also bore the name of Hatshepset, she 
 undertook the development of the natural resources of 
 the country, and spent a great deal of her energy and 
 ability in planning the erection of buildings and 
 
B.C. 1533] THE EXPEDITION TO PUNT 
 
 5 
 
 obelisks, and in watching the carrying out of her 
 ideas. 
 
 The most important event in the reign of the queen 
 was the famous expedition to Punt, which was planned 
 and carried out under her guidance ; the principal 
 incidents of this expedition are depicted on the walls of 
 her temple at Der al-Bahari, which building will be 
 described later. We have already referred in several 
 places to the friendly relations which always seem to 
 have existed between the Egyptians and the people of 
 Punt, □ ^ anc i these were due partly to the 
 
 AAAAAA r^^l r J 
 
 fact that the entrance of the historical Egyptians into 
 Egypt was connected with this country, and partly 
 because the Egyptians obtained from it many of the 
 gums and spices which were used in embalming the 
 dead, and for making the incense which was burnt in 
 the temples. The position of Punt has been much 
 discussed, and many attempts have been made to fix an 
 exact site for it, but, speaking generally, " Punt " 
 seems to have been a name given by the Egyptians 
 to a portion of the coast on each side of the southern 
 part of the Ked Sea, which they also called Ta-neter, 
 
 1 ' ^ e " -Divine Land." These names may also, 
 and most probably did, include a portion of Somaliland, 
 which, in fine weather, the Egyptian sailors would 
 have had no difficulty in reaching. In any case we 
 know that the Egyptians went to Punt for gums and 
 spices, and it is pretty certain that they went to that 
 
6 
 
 THE EXPEDITION TO PUNT [B.C. 1533 
 
 part of it which in later days supplied the port of 
 Adane in Arabia Felix, 'Apafila evSalficov, with similar 
 articles of commerce. 
 
 The expedition fitted out by Hatshepset consisted 
 of five ships, and having made their way down 
 the Ked Sea, their captains seem to have sailed up 
 some river on the African coast, and to have gone 
 a considerable distance inland. 1 This is indicated 
 by the fact that the huts of the natives are repre- 
 sented quite near the water, and it is more than 
 probable that the place of barter or market would be 
 situated inland. According to some writers 2 the 
 market was situated some distance up the Elephant 
 Kiver, which runs between Has al-Fil and Cape 
 Guardafui, where ebony trees grow in abundance, and 
 where all the products which the Egyptians brought 
 back from Punt are to be found. The men of Punt wore 
 pointed beards, and were physically a fine, tall, well-made 
 people ; they lived side by side with black or dark- 
 skinned men, who seem to have resembled some of 
 the modern nations of Abyssinia. The captain of the 
 expedition, having left his boat, marched with eight 
 men armed with spears and bows, and advanced to the 
 place where the gifts which were to be offered by him 
 
 1 The most recent publication of the reliefs which illustrate the 
 expedition to Punt are published by M. Naville ; for these and his 
 descriptions of them see his Temple of Deir el-Bahari, 3 parts, folio, 
 London, 1896-1898. 
 
 2 Maspero, Be Quelques Navigations (Bill. Egyptologique, torn 
 viii. p. 75 ff.) ; Brugsch, Egypt, vol. i. p. 305. 
 
8 
 
 THE EXPEDITION TO PUNT 
 
 [B.C. 1533 
 
 to the prince of Punt on behalf of Hatshepset were 
 laid npon a table ; these gifts consisted of an axe, a 
 dagger, some necklaces, and some bracelets. He is 
 met by the prince of Punt, who is called Parehu, 
 
 < ~^ > fO ^ ^ , and who is followed by his wife and 
 
 by their two sons and daughter, and by an ass laden 
 with a bale of goods, and by some menservants. The 
 prince carries a boomerang, and wears a dagger in his 
 belt, and his wife wears a single yellow garment ; the 
 lady's figure must have appeared strange to the 
 Egyptian officer, but it is said that certain tribes of 
 East Africa consider a figure of the kind beautiful, and 
 that the young women spare no pains in attaining to 
 such. The prince of Punt then asks the Egyptian 
 officer Nehsi how he managed to arrive in the country. 
 " Have ye come through the sky, or did ye sail on the 
 " the sea to the land of Ta-neter whereunto Ka hath 
 " brought you ? Behold, there is no road which is 
 " stopped before the king of Egypt, and we live by the 
 "breath which he giveth us." A suitable answer 
 having been returned, the envoy and the prince proceed 
 to business ; the prince of Punt produces a large 
 number of gold rings, and boomerangs, and a great pile 
 of anti y ° ^\ , gum for incense, and whilst these 
 
 AAAAAA /T\V I I I 
 
 things are being carried to his ships, the envoy Nehsi 
 entertains the prince and the nobles of Punt. In ad- 
 dition to these things, we are told that the Egyptian ships 
 were loaded with dnti trees, ebony, AA ^\ AA ? hebni, 
 
10 HATSHEPSET S GIFTS TO AMEN-RA [B.C. 1533 
 
 and ivory, ^ J] | , and green gold, 1 , of Amu, 
 
 and precious woods, and incense, and eye-paint, and 
 dog -headed apes, ^ j, and monkeys, 
 
 ^ ^ ' ' an( * P antner (?) skins. Products of this 
 kind come from the Sudan, and must always have done 
 so, and it is therefore clear that the place where the 
 Egyptians went was a well-known market, wherefrom 
 such things were usually exported. In due course the 
 ships arrived at Thebes, where their crews were 
 received with great joy. Of the valuable loads which 
 they brought home, Hatshepset dedicated large offer- 
 ings to Amen-Ka, and some of the incense trees were 
 planted by her orders in the garden attached to the 
 temple of that god ; Thoth, the scribe of the gods, is 
 depicted in the act of writing a list of the myriads of 
 things which were dedicated by the queen to the great 
 god of Thebes. We have no means of knowing in what 
 year the expedition was sent to Punt, but there is reason 
 to believe that the event took place before the joint 
 reign of Hatshepset and her nephew Thothmes III., 
 and not many years after the death of her husband. 
 
 In the ninth year of her reign she gathered together 
 her nobles and proclaimed before them all the great 
 things which her father Amen-Ra had suggested to her 
 
 1 I.e., "pure gold"; compare the Ethiopic rh^'A^^A : 
 (DC* : "greenness of gold" in Psalm lxvii. 14 (English 
 version, Psalm Ixviii. 13). 
 
B.C. 1533] SHE ASSUMES MALE ATTRIBUTES II 
 
 to do, and showed them how she had performed them 
 all to his entire satisfaction. The journey to and from 
 Punt probably occupied two years, or more, and thus it 
 is clear that the expedition must have been despatched 
 in the early years of her reign. In the relief 1 which 
 represents the queen declaring what she has done, she 
 appears in the form of a man, and she wears male attire ; 
 she is sometimes depicted as a boy, but she never 
 appears in the form of a woman except when she 
 personifies a goddess. When seated in a shrine she 
 always wears the headdress of a god, and to her chin a 
 beard is attached. In the inscriptions masculine pro- 
 nouns and verbal forms are used in speaking of her, 
 and masculine attributes are ascribed to her. The 
 benefits which accrued to Egypt through the expedition 
 to Punt must have been of a purely commercial 
 character, and there is little doubt that the material 
 profit must have been very considerable ; the giraffes, 
 leopards, cheetas, and apes would serve for no useful 
 purpose in Egypt, but the gold and precious stones, to 
 say nothing of the anti gum, would form very valuable 
 assets. We have already said that no great military 
 expedition was undertaken during her reign, and we 
 must therefore regard the statement that " all countries, 
 " and all desert lands, and the Ha-nebu [come] to the 
 " feet of this beautiful goddess, and all rational beings 
 " praise her who is their life," rather as an evidence 
 that none of the hereditary foes of Egypt disputed her 
 
 Naville, op. ext., Pt. 3, plate 85. 
 
12 
 
 PROSPERITY OF EGYPT 
 
 [B.C. 1533 
 
 authority than that she really conquered them. Still, 
 it is a remarkable fact that during the whole of her 
 comparatively long reign the Egyptians enjoyed a 
 period of peace in which trade prospered and the arts 
 progressed. 
 
 Though renowned through her expedition to Punt, 
 Hatshepset is more famous as the builder of the 
 Temple of Der al-Bahari, the most beautiful and 
 remarkable of all the funerary temples in Egypt. It 
 was built by the great queen, partly according to plans 
 which had been prepared during the reign of her father 
 Thothmes L, and partly according to ideas of her own, 
 to which a practical form was given by her distinguished 
 architect Sen-Mut. Her object was to provide a place 
 of burial for her father and herself, and those whoni she 
 loved, and a temple wherein on the appointed days 
 offerings might be made to the double of herself and of 
 her father. The site chosen was holy ground, for one 
 of the kings of the Xlth Dynasty had already built a 
 temple there ; this temple is now in ruins. The whole 
 temple was enclosed by a wall, and was approached by 
 means of an avenue of sphinxes which led to the pylon 
 at the entrance, where stood two obelisks. The build- 
 ing consisted of three platforms or terraces, lower, 
 middle, and upper, which rose one above the other, ac- 
 cording to the rise of the hill on the side of which the 
 whole temple was built. The middle and upper plat- 
 forms were approached by flights of steps, and the end 
 of each platform rested upon a portico or colonnade ; 
 
B.C. 1533] THE TEMPLE OF DER AL-BAHARI 
 
 13 
 
 the wall which supports the upper platform was 
 ornamented partly with a series of reliefs which 
 illustrated the expedition to Punt, and partly with 
 a series of texts and scenes which relate to the birth of 
 Hatshepset, and her enthronement by Thothmes I. 
 On the floor of the upper platform are built a series of 
 chambers, and the central one extends backwards into 
 the mountain, and ends in a corridor and chamber, 
 which was probably the shrine, and which is hewn out 
 of the mountain itself. The total length of the building 
 itself was about 800 feet. 
 
 The temple which Hatshepset built with such 
 pleasure, and on which she lavished such care, 
 was doomed to suffer ill-treatment at the hands of 
 many. Everywhere may be seen in it the erasures 
 of her name by her nephew Thothmes III., who 
 hated her with a deadly hatred ; in many places may 
 be seen the erasures of the name of the god Amen 
 which were made by order of the heretic king Amen- 
 hetep IV. ; and Barneses II., who attempted to repair 
 this damage, took the opportunity of adding his own 
 cartouches to the inscriptions in the temple of the 
 great queen. It is doubtful if the temple was ever 
 finished, but enough of it remains to show that it was 
 one of the most graceful and artistic of all the build- 
 ings of Egypt. In connection with the temple of 
 Hatshepset mention must be made of her architect 
 Sen-Mut, |aawa^, who was both a master of his 
 art and her loyal servant. It is impossible to say with 
 
14 SENMUT THE GREAT ARCHITECT [B.C. 1533 
 
 whom the idea of hewing a temple wholly or in part 
 out of the solid rock originated, but there is no doubt 
 that it was the practical ability which he possessed 
 that enabled her to carry out her artistic conceptions 
 and designs, and it says a great deal for the insight 
 into character and for the good sense of the ablest 
 woman who ever sat upon the throne of Egypt, that she 
 gave Sen-Mut the opportunity of building an edifice 
 which has shed glory on the name both of the subject 
 and of his great sovereign. 
 
 The late Dr. Lepsius published 1 the inscrip- 
 tions which are found on a statue of Sen-Mut in 
 the Berlin Museum, and from these we see that he 
 held numbers of high offices in connection with 
 the temple and estates of the god Amen, and in the 
 queen's household. On one shoulder of the statue 
 are the words " not were found in writing ancestors," 
 
 <^K k W 1 ? 7* $ i- words wWch have 
 
 been supposed to indicate that Sen-Mut was a man of 
 low birth and origin ; but this is not necessarily their 
 meaning, and they only imply that no account of his 
 ancestors had been kept. As a matter of fact we know 
 from his sepulchral stele that his mother was called 
 
 Hat-nefer, <^p J, and his father Ea-mes, ® ^ [1. The 
 
 queen, however, rewarded him well, for we see from the 
 main inscription that he was an erpd ha prince, and a 
 
 1 Lepsius, Denkmdler, iii. pi. 25. 
 
B.C. 1533] AND THE GREAT GRANITE OBELISKS 15 
 
 smer greatly " beloved, and the steward of the temple oi 
 "Amen." Lower down he says, "I was a noble who 
 "loved his lord (i.e., Hatshepset in her capacity as 
 " king), and I entered into the favour of the lady of the 
 " two lands. He magnified me before the two lands, 
 " and he made me the upper door (i.e., entrance) of his 
 "house, and the inspector of his lands like his ... . 
 " I was made chief of the chiefs, and the overseer of the 
 
 " overseers of his works, * ^ *-~*T[ \ ^ ^) ' ^ 
 " was in this land under his orders .... and I was 
 "alive in the reign of the lady of the two lands, the 
 "king of the South and North, Maat-ka-Ba, living for 
 " ever ! " Sen-Mut seems to have been the " father of 
 " the chief nurse of the royal daughter, the mistress of 
 " the two lands, the divine wife Ka-neferu." 
 
 Among other works which Sen-Mut performed for the 
 great queen must be mentioned the bringing of the 
 " two great obelisks " 1 from the granite quarries of 
 Aswan to Thebes, for it was certainly one of the most 
 wonderful of all his achievements. They were set up 
 at Karnak, behind the two obelisks of Thothmes L, 
 and were dedicated by Hatshepset to the memory of 
 her father Thothmes I. ; one has fallen down, and only 
 a portion of it still remains, but the other still stands, 
 and is a true witness of the marvellous skill which was 
 possessed by the engineers of the XVIIIth Dynasty 
 
 1 ° ® ^ \\ jj^ texenui urui ; see Lepsius, DenJcmciler, iii. 
 pi. 25 q. 
 
l6 HATSHEPSET'S OBELISKS [B.C. 1533 
 
 in the working of an intractable stone like granite. 
 In connection with, this statement it must be re- 
 membered that they had no elaborate mechanical 
 appliances, and that all the means available to help 
 them in moving such huge masses of stone consisted of 
 ropes, wedges, levers, rollers, a knowledge of the use of 
 the inclined plane, and human labour; they had neither 
 cranes nor hydraulic jacks, and even if they were ac- 
 quainted with the pulley it would help them little in the 
 raising of an obelisk of granite. Originally there was 
 a single vertical column of hieroglyphics running down 
 each of the four sides of each obelisk, but afterwards 
 scenes were added, in which Hatshepset and her father 
 and brother are depicted in the act of making offerings 
 to Ainen-Ra; the name of this god was erased, and often 
 his figure also, by ximen-hetep IV., the heretic king, 
 but it was re-cut wherever possible by the early kings of 
 the XlXth Dynasty. On each of the four sides of the 
 base of the standing obelisk are eight lines of inscrip- 
 tion, which record the queen's names and titles and 
 declare her object in setting up the obelisks. She 
 says, " She (i.e., herself) hath made monuments to her 
 " father Amen, the lord of the thrones of the two lands, 
 " the dweller in the Apts, and she hath made for him 
 " two great obelisks of granite of the south, and the 
 " summit of each is covered with copper and gold, the 
 "very best which can be obtained from the countries of 
 " the world. They shall be seen from untold distances, 
 " and they shall flood the two lands with their rays of 
 
B.C. 1533] AND THEIR INSCRIPTIONS 
 
 17 
 
 " light, and the Disk riseth up between them in the 
 "morning, even as he riseth from the horizon of 
 "heaven. I have done these things because of the 
 "loving heart which I possess towards my father 
 "Ameu. I have entered where he hath led, and I 
 " have done my utmost to act according to his august 
 " will, and from the very beginning I never hesitated to 
 " do so. I make these things known unto those who 
 "will come into being during the double hen period, 1 
 " whose minds will consider this monument which I 
 " have made to my father, and whose words will form 
 " questions concerning it when they have looked upon 
 " it. I, as I sat in the palace, remembered who it was 
 "that made me, and my heart w r as moved to make for 
 " him two obelisks with copper and gold [on their 
 " summits], which should tower up among the pillars 
 " in this venerable hall which stands between the two 
 " great pylons of the king, the mighty bull, the king of 
 "the South and North, Aa-kheper-ka-Ka (Thothmes 
 " I), and should pierce the sky. I have [dedicated] 
 "these tw r o great obelisks, which have been worked 
 " with copper and gold, to [my] father Amen with the 
 " desire that my name should abide permanently in this 
 "temple, and endure there for ever and for ever. 
 
 i 
 
 Each obelisk is a monolith (literally, ' stone one,' 
 
 /WW\A ^ i-i? 
 
 1 _), and has in it neither join nor division. 
 
 l 0 /ww\a — 1 ^> ^ <y henti, literally, two periods of 60 years, 
 120 years. 
 
 vol. rv. c 
 
i8 
 
 HATSHEPSET S OBELISKS 
 
 LB.C. 1533 
 
 " My Majesty began to work on them on the first day 
 " of the second month of the season Pert, of the fifteenth 
 "year of my reign, and continued so to do until the 
 " last day of the fourth month of the season of Shemut, 
 "in the sixteenth year of my reign, that is to say, the 
 " work lasted seven months 1 from the time when it 
 "was begun in the mountain" [at Aswan]. The 
 height of the obelisk of Hatshepset now standing is 
 about ninety-eight feet, and it has been estimated to 
 weigh over 3650 tons ; these figures will give an idea 
 of the vast amount of skill and practice required to cut 
 
 1 The following is the Egyptian calendar : — 
 
 I 
 
 I I 
 I I I 
 I I I I 
 
 i ^ o 
 
 1 1 ^ o 
 
 MONTH. 
 
 Thoth. b 
 Paopi. 
 Hath or. 
 Khoiak. 
 To hi. 
 Mekhir. 
 
 I I i ^r© 
 
 1 1 1 1 <=> 0 
 
 /WWV\ (I 
 
 ■ www ^ 
 ~=-\ I \\ IQ 
 
 I 1 /WWV\ o 
 
 ririQ 
 
 AA/WNA 
 
 MONTH. 
 
 Phatnenoth. 
 
 Pharmuthi. 
 
 Pakhon. 
 
 Paoni. 
 
 Epgp. 
 
 Mes6re. e 
 
 a Season of sowing. 
 
 b The month of Thoth began on August 29. 
 
 c Season of growing. 
 
 d Season of harvest and inundation. 
 
 e The year consisted of 12 months, each containing 30 days, and 
 of 5 epagomenal days. 
 
B.C. 1533] 
 
 THE SPEOS ARTEMIDOS 
 
 19 
 
 the blocks out of their beds in the quarry, and to float 
 them down the river, and to set them up without break 
 or injury ; and when we remember that the quarrying, 
 and transport, and erection, and inscribing were 
 all done in seven months the matter savours of the 
 marvellous. 
 
 To carry on her great building operations Hatshepset 
 found it necessary to work the old quarries in Egypt, 
 and the inscriptions in the Wadi Maghara and else- 
 where in the Sinaitic Peninsula prove that the old 
 mines there also were re-opened, and, judging from the 
 queen's well attested practical ability, they w T ere profit- 
 ably worked under competent superintendence. The 
 ruins of buildings in many parts of Egypt contain the 
 name of Hatshepset, and there is no doubt that the 
 restorations w r hich she carried out were both many in 
 number and considerable in extent, but the fragmentary 
 inscriptions which are found upon them teach us 
 little. Of special interest, however, is the remarkable 
 little temple which she built in honour of the goddess 
 Pakht near the modern Arab village of Beni Hasan in 
 Upper Egypt ; the Greeks called it " Speos Artemidos," 
 and the name by which it is known to the Arabs is 
 "Stabl 'Antar," i.e., the "Stable of £ Antar," a famous 
 Arab hero who was endowed with all the strength, 
 beauty, and ability which it is possible for mortal man 
 to possess. In this temple M. G-olenischeff copied in 
 1881 an inscription which throws considerable light 
 upon the building policy of Hatshepset, and shows 
 
20 HATSHEPSET REBUILDS THE TEMPLES [B.C. 1533 
 
 that she restored the shrines of many gods and 
 goddesses, and re-established their worship in them, 
 and it seems as if she presented them with images 
 m|tde of gold and copper, r^ri ° . She claims that 
 "my will made foreign lands to submit," 1 and that the 
 foreign peoples Rushau, <= j => ^ ^ , and 
 
 Inn, V^^^Jvp "did not hide themselves from 
 before her Majesty." She cleared out and rebuilt the 
 temple of the goddess Hathor of Cusae, |1 ^ , whose 
 
 shrine had become completely buried under the ruins 
 of the building, and whose hall had become a play- 
 ground for the children, 2 who danced about in it, and 
 she repaired the shrines of the Khemenniu gods 
 
 Z Z (j (j ^ ^ j, and of Khnemu, and Heqet, and Ee- 
 
 nenet, and Meskhenet, and Nehemauai, and Nehebkau. 
 Most interesting of all, however, is the passage in 
 which the queen says, " Hearken unto me then, 0 ye 
 " people, whosoever ye may be : I have done these 
 "things with a humble and a lowly heart. I have 
 " made to flourish again that which was in ruins, and I 
 " have raised up the buildings which were begun in olden 
 " time, for there were the Aamu, ^ ^ ^ j , in 
 "hordes in the middle of the country of the north and 
 
B.C. 1533] DESTROYED BY THE HYKSOS 
 
 21 
 
 "in Avaris, ^ rj^| j^rj^p anc * nor( les of foreigners, 
 
 <<nn y \ ^ \ a $ !• ° f their pe ° pies ° ver " 
 
 "threw the buildings, and they reigned having no 
 " knowledge whatsoever of the god Ka." 1 In the 
 Aamu who are mentioned here we have a plain refer- 
 ence to the Semitic hordes who are commonly called 
 Hyksos, and the allusions to the destruction of build- 
 ings which they wrought, and to their city Avaris, 
 make it quite certain that Hatshepset is speaking of 
 the older period of the occupation of the country when 
 they destroyed the temples of the gods, and knew 
 nothing about the god Ka and his worship. The inscrip- 
 tion is of great value, as showing that the queen was 
 wishful to care for the shrines of the old goddesses as 
 well as for the comparatively new god Amen-Ea, the 
 king of the gods. 
 
 It has already been mentioned that one of Hatshepset's 
 titles was " Khnemet Amen," i.e., " she who is closely 
 related to Amen," and we know that it was a title of 
 very rare occurrence, and in the case of Hatshepset it 
 was believed to have a very special signification, for she 
 thought that she was the offspring of the god Amen, and 
 bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. On the northern 
 wall of the middle colonnade 2 of her temple at Der al- 
 
 Bahari, which she called jj " Tcheser-Tcheser," 
 
 1 See the paper and text by Golenischeff in Recucil. torn. iii. 
 pp. 1 — 3 ; torn. vi. p. 20. 
 
 2 Naville, op. cit., pt. 11, pi. 46 ff. 
 
22 HATSHEPSET DAUGHTER OF AMEN-RA [B.C. 1533 
 
 i.e., the " Holy of Holies " [of Amen] are a number of 
 scenes which are very important as showing the views 
 which the queen held as to her origin. The god Amen 
 one day summoned the twelve great gods of Egypt to 
 him, i.e., Menthu, Temu, Shu, Tefnut, Seb, Nut, Osiris, 
 Isis, Nephthys, Set, Horus, and Hathor, and told them 
 that a great princess was to be born, and asked them to 
 take her under their protection and to make her rich 
 and prosperous, for, said he, " I am going to unite in 
 " peace for her the two lands, and I am going to give 
 "her all lands." The gods, of course, agreed to do 
 what Amen asked them. This having been arranged, 
 Ihoth, the spirit of the creator, led the god Amen into 
 the place where was queen Aahmes, who became the 
 mother of Hatshepset, and he caused Amen to make her 
 to inhale the breath of life. Next Amen took upon 
 himself the form of Thothmes I., the husband of queen 
 Aahmes, and entered into a chamber and took his seat 
 opposite to her ; with his right hand he presented to 
 her the symbol of " life," ■¥-, and with his left he held to 
 her nostrils another symbol of "life," wherefrom she 
 inhaled the breath and attribute of "life." The god and 
 the queen sat upon a seat which was supported by the 
 goddesses Neith and Selq ; these goddesses sat upon a 
 couch, the tops of the four legs of which were made in 
 the form of the heads of lions. The queen received the 
 caresses of the god with joy, and she inhaled from him 
 the breath of life, and as Amen was about to leave her 
 he announced to her that she would give birth to a 
 
B.C. 1533] KHNEMU CREATES HER BODY 
 
 23 
 
 daughter who would be his own child, and who would 
 reign over the two lands of Egypt, and would become 
 the sovereign of the whole world. 
 
 When the god left the queen he sent for Khnemu, 
 the god who is said to have assisted in performing 
 the behests of Thoth which resulted in the creation 
 of the world, and to have fashioned the first man 
 upon a potter's wheel, and asked him to fashion for 
 him the body of his daughter,' who was about to 
 be born into this world of queen Aahmes. In 
 answer to Ainen's request Khnemu replied, "I will 
 "fashion the body of thy daughter for thee, and her 
 " appearance shall be more glorious than that of the 
 "gods, since she is destined to the exalted rank of 
 " King of the South and North." Thereupon Khnemu 
 fashioned two bodies exactly alike, and since Hatshepset 
 decreed that she was to be represented in male form, 
 the bodies were made to be those of two little boys ; one 
 was that of the future queen (king), and the other that 
 of her ha or "double," which whether in life or in death 
 was never to leave the body of the queen. When 
 Khnemu had finished fashioning the bodies his work 
 was done ; but they were without life, and remained 
 inanimate until the goddess Heqet, the wife of Khnemu, 
 who was represented in the form of a frogheaded woman, 
 stepped forward, and having knelt down, held up to their 
 nostrils the symbol of life, wherefrom they inhaled the 
 breath of life, and so became living souls. 
 
 When Khnemu had created the bodies of the queen and 
 
24 HEQET GIVES HER A SOUL [B.C. 1533 
 
 her ha, Thotli went to her mother Aahmes and recited 
 to her the titles and dignities which had been ordered to 
 be conferred upon the daughter to whom she was about 
 to give birth. At length, when her appointed time 
 arrived, Khnemu and his wife Heqet led her into the 
 chamber where she was to bring forth Hatshepset, and 
 among the titles which were given to her was one which 
 declared that she was to be the " sovereign of all women," 
 JJ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ( j ue course the queen gave birth 
 to her daughter Hatshepset in the presence of several 
 goddesses, and of the spirits of the North, and South, 
 and East, and West, and of the goddess Meskhenet, the 
 genius of the birth chamber, and of the deities Ta-urt and 
 Bes ; the queen received her daughter in her arms, and 
 a goddess standing behind her at the same time touched 
 her on her head with the symbol of life. Shortly after 
 this Amen went to see his daughter Hatshepset, and 
 she was shown to him by the goddess Hathor, and as 
 soon as he saw her he addressed her as " daughter of 
 " my body, Maat-ka-Ra, emauation glorious, thou ex- 
 " alted issue of my loins, thou shalt sit upon the throne 
 "of Horus and have dominion over the two lands like 
 " Ra." Amen then took his daughter into his arms, 
 and embraced her and kissed her lovingly, and declared 
 that she should be the sovereign of Egypt. Hatshepset, 
 having been acknowledged by her father, was then 
 handed over to the Hathor goddesses and the other 
 deities who presided over the rearing and safety of 
 children, and the fourteen kau, or " doubles," which 
 
» 
 
 B.C. 1533] SHE IS ACKNOWLEDGED BY AMEN 25 
 
 were attributed to her, were reared by the same means. 
 In due course she was presented to each of the great 
 gods of the Egyptians, and from each of them she 
 received some gift which assisted in the development 
 of her mind and body. 
 
 When a certain period in her childhood was reached 
 she w r as taken, probably to the temple, by the gods 
 Amen and Horus, and was then made to submit 
 to a ceremony of purification which these gods 
 performed upon her by pouring water over her 
 head; this ceremony seems to be the equivalent of 
 baptism among Christian nations. After the purifi- 
 cation Amen showed the queen, who had male form, to 
 the gods, and when they had looked upon her they said 
 to him, "We bestow life and peace upon this thy 
 " daughter Hatshepset ; behold, she is thy daughter, 
 " and she is sprung from what came forth from thee, 
 " and thou didst beget her, and she is equipped with all 
 "thy qualities. Thou hast given unto her thy soul, 
 " and the homage which is paid to thee, and thy words 
 " of power, and thy great crown. Whilst she was yet 
 " in the womb of her mother all lands and countries 
 " were hers, yea, whatsoever is covered by the sky and 
 " surrounded by the sea. All these things thou makest 
 "to be her possessions, and thou knowest the hen 1 
 " periods which thou wilt give her ; and we will grant 
 " unto her a portion of life like unto that of Horus, and 
 
 Literally, henti periods ; see above, p. 17. 
 
26 HATSHEPSET'S JOURNEY THROUGH EGYPT [B.C. 1533 
 
 "years equal unto those of the god Set, with power." 
 When the ceremony of purification was ended Hat- 
 shepset set out with her human father, Thothmes I., to 
 visit the shrines of the gods of Egypt, and she is at this 
 time described as being " most beautiful, with the voice 
 " of a god, and the form of a god," and her soul was that 
 of a god, and she acted in every way like a god; she was 
 a " beautiful damsel," and the goddess Uatch made her 
 form and beauty to increase. She went to the shrines 
 of Hathor, Uatchet, Amen, Temu, Menthu, Khnemu, 
 and all the other gods of the South and North, and they 
 accepted her, and took her under their protection ; and 
 they foretold what she would do when she came to 
 reign. It is pretty clear from the wording of the in- 
 scription which relates these details that the young- 
 princess made a pilgrimage which extended as far as 
 Per-XJatchet in the north and as Elephantine in the 
 south ; Heliopolis is mentioned among the cities which 
 she visited, but not Abydos, the shrine of Osiris. On 
 her way it is probable that certain repairs and restora- 
 tions were carried out by her father -and herself, for 
 the texts speak of her as " restoring what was in 
 " ruins, and setting up monuments in thy temples, and 
 " providing the altars of the god who begot thee with 
 " offerings in abundance." The gods in their speech 
 also refer to her great deeds, and say, " Thou makest thy 
 " way through mountainous lands innumerable, and 
 " makest thyself master of them j thou seizest the lands 
 " of the Theheimu 1 ; thou smitest with thy 
 
B.C. 1533] SHE IS MADE CO-REGENT 
 
 2 7 
 
 " weapons the devilish Anti j| jj an d cuttest ofif 
 
 "the heads of their soldiers; thou art master of the 
 " nobles of Betennu, Q Y\ r^^i , with slaughter- 
 
 AAAAAA — Zl 
 
 " ings after the manner of thy father ; thou hast tribute 
 "from the people and takest prisoners by hundreds of 
 " thousands ; thou makest them to be workmen on the 
 "lands and estates of the temples, and thou bringest 
 " sacrifices (or offerings) into the temple of the Apts 
 " (i.e., Karnak) to the steps of the shrine of the king 
 " Amen-Ka, the lord of the thrones of the two lands." 1 
 After Hatshepset had visited the shrines she was 
 again presented to the god Amen, who superintended 
 the performance of another ceremony in which she was 
 brought into a sacred chamber and was arrayed in 
 the garb of the god Osiris, and was made to hold in her 
 hands the whip (or, flail) and crook (or sceptre), with 
 which this god is always represented, and the united 
 crowns of the South and North were placed upon her 
 head. The princess Hatshepset was then ready to be 
 crowned ruler of all Egypt, and although her elevation 
 to the throne seems to have been against the wishes of 
 the greater number of the people of Egypt, her father, 
 Thothmes I., determined to make her co-regent. To 
 carry this into effect he caused a suitable tent to be 
 prepared, and the princess, having donned the garb of a 
 man, was led forth by her father, who said to the assem- 
 bled nobles, " I hereby set my daughter Hatshepset 
 
 1 For the text see Naville, op. cit, p. 3, plate 57. 
 
28 CORONATION OF HATSHEPSET ~ [B.C. 1533 
 
 " in my place and seat her upon my throne, and from 
 " this time forward she shall sit on the holy throne with 
 " steps. She shall give her commands unto all the 
 " dwellers in the palace, and she shall be your leader, 
 "and ye shall hearken unto her words, and obey her 
 " commands. Whosoever shall ascribe praise unto her 
 "shall live, but he who speaketh evil against her 
 " Majesty shall die." The nobles heard the words of 
 the king and forthwith they cast themselves down 
 before their new sovereign and did homage, and then 
 they rose up and danced for joy ; when the king saw 
 that they accepted his daughter, though a maiden, as 
 their ruler he rejoiced, and ordered the chiefs of the 
 learned men to come into his presence and to draw up 
 the "great names" of the new queen, i.e., her Horus 
 name, and the other names which have already been 
 described at the beginning of this section. The names 
 having been decided upon, the new queen was led into 
 the "great house," and the god Khas, poured 
 water over her, and when this was done she went 
 into another part of the building, where the double 
 crown was placed upon her head by two priests, who 
 had dressed themselves to represent the gods Horus 
 and Set ; the day on which this ceremony was performed 
 was made the first day of a new chronological era, and 
 the reign of the queen was reckoned from it. The above 
 is a brief account of the ceremonies which were per- 
 formed when Thothmes I. decided that the " daughter of 
 Amen " should become the queen of Egypt. 
 
B.C. 1533] THE REIGN OF THOTHMES III. 
 
 29 
 
 6. 
 
 1 
 
 Ka-kekht-kha- 
 em-Uast, 
 the Horus name of 
 Thothmes III. 
 
 son of the Sun, Tehuti-mes [III.]. 
 
 Tehuti-mes III., or Thothmes III., 
 the Misphragmuthosis of Manetho, was 
 the son of Thothmes II. by the queen 
 Aset, and the nephew of the great queen 
 Hatshepset, and the grandson of Thoth- 
 mes I. ; according to the versions of the 
 King List of Manetho which have come 
 down to us, he reigned twenty- six years, 
 but the dated monuments prove that he 
 claimed to have reigned more than double 
 that time, and that he must have in- 
 cluded in his reckoning the years which 
 he ruled as co-regent with his aunt. He ascended the 
 throne on the third or fourth day of the first month ot 
 the season Shemut, i.e., the month Pakhon, or Pakhons, 
 when he was still a child, and the royal titles assigned 
 to him were, " Mighty Bull, rising like the sun in 
 Thebes," "Mighty Bull, crowned with truth," "the 
 Lord, maker of created things," " Mighty Bull, exalted 
 by truth," "the King, established like the sun in 
 heaven," "the Horus of gold," "holy one of crowns," 
 " Prince, doubly brave," and, of course, " lord of the 
 shrines of Nekhebet and Per-Uatchet." Thothmes 
 died on the last day of the third month of the season 
 
30 
 
 DEATH OF HATSHEPSET 
 
 [B.C. 1533 
 
 Pert, i.e., the month Phainenoth, in the fifty-fourth 
 year of his reign, and he must therefore have reigned 
 about fifty-three years, twenty-one years as co-regent 
 with Hatshepset, and about thirty-two years alone. In 
 the last year or two of his life he seems to have associated 
 Amen-hetep II. with him in the rule of the kingdom. 
 
 As soon as Hatshepset died, Thothmes III. found 
 himself compelled to undertake a series of warlike 
 expeditions on a scale which the Egyptians had never 
 before contemplated, for in every portion of the Egyptian 
 empire the nations that had paid tribute to his aunt 
 suddenly refused to continue to do this, and all the 
 desert tribes in Western Asia and in Nubia threw off 
 the Egyptian yoke, and proclaimed themselves in- 
 dependent. The punishments which Thothmes I. had 
 inflicted upon them were entirely forgotten, and the 
 new generations which had grown up during the reigns 
 of Thothmes II. and Hatshepset seem never to have 
 had any deep-seated fear of those sovereigns of Egypt, 
 and leagues against Egypt were made by the allied 
 tribes, each with the other, in a quick and alarming- 
 manner. The young king of Egypt, for he must have 
 been under thirty years of age, soon found that the 
 policy of Hatshepset had brought in its train serious 
 trouble, and that almost every tribe and nation which 
 had formerly acknowledged the supremacy of Egypt was 
 in a state of hostility towards him. Hatshepset boasted 
 that the people of Northern Syria paid tribute to 
 her, but it is quite clear that even in her time Egypt 
 
B.C. 1533] HATSHEPSET HATED BY THOTHMES III. 31 
 
 had well-nigh lost in that country the influence which 
 her father had obtained there ; in fact, the Syrian, and 
 the man of the desert, and the Negro were all waiting 
 for her death, and all seem to have decided that when 
 this event took place they would cease to carry their 
 gifts to Egypt, where they were employed chiefly in 
 building great temples in honour of gods who were 
 strange to them. Of the private life and character of 
 Thothmes III. we know nothing, but the inscriptions 
 which he left behind on his buildings at Karnak prove 
 that he was both a great soldier and a great builder. 
 It may be urged that he displayed the possession of a 
 small mind in hammering out the inscriptions and 
 figures of queen Hatshepset from the walls of her 
 temple at Der al-Bahari, but considering the strength 
 of his hatred for his aunt, and his absolute power, the 
 wonder is not that he destroyed so much, but that he 
 did not destroy more. We can only be thankful that 
 he did not overthrow the whole building. 
 
 The chief authorities for the military expeditions 
 undertaken by Thothmes III. are the official Annals 
 which are inscribed on a part of the Temple of 
 Karnak, 1 and an inscription of Amen-em-heb, one of 
 the generals of Thothmes III., who died in the reign 
 of Amen-hetep II. and was buried at Kurna, on the 
 
 1 For the texts see Lepsius, Denhndler, iii. plates 31 and 32 ; 
 Mariette, Karnak, pi. 5 ff. ; Maspero, Recueil, torn. ii. p. 48 ff . ; 
 Birch, The Annals of Thothmes III., London, 1853 (Archaeologia, 
 vol. xxxv. p. 116-166). 
 
32 
 
 THE REIGN OF THOTHMES III. [B.C. 1533 
 
 western bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes ; from 
 these the following facts have been compiled : — 
 The Annals open with a statement to the effect 
 that Thothmes III. gave the order that the narrative 
 of the victories, and a list of the spoil which he had 
 gained by them, should be inscribed upon the temple 
 built by him in honour of the god Amen-Ka, who 
 had made him to be victorious. On the 25th day 
 of the fourth month of the season Pert (i.e., Phar- 
 muthi), in the 22nd year of his reign, Thothmes III. 
 was in the city of Tchalu, © , in his first 
 
 campaign to enlarge the frontiers of Egypt. The people 
 of the country of the Kethennu, ^ , had been in 
 
 a disturbed state for some years past, and the only 
 loyal cities that were left to Egypt were Sharuhen, 
 
 andlrtcha, \\ (j <=> J r^^i , and 
 
 the villages as far as the swamps. On the third day of 
 the first month of the season Shemut (i.e., Pakhon), in 
 the 23rd year of his reign, which was the anniversary 
 of his accession day, Thothmes III. was at Gaza, 
 S J ^ ^> r^v^i Katchatu, which he left two days 
 later in order to set out on the expedition which Amen- 
 Ea had ordered him to undertake. The next day, the 
 6th, he arrived at Ihem, (j (j \£j , where he 
 
 held a council of war, and learned that the peoples of 
 Neherina, and the Shasu, and the Kharu, and the 
 Qetshu had made a league together, and had assembled 
 
B.C. 1553] HIS EXPEDITION INTO SYRIA 
 
 33 
 
 all their horses and chariots in order to do battle with 
 the king of Egypt ; he discussed with his officers 
 which route to follow in order to reach Megiddo 
 quickly, for the rebellion had spread with great 
 rapidity, and the whole country was in revolt. 
 
 Of the three roads which led to Megiddo, two were 
 rejected by the generals as unsuitable, but the king- 
 decided to march there by one of them, and his officers 
 were obliged to say that they would follow him whither- 
 soever he went, and they prayed that his god Amen 
 would guard him. Thereupon Thothmes III., having 
 put himself at the head of his army, set out, and his 
 troops advanced in single formation, and marched 
 through the rocky valleys to the north of Carmel. 
 After one day's rest he marched on again, and he 
 succeeded in collecting all his forces at a place a 
 little to the south of the city of Megiddo soon 
 after noon ; later in the day the king held a council 
 of war, when he decided to give battle to the 
 allied rebels in Megiddo on the following day, and 
 the generals then returned to their companies and 
 informed them of the positions which they were to 
 occupy on the following day. In the evening rations 
 were served out, and when sentries had been posted, 
 the Egyptian host settled down for the night, with 
 the exception of the king, who refused to lie down until 
 he Had trustworthy news that all was quiet. At day- 
 break on the 21st the whole army marched out in 
 single formation, its right wing resting on the river 
 
 VOL. IV. D 
 
34 
 
 ATTACK ON MEGIDDO 
 
 [B.C. 1533 
 
 and its left stretching out along the plain and reaching 
 to Megiddo on its north-western side ; the king- 
 standing upright in his bright metal chariot occupied 
 the centre, and to his troops he appeared like the god 
 Horus with his spear, or the god Menthu of Thebes. 
 The allied hosts of the enemy, who did not expect to 
 be attacked so early in the day, were struck with 
 horror and dismay, and having left their chariots and 
 horses they fled to the city for refuge, but the inhabi- 
 tants of the city, seeing what had happened, and 
 having no wish that the Egyptian soldiers should gain 
 possession of the city as well as capture their enemies, 
 promptly shut the gates and refused to open them. 
 Some of the inhabitants of the city let down cords and 
 drew up the leaders of the revolt by means of them 
 over the walls ; in this way the prince of Kadesh and 
 the prince of Megiddo escaped from the Egyptians, 
 but the fear of the king of Egypt had paralyzed them, 
 and their limbs shook with terror at the sight of the 
 slaughter which he had made. 
 
 Meanwhile the Egyptians returned to the stricken 
 field, and gathered together the gold and silver plated 
 chariots of their enemies, and the daggers and other 
 weapons, and having cut off a hand from each corpse, 
 and collected their prisoners, they brought all their spoil 
 before the king, whom they greeted with shouts of joy. 
 The king, however, was not as well pleased as they 
 were, for had they pressed home their first attack and 
 followed up their foes to the walls of Megiddo, instead 
 
B.C. 1533] 
 
 SURRENDER OF MEGIDDO 
 
 35 
 
 of turning aside to take spoil, the city would have 
 been in his hands, and to have taken the city that day 
 would have been equivalent to taking a thousand cities, 
 because all the leaders of the revolt were shut up 
 inside it. The only thing left for the king to do was 
 to take the city, and with this object in view he made 
 his arrangements. He stationed his soldiers round the 
 city, and having provided shelters for them made of the 
 wood of the trees which he cut down, he caused a ditch 
 to be dug all round the city ; he encircled the ditch 
 with a wooden fence, behind which he placed his 
 men, and to the east he built a sort of blockhouse 
 which he called " Men-kheper-Ra-uah-Sati," 1 and 
 occupied it himself. The inhabitants of Megiddo soon 
 found that they could not get out to obtain supplies, 
 and that supplies could not be brought in to them, and 
 when they further discovered that the Egyptian soldiers 
 kept constant vigil they surrendered to Thothmes III., 
 and marching out they brought gifts and laid them at 
 his feet. The annalist says that a diary of the war 
 was kept, and that all the mighty deeds which were 
 performed by the king were written therein, and that 
 a copy of it was made upon a leather roll which was 
 laid up in the temple of Amen. 
 
 The spoil obtained from Megiddo was very great ; and 
 among other things enumerated in the list are 2041 mares, 
 340 prisoners, 191 young horses, 200 suits of armour, 
 
 1 I.e., " Men-kheper-Ra who quieteth the Asiatics." 
 
36 
 
 THE SPOIL OF MEGIDDO [B.C. 1533 
 
 502 bows, 924 chariots, one chariot with a canopy plated 
 with gold, the chariot of a chief which also was gold 
 plated, the tent of the prince of Kadesh with its seven 
 poles of choice wood inlaid with silver, 1949 oxen, 2000 
 goats, 296 bnlls, 20,500 sheep. Among this booty were 
 83 hands, each of which had been cut off from a dead 
 foe, and thus it seems that the actual loss of life in the 
 battle was not very great. From the country of Syria 
 generally the king also obtained much spoil and 
 many prisoners, viz., 1796 men and women slaves, 103 
 starving captives of the enemy, 87 sons of chiefs and 
 others, a large Syrian cup, a large number of vases and 
 vessels of all shapes and sizes, 97 swords weighing 
 1784 pounds, gold and silver rings weighing 966 
 pounds, a silver statue with a head of gold, objects 
 made of ivory, ebony, etc., inlaid with gold, thrones 
 and footstools, ivory and cedar-wood tables inlaid with 
 gold and precious stones, the sceptre of the chief of the 
 enemy inlaid with gold, vessels of bronze, clothing, etc. 
 By the orders of the king a list was made of all the 
 corn lands which lay between Megiddo and the waste 
 lands, and, the amount of the corn which they produced 
 in one harvest having been calculated by the king's 
 officer, the people of the district were compelled to give 
 208,000 measures of corn, and this did not include 
 what the Egyptian troops had cut for their use mean- 
 while. With this great booty Thothmes III. returned 
 to Egypt, and the inhabitants of the country appre- 
 ciated highly the results of the expedition which 
 
B.C. 1533] SECOND EXPEDITION TO SYRIA 37 
 
 brought into their possession such vast quantities of 
 valuable property. 
 
 In the 24th year of his reign Thothnies III. 
 set out on his second expedition against the tribes 
 of Palestine and Syria, and he brought back with 
 him pieces of lapis-lazuli, vessels of gold, and silver, 
 and precious stones, which had been brought to him 
 by the governor of Assyria, and a king's daughter, and 
 ornaments of gold and silver, lapis-lazuli, 65 slaves, 
 9 chariots plated with gold, bulls, oxen, sheep and 
 goats, suits of bronze armour, 823 vessels of incense, 
 1718 vessels of wine, honey, ivory, and precious woods 
 from the chiefs of the Rethennu. In the 25th year of 
 his reign Thothmes III. marched into Northern Syria, 
 and occupied the whole of the country to the west of 
 the city of Aleppo and in the neighbourhood of 
 Karkemish; in addition to the various gifts which 
 were given to him by the tribes which may be described 
 as his vassals, he brought back a number of plants or 
 shrubs which were highly prized in Egypt, for he 
 wished to introduce the cultivation of them into the 
 country. These plants were so highly appreciated 
 that representations of them were sculptured upon 
 the walls of the temple of Amen-Ra, at Thebes. 
 Thothmes III. sent expeditions into Syria in the 26th 
 and 27th years of his reign, but no records of them 
 have been preserved. It is probable that they were 
 only undertaken to collect the annual tribute which 
 the Egyptian king had imposed upon the tribes of the 
 
38 
 
 SIXTH EXPEDITION TO SYRIA [B.C. 1533 
 
 country, for had there been any serious fighting we 
 should probably have been told about it by some 
 officer or general like Amen-em-heb. In the 28th 
 year of his reign Thothmes III. marched into Syria, 
 with the intention of reducing the whole country in the 
 neighbourhood of Aleppo ; this done lie marched to 
 Karkemish, and passing the "water of Neherna" he 
 entered and took possession of the country of Mitanni, 
 ^ ^ /wwv " r^^i Mdthena, one of the chief cities 
 of which was Tunip, □ ^\ r^^i Thenpu 3 or 
 
 /WWV\ II 
 
 ^ _H \\ Ms Tunipa ; the spoil taken from 
 
 the city comprised gold, silver, lapis-lazuli, vessels 
 of copper, and some hundreds of captives, and the 
 Egyptians seized a boat on one of the rivers near, 
 which was laden with copper. On the return journey 
 to Egypt Thothmes III. attacked the flourishing city 
 of Arvad, apparently about the end of the time of 
 harvest, for the corn was being threshed, and the 
 grapes were being trodden in the wine-presses; the 
 city was taken, and the trees cut down, and the land 
 laid waste, and when the Egyptian soldiers had laden 
 themselves with all they could carry they departed 
 to their own country, fully satisfied with their booty. 
 They took with them silver, copper, precious stones, 
 incense, wine, grain, horses, sheep and cattle, etc. 
 
 In the 30th year of his reign Thothmes III. set out once 
 more to the country of the Eethennu, and wheresoever 
 he went he cut down the trees and reaped the corn ; 
 
B.C. 1533] CAPTURE OF KADESH, SIMYRA, ETC. 39 
 
 lie took the cities of Kadesh, \j c= ^ 3 ^ rv^i } and 
 Simyra, J r^^i Tchamdru, and made another 
 
 attack upon the city of Arvad, (j ^ <= ^ > "jj ^ ^ r^-^i 
 Aruthtu, which was once more despoiled. It seems 
 that the chiefs of the country had not yet decided to 
 accept the rule of Egypt without a struggle, for in 
 order to ensure their good behaviour Thothmes III. 
 felt obliged to carry some of their sons and brothers off 
 to Egypt and to hold them there as hostages. Among 
 the spoil taken on this, the sixth expedition of the 
 king, were nearly 200 prisoners, 188 mares, and 40 
 chariots. In the 31st year of his reign Thothmes III. 
 
 took the city of Anruthu, j| s=> ^ r^i , which 
 seems to have been situated on a river or lake in 
 Northern Syria called Neserna, *~~ < /WWNA '^^ 1 = L , and 
 captured about 500 prisoners, together with a number 
 of horses and chariots ; on the same expedition the 
 chiefs of the Eethennu paid him a very large tribute, 
 which comprised the usual precious metals and stones, 
 copper, sheep and cattle, etc. On his return to Egypt 
 he found a company of people who had been sent from 
 Nubia, and the country lying to the south of it, to 
 present to him tribute, which consisted of gum, cattle, 
 ivory, ebony, and black slaves ; and the people of 
 Uauat, a district in Nubia, sent a number of cattle. 
 
 Of the expedition in the 32nd year of the reign of 
 Thothmes III. we know nothing, but in his 33rd year 
 
4 o 
 
 ELEPHANT HUNT NEAR NI 
 
 [B.C. 1533 
 
 he marched through the land of Tchahi, I ra V \ or 
 Phoenicia, and then on to the country of Nehern, or 
 
 /WWV\ <^3> AA/WV\ ^> ^1 ] ■ 
 
 Neherina, /www u \s\ ; he took all 
 
 ' ra ra /www 9 
 
 the cities in this region, and killed or put to flight 
 
 their inhabitants, and in the city of Ni, ^ (j (j ^ > 
 
 which was situated near a river, he set up a memorial 
 tablet, side by side with the tablet which his grand- 
 father, Thothmes I., had set up there, to mark the 
 limit of the Egyptian Empire to the east in Western 
 Asia. The city of Ni was formerly supposed to 
 represent the city of Nineveh, but this was due 
 to a misunderstanding, whereby the words " en Ni," 
 
 /WWW f\ f\ 
 
 wvaaa (1 (I r^^i , " of the country of Ni," were read 
 
 " Neni " or "Nini," which in the early days of Egypto- 
 logy was thought to be a faithful transcription of the 
 Hebrew form of the name Nineweh, The name of the 
 city of Nineveh seems not yet to have been found in 
 the hieroglyphic inscriptions, probably because the city 
 was not yet in existence, but if it was it was too far to 
 
 the north in the kingdom of Assyria, (j |1 ^ ^ < ^Xs] 
 Assure, to be of any great size or importance. Whilst 
 Thothmes III. was in the neighbourhood of Ni, accord- 
 ing to the statement of one of his generals called 
 Amen-em-heb, he hunted elephants and slew one 
 hundred and twenty. Among those who sent a gift to 
 
 o /www <<=i 
 
 him was the king of Sinjar, [p=n ^ ^ Z5 H£\ 
 
B.C. 1533] TRIBUTE FROM PUNT, UAUAT, ETC. 4 1 
 
 Sankaru, who probably had his capital in the Sinjar 
 Mountains, near the site of the modern city ; he sent 
 to Thothmes III. some genuine lapis-lazuli, and a 
 quantity of the excellent imitation of the stone which 
 
 was made in those days at Bebru, JJ Jj < ^T^ , a place 
 
 that has been identified with Babylon. In this year 
 the chiefs of the Kuthennu, and of the lands of the 
 Khatti, and Punt, and Uauat, also sent gifts and 
 tribute. 
 
 In the 34th year of his reign Thothmes III. again 
 marched into Tchahi, and then on to the district 
 
 of Anaukasa, [j (j ^ ^ r^^i , which was 
 
 situated in the Lebanon mountains ; here he took a 
 number of the inhabitants prisoners, and the chiefs of 
 the city gave him quantities of gold, silver, precious 
 stones, woods, chariots, mares, asses, etc. In the same 
 year the chiefs of the island of Asi (Cyprus?), sent 
 to him large quantities of copper of two kinds, lead, 
 ivory, thrones, etc. ; and Kush and Uauat, two great 
 districts of Nubia, sent slaves, male and female, ivory, 
 ebony, cattle, and grain. The tribute of the chiefs of 
 the Ruthennu was very great this year, and we may 
 note that balks of timber were brought in boats to 
 Egypt, for the building of the palace of the king. In 
 the 35th year of the reign of Thothmes III. the king 
 again marched to Tchahi (Phoenicia), and then went 
 on and attacked the city of Areana, at or near which 
 the king of Nehern (Western Babylonia) had collected 
 
42 
 
 TRIBUTE OF THE SHASU [B.C. 1533 
 
 a number of horses and men in order to resist the 
 advance of the Egyptian king. The result was the 
 usual one, for the Egyptians defeated their foes, who 
 were compelled to give them chariots inlaid with gold 
 and silver, suits of armour, weapons of bronze, bows, 
 etc., and to promise to pay tribute in future years. In 
 the same year the people of Kush also sent the usual 
 gifts of slaves, ivory, ebony, cattle, etc., besides a large 
 quantity of grain. 
 
 The thirteenth expedition of Thothmes III. took 
 place in the 38th year of his reign, and having 
 marched into Phoenicia he directed his course 
 towards the district of Anaukasa; having laid waste 
 one or more rebellious cities, the inhabitants came 
 and brought to him gifts similar in many respects 
 to those of the neighbouring nations. The kings of 
 Arurekh, Asi (Cyprus ?), Punt, and Uauat also sent 
 tribute. In the 39th year of his reign Thothmes III. 
 marched into the land of the Retkennu, and using this 
 country as a base for operations, he made attacks upon 
 the nomad desert tribes that lived in the country of 
 Western Mesopotamia, and were called the Shasu, 
 T^T — [X] ^ ' • We have no details of the 
 result of these attacks, but it is probable that 
 the great shehhs who were owners of large flocks 
 and herds, and who could not in consequence escape 
 into the desert, gave gifts to the king of Egypt, which 
 were duly enumerated among the tribute which 
 was received during that year. But Thothmes III. 
 
B.C. 1533] THE EGYPTIAN GENERAL AMEN-EM-HEB 43 
 
 could never have possessed any real power over the 
 purely desert tribes, for by retreating into the fastnesses 
 of the desert, to which they were well accustomed, they 
 were able to place themselves beyond the reach of their 
 pursuers. Want of water has always been a serious 
 obstacle to the passage of that " great and terrible 
 desert," and the transport arrangements of the Egyptian 
 army must, even under Thothmes III., have been of a 
 most elementary character. 
 
 In the 40th and 41st years of his reign he received 
 tribute from the kings of Cyprus, Kethennu, Kheta, 
 and from the Nubian districts of Kush and Uauat. 
 In the 42nd year of his reign he made his last 
 expedition into Northern Syria, and on this occasion 
 he laid waste the cities of Tunep, Arkata, and all 
 the region round about the city of Kadesh, and part 
 of the country of Nehern. His general, Amen-em-heb, 
 tells us that one day whilst the forces, both chariots 
 and soldiers, of Thothmes were drawn up ready to make 
 an attack, the king of Kadesh turned out a mare and 
 sent her towards the Egyptian stallions, which at once 
 became very much excited and were on the point of 
 breaking loose. The situation was, however, saved by 
 Amen-em-heb, who ran after the mare and having ripped 
 her open with his sword, cut off her tail, which he 
 presented to the king. 1 The tribute collected by 
 Thothmes III. on this expedition was very large, and it 
 comprised about 700 prisoners, about 300 slaves, male 
 
 1 See Borchardt, Aey. Zeitschrift, vol. 31, 1893, p. 61. 
 
44 
 
 DEATH OF THOTHMES III. [B.C. 1533 
 
 and female, horses, mares, vessels of gold and silver, 
 skins of beasts, lead, suits of armour, lapis-lazuli, copper, 
 etc. In the same year the people of Uauat sent a large 
 quantity of gold to the king, and the prince of another 
 foreign land, probably near Uauat, sent him a vessel in 
 silver, and three massive vessels in bronze. The Annals 
 end with the account of the expedition undertaken in 
 the 42nd year of the king's reign. It is impossible to 
 think that no further expeditions were undertaken 
 during the last twelve years of the reign of Thothmes 
 III., for had this been the case few, if any, of the tribes 
 and nations would have paid the tribute due from them ; 
 but it is extremely probable that the king no longer 
 conducted them in person, and that he handed over the 
 command of further expeditions to his son or to his 
 generals. 
 
 In the 50th year of his reign it seems as if some 
 military operations were conducted against the Nubians, 
 for an inscription, which was discovered by the late 
 Mr. Wilbour, on a rock on the Island of Sahal in the 
 First Cataract, mentions that on the 22nd day of the 
 first month of the season Shemut, in the 50th year of 
 the reign of Thothmes III., the king commanded that 
 the old canal in the Cataract, which had become blocked 
 up with stones, should be cleared out, and that this 
 having been done he went on his way to the south with 
 a joyful heart. 1 
 
 Four years later the king died, on the 30th day 
 
 1 RecueiJ, torn. xiii. p. 203. 
 
B.C. 1533] TOMB OF THOTHMES III. 
 
 45 
 
 of the mouth Phanienoth, and was buried in a tomb 
 which was specially prepared for him in the Valley of 
 the Tombs of the Kings. 
 This tomb was discovered 
 by M. Loret in the 
 spring of 1898, and it 
 lies at a short distance 
 from the tomb of 
 Eameses III. The walls 
 of the chambers of the 
 tomb are ornamented 
 with figures of gods, 
 and inscriptions, among 
 others being a long list 
 of gods, and a complete 
 copy of the funeral work 
 entitled, " Book of know- 
 ing what is in the under- 
 world." On a column in 
 the second chamber we 
 see a figure of Thothmes, 
 followed by those of his 
 mother Aset, and his 
 wives and daughter. 
 The sarcophagus was, of 
 course, found to be 
 empty, for the king's 
 mummy was removed a xegro from Nubia, 
 
 from its tomb to the hiding-place at Der al-Bahari, 
 
46 THE MUMMY OF THOTHMES III. WRECKED [B.C. 1533 
 
 where it was found with its coffin about twenty 
 years ago. The mummy measured rather less than 
 five feet in height, and when it was opened in July, 
 1881, it was found to be in a most deplorable state ; 
 it had been broken into three pieces by the tomb 
 robbers, in ancient days, but these had been placed 
 together, and the whole, with the help of some short 
 pieces of wood, which were employed to give the body 
 rigidity, had been re-bandaged, probably at some time 
 in the XYIIIth Dynasty. The covering was torn into 
 three strips, and was inscribed with a most interesting- 
 text, which is now known as Chapter CLIV. of the Book 
 of the Dead, 1 and with extracts from the funeral work 
 which is generally called the "Litauy of the Sun." One 
 vertical line of hieroglyphics 2 states that it was king 
 Amen-hetep II., the son of Thothmes III., who made 
 il monuments to his father," and " who had the texts 
 " which would make the spirit of the deceased king 
 
 " perfect done in writing," \ 
 
 It has already been said that the Annals of 
 Thothmes III. are, in places, very fragmentary, but 
 there are two documents which must be noticed in 
 
 | /WW 
 
 I 
 
 1 The oldest copy of this Chapter is found in the Papyrus of Nu 
 (Brit. Mus. No. 10,471, sheet 18) ; see my Chapters of Coming 
 Forth by Day, text, p. 398. 
 
 2 Maspero, Les Mamies Royales, p. 548. 
 
B.C. 1533] THE CAMPAIGNS OF AMEN-EM-HEB 47 
 
 connexion with them ; the first is the inscription 1 
 which is found on the walls of the tomb 2 of Amen-em- 
 heb at Shekh c Abd al-Kurna, and the second is the 
 inscription on the stele of Thothmes III. preserved in 
 the Cairo Museum, in which the god Amen addresses 
 the king and gives a summary of all the great works 
 which he made him to do. Amen-em-heb tells us that 
 he was the greatly trusted and intimate friend of the 
 king of the South and North, and that he followed his 
 lord to the lands of the North and South. He went to 
 
 /www n -a 
 
 the land of Nekeb 11 fe^. , near Aleppo, and 
 
 captured three prisoners alive ; when he went with 
 the king to Nehern he captured another prisoner, 
 and later, when he went to the country of Uan, 
 
 V " 0 C3 **lh c ^ 3 ' to tne west °f Aleppo, 
 n a/ww\ / 
 
 1 1^ <= \^ > -J ^ Kharebu, he captured 13 
 
 prisoners of the Aamu, 70 asses, 13 bronze weapons, 
 etc. He next went with his king to Karkemish, 
 
 jXj, where he 
 
 \\ \\ 
 
 captured more prisoners, and sailing over the "water 
 of Nehern," he entered the region of Sentchar, 
 
 | J, < 7 > ] * He was P resent at tne siege of 
 
 1 See Ebers, Aeg. Zeitschrift, 1873, pp. 1-9, 63, 64; Chabas, 
 Melanges, torn. ii. pp. 279-306. 
 
 2 It contains important scenes in which the Syrians and others 
 are depicted bringing tribute to the king. 
 
48 AMEN-EM-HEB SAVES HIS MASTER'S LIFE [B.C. 1533 
 
 Kadesh, and his bravery was so great that he was 
 specially rewarded by the king. In the land of 
 
 Thakhsi, "J ^ [1 , he took more prisoners and was 
 
 again rewarded, and whilst he was in the neighbour- 
 
 hood of Ni, v (1(1 jXj, he helped the king to hunt 
 
 \\ 
 
 120 elephants, ^ .*f J^^- The largest 
 
 of the elephants hunted turned upon the king, but 
 Amen -era -heb probably saved his master's life by 
 cutting off the trunk of the beast 1 whilst he was still 
 alive ; for this act of bravery he was again rewarded. 
 The episode of the mare at Kadesh has already 
 been referred to, and we pass on to his next deed of 
 valour, when he succeeded in making a breach 
 in the new walls which the king of Kadesh had 
 raised up round his city, and in leading the Egyptians 
 through it into the headquarters of the enemy; 
 after this exploit he returned to Egypt. Thus, he 
 says, the king passed many happy years in fighting, 
 
 I ° I 1 lb\ ^ r ^ . , and so lived from 
 
 I III ^111 0c=^\ -M* WWXA Wl' 
 
 the 1st to the 54th year of his reign ; on the last day 
 of Phamenoth he departed to heaven, and was united 
 to the sun's disk Aten, and became a follower of the 
 god. Amen-em-heb lived for some years during the 
 reign of Amen-hetep II., the son and successor of 
 
 O 
 
 J\ * — - Literally, "I cut off his hand, 
 
 "a ^ 1 
 
ItgiiVgTI^IM l^ltA^ZlT" gigs isyrtau 
 
 Stele inscribed withja summary of the conquests of Thothmes III. 
 Egyptian Museum at Cairo. 
 
 VOL. I IV. E 
 
50 CONQUESTS OF THOTHMES III. — SUMMARY [B.C. 1533 
 
 Thothnies III., but was probably too old to join him 
 in the expeditions which he made. 
 
 The summary of the conquests of Thothmes III., 
 which are attributed to the god Amen, is inscribed 
 upon a large stone stele, and is of great interest; this 
 stele was originally set up in the great temple of the 
 Northern Apt at Karnak, and it is possible that the 
 text upon it formed a song of victory, or hymn, which 
 was sung by the priests of Amen on state occasions. 
 On the upper, rounded portion of the stele we have two 
 scenes ; in the first Thothmes III. is " making a drink 
 offering to Amen-Ra," in the second he is "making an 
 offering of incense to Anien-Ra." Behind the king in 
 the first scene stands the goddess of Thebes, holding 
 bows in one hand and the symbol of life in the other, 
 and in the second scene stands the same goddess, but 
 with bows and arrows in one hand and a club in the 
 other. Above both scenes is the winged disk of 
 " Behutet, the great god, lord of heaven," with pendent 
 uraei, wearing the crowns of the South and North 
 respectively. The vertical line of text between the 
 scenes declares that Amen-Ra, the king of the gods, 
 will "give all life, and all protection, and life, and 
 " stability, and power, and all health, and all joy of 
 "heart, like Ra for ever," to Thothmes III. The 
 inscription reads : — Saith Amen-Ra, the lord of the 
 thrones of the two lands : (1) " Come then unto me, 
 " 0 my brave son Men-kheper-Ra, the everliving, and 
 " make thyself to rejoice at the sight of my beautiful 
 
B.C. 1533] 
 
 SPEECH OF AMEN-RA 
 
 51 
 
 "form. I shine because of thy love [for me], and my 
 " heart expandeth with joy (2) at thy fortunate visits 
 " to my temple. I have laid both my hands upon the 
 " limbs of thy body in giving thee the protection of 
 "life, and doubly sweet is thy mighty presence unto 
 " my divine, visible body. I have established thee (3) 
 "in my dwelling-place, and I have made thee to be 
 " a divine wonder [unto me]. I have given unto thee 
 " might and victory over all foreign lands, and I have 
 "made thy will (or, souls) and the fear of thee to be 
 "in all the lands of the world, and mighty terror of 
 "thee reacheth even unto the (4) four pillars of the 
 " sky. 1 I have magnified thy irresistible might in [the 
 " sight of] all bodies, and I have made the sound of 
 "the roarings of thy Majesty to go round about among 
 " the Nine Bow barbarians. The chiefs of all the 
 " foreign lands are gathered together within thy grasp. 
 " (5) I have stretched out my two hands and have tied 
 "together for thee as with a rope the Anti tribes of 
 "Nubia by tens of thousands and thousands, and I 
 " have made thousands, and I have made prisoners for 
 "thee of the peoples of the North by hundreds of 
 "thousands. (6) I have made to fall down thine 
 " opponents under thy sandals, and thou hast destroyed, 
 "even according to the decree which I had made, the 
 
 1 The allusion here is to the belief that the sky, which was made 
 of a perfectly flat iron plate, rectangular in shape, was supported 
 at each corner by a pillar; each pillar was guarded by a god, and 
 the four pillars represented the four cardinal points. 
 
52 CONQUESTS OF THOTHMES III. — SUMMARY [B.C. 1533 
 
 "hosts of the rebellious ones throughout the length and 
 "breadth of the land, and the peoples of the West and 
 " the nations of the East are [set] beneath thy throne 
 "for thee. (7) Thou hast marched with a joyful 
 "heart over all foreign lands which had never been 
 " entered until the time of thy Majesty, and I myself 
 " was thy guide when thou didst go forth to attack 
 " them. Thou hast sailed over the waters of the Great 
 " Circle 1 of (8) Nehern (i.e., Western Mesopotamia) 
 " mightily and victoriously. I decreed for thee that 
 "the peoples thereof should hear the noise of thy 
 " roarings as thou didst enter into their caves, and 
 "I removed from their nostrils the breath of life. 
 u (9) I made the terror of thy Majesty to enter into 
 "their hearts. My uraeus crown is set upon thy 
 " brow, it hath burned them with the fire, and hath 
 " made thee to lead away into captivity the rebellious 
 "peoples of Qet, i.e., the coast of Palestine. (10) It 
 " hath consumed with fire all those who were dwelling 
 "in their swampy places, and it cut off the chiefs of 
 " the Aamu, 2 and they were not able to escape, and it 
 " hath overthrown him that came within the reach of 
 "its power. (11) I have made thy valiant deeds to go 
 " round about through all the lands, and I have cast 
 " the light of my crown upon thy body. Within the 
 " whole circuit of the skies no enemy of thine existeth, 
 
 1 The allusion here is to the rivers which enclose the Island of 
 Mesopotamia. 
 
 2 I.e., the nomad Semitic tribes of the Eastern Desert. 
 
B.C. 1533] 
 
 SPEECH OF AMEN-RA 
 
 53 
 
 " and they come bearing [their] offerings upon their 
 "backs with (12) homage to thy Majesty, even in 
 " accordance with the decree which I made. I made the 
 "rebels to put on chains when they came to thee, and 
 " their hearts burned and their limbs quaked. (13) I 
 " came, and I made thee to subdue the mighty chiefs of 
 " Tchah (Phoenicia), and I drove them under thy feet 
 " throughout their lands. I made thy Majesty to look 
 "upon them with rays of light, and thou didst shine 
 " upon their faces as my divine Image. (14) I came, 
 " and I made thee to smite those who were in Satet 
 " (Asia), and I made thee to lead into captivity the 
 " chiefs of the Aamu 1 of Kethennu. I made them to 
 " behold thy Majesty when thou wast equipped in thy 
 "panoply of war and wast grasping thy weapons and 
 " doing battle from [thy] chariot. (15) I came, and I 
 "made thee to smite the land of the East, and thou 
 " didst trample under foot those who were in the 
 " regions of Ta-neter. 2 I made them to look upon thy 
 " Majesty as one who revolveth like a star which 
 " shooteth out fire as it circleth and sendeth forth its 
 " dew. (16) I came, and I made thee to smite the 
 " land of the West, and the foreign land of Kefti, 
 
 and Asi, [j ~ 7T~(j(j r^^i (Cyprus?), are 
 
 1 I.e., the nomad Semitic tribes of Northern Syria. 
 
 2 I.e., the eastern and western shores of the southern half of the 
 Red Sea, and perhaps part of Somaliland. 
 
 3 I.e., the countries of Asia Minor on the shore of the 
 Mediterranean, including Crete. 
 
54 CONQUESTS OF THOTHMES III. — SUMMARY [B.C. 1533 
 
 " under thy awesome power. I made them to look 
 " upon thy Majesty as a young and very vigorous bull 
 "which is equipped with horns and cannot be ap- 
 proached. (17) I came, and I made thee to smite 
 " those who were dwelling in the swampy places of the 
 "land of Mathen (Mitanni), and they quaked through 
 " fear of thee. I made them to look upon thy Majesty 
 "as a most terrible crocodile of the waters which could 
 "not be approached. (18) I came, and I made thee to 
 " smite those who dwell in the isles in the midst of the 
 "Great Green (i.e., the Mediterranean), by means of 
 " thy roarings, 1 made them to look upon thy Majesty 
 " as the slaughterer who putteth himself upon the back 
 " of the animal which he is about to offer up as a 
 " sacrifice. (19) I came, and I made thee to smite the 
 " Thehennu (Libyans), and the lands of Uthenti, 
 
 " V >^ , l are i n the power of thy will (or 
 
 "souls). I made them to look upon thy Majesty as a 
 "raging lion, and thou didst make them to flee into 
 "their holes in the valley. (20) I came, and I made 
 " thee to smite the peoples who dwelt in the lands at 
 "the back of the countries of the Circles, 2 the Great 
 
 1 I.e., the coast of Libya. 
 
 2 The Egyptians regarded Mesopotamia as an island which was 
 surrounded by a river, and they considered the Tigris and 
 
 Euphrates to spring from one source; "Circle," 
 
 AAAAAA 
 AAAAAA 
 
 was the name given to this double river, and the description 
 "Great Circle" is only added for emphasis. See Muller, Asien 
 und Europa, p. 252. 
 
B.C. 1533] 
 
 SPEECH OF AMEN-RA 
 
 55 
 
 " Circle, and they are gathered up within thy grasp. T 
 " made them to look upon 
 "thy Majesty as the 
 "hawk of Horns, the 
 "lord of pinions, which 
 "by means of the fierce 
 "glance of his eye 
 "carrieth off whatsoever 
 "he pleaseth. (21) I 
 "came, and I made thee 
 " to smite the people who 
 "dwelt in the foreparts 
 "of the lands, and thou 
 "didst take as living 
 "prisoners the Dwellers 
 " on the Sand (i.e., the 
 "nomad desert tribes). 
 "I made them to look 
 "upon thy Majesty as a 
 "jackal of the south 
 " which travelleth swiftly 
 " and disappeareth ra- 
 "pidly through the two 
 "lands. (22) I came, 
 " and I made thee to 
 "smite the Anti tribes 
 "of Nubia, [and their 
 " lands] as far as Kept, 
 " JL^[J^» are ^ n ^ n y grasp. I made them to look 
 
 A Lihvan. 
 
56 CONQUESTS OF THOTHMES III. — SUMMARY [B.C. 1533 
 
 "upon thy Majesty as thy two divine brethren. I 
 "have gathered together their hands to thee . . . . 
 " (23) thy two sisters, and I have placed them at 
 " thy side to protect thee. The hands of my Majesty 
 " are in heaven above to drive away evil [from thee]. 
 "I have made thee to be glorious, 0 my son, my be- 
 " loved one, thou mighty Bull who risest like the sun 
 " in Thebes, I have begotten thee with .... (24) 0 
 " Thothmes, the everli ving one, who hast performed every 
 " wish of mine. Thou hast created for me a dwelling 
 " place in work which shall endure for ever, and thou 
 " hast made it longer and wider than it ever was before, 
 " and [thou didst] make a great pylon. (25) Thou hast 
 " celebrated the festival of the beauties of Amen-Ra, and 
 " thy monuments are greater than those of any other 
 " king who hath ever existed. I commanded thee to 
 "make them, and thou hast been content to do so; 
 " therefore I have stablished thee upon the throne of 
 " Horus for millions of years, and thou shalt guide the 
 " living 
 
 The above inscription indicates that Thothmes III. 
 devoted a large portion of the spoil which he obtained 
 from his vassal kings to enlarging the temples of 
 the gods and to the support of the priesthood of Amen, 
 and as we see this fact reflected also in the official 
 inscriptions of his reign, so we find in the ruins 
 of the ancient cities which have been excavated in 
 recent years the remains of the temples which he 
 founded or re-founded, and of the shrines which he 
 
B.C. 1533] BUILDING OPERATIONS OF THOTHMES III. 57 
 
 cleansed, and of the buildings which he repaired, and of 
 the architectural works which he completed. His 
 liberality seems to have been unbounded in this respect, 
 but it must be remembered that the vast amount of 
 tribute which he had been able to collect in the course 
 of his fourteen or fifteen expeditions enabled him to 
 undertake the building of temples and other sacred 
 edifices on a scale which had before been impossible for 
 want of funds. And besides, he made the prisoners 
 whom he had brought to Egypt labour in the building 
 of the temples, and there is every reason for thinking 
 that they were employed upon public works in general. 
 At Heliopolis he built a door, 1 and enclosed the temple 
 with a wall ; at Memphis he repaired the temple of 
 Ptah : he completed the Speos Artemidos which Hat- 
 shepset had begun ; he built a temple at Abydos, 
 all traces of which have, however, disappeared, and 
 dedicated a colossal statue of the god Osiris to 
 it ; he restored and completed the temple of Den- 
 dera, which is said to have been founded by Khufu 
 (Cheops), and repaired by Pepi Mer-en-Ea ; he rebuilt 
 the temple at Coptos ; he added a granite portal 
 and a door to the temple at Der al-Bahari, which Hat- 
 shepset never finished ; he built and dedicated a small 
 sandstone temple to Amen at Medinet Habu ; and he 
 must have carried on building operations on a very 
 .large scale at several places and shrines on the west 
 
 1 The chief works of Thothmes III. are summarized by 
 Wiedemann, Aeg. Geschichte, p. 359 ff. 
 
58 BUILDING OPERATIONS OF THOTHMES III. [B.C. 1533 
 
 bank of the Nile opposite Thebes. But the greatest 
 and best of his architectural works were reserved for 
 the temple of Amen-Ra, the lord of the thrones 
 of the world, in the Southern Apt at Thebes. Here 
 he built a large colonnade which measured about 
 150 feet by 50 feet, with a roof that rested on 40 granite 
 columns and 32 rectangular pillars. The columns are 
 of great interest, for they taper downwards, and their 
 capitals, which are made in the forms of the cups of 
 flowers, are inverted ; the pillars and the walls supported 
 a roof, upon which rose small pillars, with an architrave 
 to the height of the central columns, and these in their 
 turn supported one side of the roof over the central 
 portion of the hall. Close to this colonnade was a series 
 of rooms which were ornamented with reliefs whereon 
 were represented in great detail the animals and plants 
 which Thothmes III. brought back from the land of 
 Rethennu on his return from his third expedition to 
 that country, which took place in the twenty-fifth year 
 of his reign. Thothmes III. also built a pylon to the 
 temple, and on the walls on each side of the granite 
 doorway he inscribed the names of all the peoples, and 
 tribes, and cities, and lands which he had brought into 
 subjection. The famous Annals of Thothmes III. are 
 inscribed on the walls of a passage near the shrine of 
 the temple of Karnak, but the texts are much mutilated ; 
 the two granite pillars, one bearing the lotus of the 
 South and the other the papyrus of the North, which 
 were set up by Thothmes III., still stand in the court by 
 
B.C. 1533] AT SOLEB, GEBEL BARKAL, ETC. 5g 
 
 which entrance is gained to the shrine. Besides all 
 this, the king built a small temple which was entered 
 through a gateway built in the wall that joined the 
 pylons erected by his aunt and himself respectively, and 
 behind it he dug the sacred lake, whereon at stated 
 intervals processions of sacred boats used to take place. 
 At Hermonthis, Esna, El-kab, Edfu, Silsila, Kom Ombo, 
 he carried on building operations, and on the Island of 
 Elephantine he built a temple in honour of the god 
 Khnemu ; this temple was standing in 1822, but it was 
 soon after pulled down by the orders of Muhammad Ali, 
 who wished to build a palace with the blocks of stone 
 from it at Aswan ! At several places in Nubia he 
 restored or founded small temples, and he was the founder 
 of the large temple at Soleb, which marks the site of the 
 ancient Egyptian settlement in the Third Cataract 
 called Menen-en-kha-em-Maat, i^ES 0 Q t\ R ; this 
 temple was greatly enlarged and beautified by Amen- 
 hetep III. There are several places between Soleb and 
 the foot of the Fourth Cataract (Gebel Barkal) where 
 remains of XVIIIth Dynasty buildings are to be found, 
 and it is very probable that many inscriptions of the 
 reign of Thothmes III. would be found if the sites of 
 old settlements were excavated. So able a king must 
 have had his outposts held by Egyptians much further 
 south than Soleb, otherwise he could never have main- 
 tained his hold upon the country; in any case his 
 kingdom extended from the Euphrates at Ni on the north 
 to Soleb on the south, and his buildings and inscriptions 
 
6o 
 
 Cleopatra's needle 
 
 [B.C. 1533 
 
 in the Sinaitic peninsula prove that he was master of 
 the Eastern Desert also. 
 
 The largest of the obelisks which Thothmes III. 
 set up is commonly called the " Obelisk of St. John 
 Lateran," and stands on the hill of the Lateran 
 at Kome ; it is 105 feet in height and contains in- 
 scriptions of Thothmes III., Thothmes IV., 1 and 
 Barneses II., who repaired it and re-erected it. Part 
 of a second obelisk of Thothmes III. is in Con- 
 stantinople, a third is in New York, and a fourth, 
 " Cleopatra's Needle," has been set up on the Thames 
 Embankment in London. The last two are supposed 
 by some to be the two obelisks which " king Mesphres " 
 is said to have made, and which are reported by Pliny 2 
 to have stood at the door of Caesar's temple in Alex- 
 andria. In an inscription found in the temple at Der 
 al-Bahari it is said that the height of the obelisks 
 which were set up in front of that temple was 108 
 cubits, i.e., each obelisk was more than 180 feet high. 
 No remains of these obelisks have up to the present 
 been found in Egypt, in spite of all the efforts which 
 have been made to trace them. Kecently a theory has 
 has been put forward 3 that the " obelisk " which now 
 stands in the Hippodrome at Constantinople is only the 
 upper part of an obelisk, and that it is in fact a portion 
 
 1 The text on it says that there was an interval of thirty-five 
 years between the reigns of Thothmes III. and Thothmes IV. 
 
 2 Hist. No*., Bk. xxxvi. 15, 69. 
 
 3 Petrie, History, vol. ii. p. 131 ff. 
 
B.C. 1533] OBELISKS OF THOTHMES III. 6l 
 
 of one of the two obelisks which stood before Hatshep- 
 set's temple at Der al-Bahari. The inscriptions upon 
 it refer, however, to Thothmes III., but this is held to 
 be no difficulty in the way of the identification, for the 
 obelisks might well have been set up after the great 
 queen's death by her nephew. It seems clear that the 
 "obelisk "at Constantinople is only a portion of an 
 obelisk, and as it is only about fifty feet high it appears 
 to be too slender for its height, if we may judge from 
 the proportions of the other obelisks of the reign of 
 Thothmes III. which are known to us, always supposing 
 that he set up those at the entrance to his aunt's 
 temple. The height of the "obelisk" at Constantinople 
 when it was first brought there is not known, but it was 
 probably much higher than it is now, for it was thrown 
 down by an earthquake and it lay upon the ground for 
 a considerable time; and it is more than probable that 
 some of the lower portion of it was broken off, and that 
 not knowing how to join the pieces together the prefect 
 Proclus, who re-erected it by the command of the 
 Emperor Theodosius, 1 set up the largest portion. 
 Curiously enough, in addition to the marble reliefs with 
 which the base was ornamented by the Praetorian 
 prefect, the top was surmounted by a large brass pine- 
 
 The Latin inscription on the base of the obelisk reads : — 
 Difficilis quondam Dominis parere serenis 
 Jussus et extinctis palmam portare tyrannis ; 
 Omnia Theodosio cedunt subolique perenni. 
 Ter denis sic victus ego domitusque diebus, 
 Judice sub Proclo superas elatus ad auras. 
 
62 
 
 THE ARCHITECT PUAM [B.C. 1533 
 
 apple or fir-cone ; this, however, was thrown down by 
 an earthquake, which fortunately left the portion of the 
 obelisk standing where it now is. 
 
 For the carrying out of 
 the great building opera- 
 tions planned by Thothmes 
 III., the services of a very 
 large number of workmen 
 and officials of different 
 ranks and grades must have 
 been required, and the 
 leaders of these must have 
 been men of great ability, 
 who possessed a good 
 theoretical and practical 
 knowledge of architecture. 
 Among such was the official 
 
 Puam, □ 
 
 and in 
 
 his tomb at Kurna is a 
 scene in which this official 
 is represented seated on a 
 chair, whilst six men stand 
 before him with their left 
 hands touching their right 
 shoulders, and their right 
 hands clasping their left 
 forearms ; they are all overseers, or superintendents, 
 three of the works of the temple of Amen, and 
 
 Statue of Netcliem, an official of 
 Thothmes III. 
 British Museum, No. 840. 
 
B.C. 1533] THE PRIME MINISTER REKH-MA-RA 63 
 
 three of the handicraftsmen. 1 As a part of the 
 same scene in the tomb we see drawings of two 
 obelisks, on which, when perfect, were inscribed the 
 names and titles of Thothmes III., and we are quite 
 justified in assuming that they were head men who 
 planned and carried out the setting up of the great 
 obelisks of Thothmes III. Another great official 
 andj trusted servant of the king was Rekh-ma-Ea, 
 
 <= Z > ) 0 °, i.e., "he who is as wise as Ea," whose 
 
 ancestors had held high office under Thothmes I., 
 Thothmes II., and queen Hatshepset ; he himself was 
 the prime minister of Thothmes III. from the 32nd 
 year of this king's reign 2 until the early years of the 
 reign of Amen-hetep II. The tomb of Eekh-ma-Ea is 
 at Kurna, and it is one of the most interesting of the 
 tombs of the period. The scenes on its walls represent 
 the envoys of the peoples of Pant, Kefti, Nubia, Syria, 
 and the Islands of the Mediterranean Sea (?) bringing 
 tribute to his master; and the performance of the duties 
 which devolved upon him in connexion with his duties 
 as governor of the city, and judge, and steward of the 
 temple of Amen, and confidential adviser to the king ; 
 and the superintending of the work of the various 
 artificers and handicraftsmen employed in his master's 
 service and in his own ; and there are some interesting- 
 pictures in it which show how this great man found 
 
 1 See Lepsius, DenJcmtiler, iii. pi. 39. 
 
 2 See Newberry, Life of BeTchmara, London, 1900, p. 14. 
 
6 4 
 
 AMEN-EM-HEB THE GENERAL [B.C. 1533 
 
 relaxation and solace in listening to singing and musical 
 instruments. To the famous general Amen-em-heb we 
 have often referred already, and it is certain that as a 
 
 Limestone statue of the royalJmotheriTeta-khart 
 British Museum, No. 22,558 
 
 soldier and in all military matters he was as expert as 
 Puam was as an architect, or Rekh-ma-Ka as a judge and 
 administrator. The scenes in his tomb at Kurna are 
 
B.C. 1533] THE ROMANCE OF TEHUTI-A 
 
 65 
 
 representations of the Syrian tribes bringing tribute to 
 him for his master ; the details of their postures, and 
 dress, and articles of tribute are very interesting, 
 because the man for whom the scenes were painted was 
 a witness of the events which they commemorated, and 
 we may be sure that he followed the artist's work with 
 a critical eye. 
 
 Among other important officials must be mentioned 
 
 Tehuti-a, (j whom legend associated with 
 
 the taking of the city of Joppa. This man was a 
 ha prince, and a " divine father, loving God, and one 
 " who filled the heart of the king in all the countries 
 "and the islands which were in the Great Green 
 
 " Sea," <=L ^ by which we are probably to under- 
 stand the Mediterranean Sea, he " filled the treasury 
 " with gold, and lapis-lazuli, and silver," and he was 
 " general of the bowmen," a royal scribe, an " overseer 
 of countries," etc. For some reason or other the 
 character of Tehuti-a appealed to the imagination of 
 some Egyptian writer, who straightway composed an 
 account of the taking of the city of Joppa by him. At 
 one time this account was regarded as a strictly 
 historical document, and a scholar and Egyptologist 
 of such eminence as Goodwin accepted it in this light 
 unhesitatingly. 1 The text of the document is written 
 in the hieratic character, and forms one of the com- 
 positions which are found in the Harris Papyrus, No. 
 
 1 See Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch., vol. iii. p. 340 ff. 
 VOL. IV. F 
 
66 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF TEHUTI-A [B.C. 1533 
 
 500, now preserved in the British Museum; it is 
 written in three columns on the back of the papyrus in 
 a neat, careful hand of the XlXth Dynasty. As far as 
 can be made out from the text, the writer wished to 
 say that Tehuti-a was a very able soldier who was 
 thoroughly well skilled in the art of war, that he had 
 received many rewards for his bravery, and that he had 
 accompanied his master Thothmes III. on his campaigns 
 in several countries. One day a messenger came from 
 Tchahi (Phoenicia), and reported that the miserable 
 chief of Joppa had revolted, and that he had slain the 
 soldiers and charioteers of the king, and that no man 
 could resist him ; as soon as Thothmes III. heard these 
 words he swore by his god Amen that he would destroy 
 the city of Joppa, and went about raging like a 
 panther. Then he called together his chiefs and 
 officers and told them what had happened, but they 
 knew not how to answer him. At this moment 
 Tehuti-a said to the king, " Give me the great staff, 
 " O Q dunnu, of Thothmes III., and let valiant 
 " soldiers and charioteers be sent with me, and I will 
 " kill the wretched prince of Joppa and take his town ;" 
 the king was pleased with the proposal, and gave 
 Tehuti-a all that he desired. Soon after this, when 
 Tehuti-a was in the country of Phoenicia with his men, 
 he made a leather sack large enough to hold a man, 
 and forged some iron fetters for the hands and feet, and 
 shackles and wooden yokes, and made four hundred large 
 jars, etc. 
 
B.C. 1S33] AND THE CAPTURE OF JOPPA 
 
 6 7 
 
 When these were ready he sent a messenger to 
 the prince of Joppa to say that he was sent to him 
 by Tehuti-a, who was the commander-in-chief of the 
 army of Thothmes III., but who was greatly envied 
 by the king on account of his bravery, and that the 
 king wanted to slay him : for this reason Tehuti-a had 
 escaped from the court ; and that he had brought 
 with him, hidden in his horses' fodder, the staff of 
 Thothmes III., and that if the prince of Joppa wished 
 Tehuti-a would give it to him, and would come to him 
 with his brave soldiers and hold himself and them at 
 his disposal. The prince of Joppa replied graciously 
 aud invited Tehuti-a, whom he knew well by reputa- 
 tion, to come to Joppa, and promised to be a brother to 
 him. When Tehuti-a arrived, the prince of Joppa 
 with his wives and children went out to meet him, 
 and when they met he embraced him, and begged the 
 Egyptian general to come into his camp, taking care, 
 however, not to allow his troops and their horses to 
 come in with him. When Tehuti-a had eaten and 
 drunk, the prince of Joppa asked where the staff was, 
 and in reply Tehuti-a seems to have asked that his 
 soldiers might be allowed to come and feed their horses, 
 and that a man of the Apure, Q ^ <= ^ > might be 
 told off to go and order them to do so ; the prince of 
 Joppa assented, and when the fodder was brought in 
 to the horses, the staff was found inside it. Soon 
 after this, the prince of Joppa asked to be allowed to 
 see the staff, I and when Tehuti-a had brought it, he 
 
68 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF TEHUTI-A [B.C. 1533 
 
 held it before him, and said, " Look, 0 thou wretched 
 " one, this is the staff of Thothmes III., the mighty 
 " lion, the son of Sekhet, unto whom his father Amen 
 " hath given strength." Then he stood up and smote 
 the prince of Joppa with the staff on his head, and 
 he fell down senseless ; Tehuti-a brought forth his iron 
 fetters for the hands and feet, and having fastened 
 them on the prince of Joppa he placed him in the 
 leather sack. This done, he called in two hundred of 
 his soldiers and made them get into some of the large 
 jars which he had made, and having sealed up the 
 tops and fastened round them the cords by which they 
 were to be carried, he loaded them upon the backs of 
 strong men, whom he told to march into the city, and 
 to break open the jars when they arrived there, and to 
 let the soldiers out, and to seize and bind the inhabi- 
 tants of the city without delay. In this way five 
 hundred men would get into the city of Joppa. Tehuti-a 
 then made some of the men of the prince of Joppa 
 go to the master of the horse and tell him to proclaim 
 to the queen that the god Sutekh had delivered the 
 Egyptians into the hands of the men of Joppa, and as the 
 result the master of the horse and his townsmen opened 
 the gates to the men carrying the jars, and so admitted 
 the enemy into the city. Once there, Tehuti-a/s 
 soldiers opened the jars and let out their companions, 
 who straightway seized the inhabitants and bound 
 them witli ropes, and put on the fetters and wooden 
 yokes which they had brought with them. Later, 
 
B.C. 1533] AND THE CAPTURE OF JOPPA 69 
 
 when the army of Thothmes III. came and wished to 
 take possession of the city Tehuti-a sent a message to 
 his master, saying, " Rejoice, for thy father Amen hath 
 " given thee the wretched prince of Joppa, with all his 
 "subjects and his city. Send thy servants to come 
 "and take him prisoner. Mayest thou fill full the 
 " house of thy father Amen-Ra, the king of the gods, 
 "with slaves who shall for ever and for ever bow 
 " beneath thy feet." 1 Such is the story of the capture 
 of Joppa, and it is clear that it is nothing more than 
 a historical romance. It may be mentioned in passing 
 that M. Chabas thought that the Apure who are men- 
 tioned above were to be identified with the Hebrews, 
 but though this alleged similarity of name was as good 
 as any of the identifications which were put forward 
 in the early days of Egyptology, it was not accepted 
 by capable scholars, and is now regarded merely 
 as an example of the effort which was made at 
 that time to find Biblical names in the hieroglyphic 
 inscriptions. 
 
 kheperu, son of the Sun, Amen-hetep, god, prince of 
 Thebes. 
 
 1 The incidents of the story are placed in a connected form by 
 M. Maspero in his Contes Egyptiens, p. 87. 
 
70 
 
 THE REIGN OF AMEN-HETEP II. [B.C. 1500 
 
 5^ 
 
 Ka-nkkht, UE 
 
 PEH-PEH, the 
 
 Horus name of 
 Amen-hetep II. 
 
 Amen-hetep II., or Anienophis II., 
 was the son of Tliothmes III. by Hat- 
 shepset, wlio is styled the " royal wife ; 
 "greatly beloved of him (i.e., Tliothmes 
 "III.), the royal mother, Hatshepset 
 "beloved of Ra" (o ^ ^J, and 
 
 who was the daughter of the great queen, 
 Hatshepset. He succeeded to the throne 
 of Egypt on the day following that on 
 which his father died, i.e., the 1st of 
 Pharmuthi, but we know that he had been associated 
 with his father in the rule of the kingdom some years 
 before. In addition to his Horus name, "Mighty Bull, 
 mighty of two-fold valour," he styled himself, " Lord of 
 " the shrines of Nekhebet and Uatchet, whose power is 
 " wide-spread, and maketh [him] to rise in Thebes," 1 
 and " Horus of gold, who conquereth by his might in 
 all lands." 2 Under his father's experienced and 
 faithful old general, Amen-em-heb, he had already 
 learned the art of war, and it was, apparently, necessary 
 for him to begin at once to justify his position as 
 successor of one of the greatest and most able of the 
 kings who ever sat upon the throne of Egypt, by setting 
 out on an expedition to Western Asia. This expedition 
 
B.C. 1500] EXPEDITION AGAINST TAKHISA 
 
 71 
 
 must have taken place 
 at the end of the 
 first or in the second 
 year of his reign, 
 for, as M. Maspero 
 points out, 1 in the 
 stele at 'Amada, which 
 was set up by him in 
 his third year, he de- 
 scribes how he sacri- 
 ficed the prisoners 
 whom he had taken in 
 
 a country which lay to 
 the north of Kadesh. 
 An account of the 
 expedition is found 
 in a very mutilated 
 state on a stele in 
 the ruins of the great 
 temple at Karnak. 2 
 
 1 Hist. Anc, torn. ii. 
 p. 291. 
 
 2 See Champollion, No- 
 tices, torn. ii. p. 185 ; 
 Maspero, Aeg. Zeit., 1879, 
 p. 55 ff. ; Wiedemann, Aeg. 
 Gesch., p. 373 ; and Erman, 
 Aeg. Zeit., 1889 ; p. 39 ff. 
 
 Gray diorite ushabti figure of king Anien- 
 hetep II., inscribed with a text of the Vlth 
 Chapter of the Book of the Dead. 
 British Museum, No. 35,365. 
 
72 
 
 FIGHT WITH NOMADIC TRIBES [B.C. 1500 
 
 From this we learn that Amen-hetep II. marched 
 first of all to the country of Shemshu-atu-ma, 
 
 oo |^ on ^ (j * ^ where he fought like 
 
 a "fierce lion," and defeated the enemy, and took many 
 prisoners ; the net result was the capture of 18 
 prisoners alive and 16 oxen. On the 26th day of the 
 first month of the season Shemut, his majesty passed 
 
 over the arm of the Orontes, & Z) crS^ tj ( g t 
 
 mashetet Arenth, and having led his army across, he 
 began to march through the land with the valour of 
 the god Menthu ; as he was journeying along, probably 
 well in advance of the main body of his troops, he 
 perceived 1 at a distance a number of nomads, mounted 
 on horses, who were coming to meet him, with the view 
 of preventing any further advance on his part. His 
 majesty then made ready his weapons of war, and 
 charged into the body of nomads, and laid about him 
 with such vigour that the court scribe, who drew up 
 this account of the fight, declared he was as terrible as 
 the god Set when in a fierce rage. As soon as his 
 majesty cast one glance of his eyes upon them they 
 fled, and he seized all their goods, and taking the 
 nomad chief with him, he led him to the frontiers of 
 . . . and disarmed him. Among the spoil which the 
 
 1 Erman's suggestion that the king only descried this body of 
 men by sweeping the horizon with his eyes shaded by his hand is 
 probably correct ; in any case it is what every traveller in the 
 desert does to-day, and it has always been the custom of the natives 
 to keep watch and look out in this way. 
 
B.C. 1500] 
 
 REBELLION OF AKATHI 
 
 73 
 
 king took are mentioned 12 bows, a quiver full of 
 arrows, and its leather straps, etc. Amen-hetep then 
 returned to Thebes in peace, and celebrated a festival 
 in honour of the god Amen, to whom he made a 
 suitable offering. It is easy to see that the body of 
 Asiatics that the king met belonged to a caravan, which 
 they were escorting from one place to another, and that 
 this encounter, which was thought to deserve commemo- 
 ration on a granite stele in the temple of Amen, was 
 nothing more than one of a series of attacks, similar to 
 those which are perpetrated daily in the East by 
 marauding Arabs, who live by attacking caravans. 
 
 From the end of the inscription we learn that on the 
 10th day of the third month of the season Shemut, the 
 king arrived at the city of Ni, which was very near or 
 actually on the Euphrates, and the inhabitants, both 
 male and female, took up their places on the walls and 
 sang songs of praise to him. Finally a place called 
 Akathi, (j ^ , which until the coming of the king- 
 had been in a state of rebellion, became tranquil as he 
 approached, and, no doubt, gave the customary gifts to 
 him. The expedition of Amen-hetep into Syria and 
 the neighbourhood cannot be regarded as a campaign, 
 for there was no serious fighting to be done, because 
 the inhabitants of the cities and the nomad tribes had 
 not had time to prepare for revolt on a large scale, and 
 the remembrance of the tribute which they had been 
 compelled to pay by Thothmes III., and of the swift 
 punishments which came upon them when they tried to 
 
74 
 
 THE STELE OF 'AMADA [B.C. 1500 
 
 evade it, was too fresh in their memories for them to 
 wish to fight just then. The results of the expedition 
 were rather moral than material, and it served chiefly 
 to prove to the Syrians and others that the new king 
 of Egypt was willing and able to come to the country 
 as quickly as his father had done ; on the other hand, 
 the king obtained a large number of gifts from the 
 governors of cities and the heads of tribes. Keference 
 is made to this war in an inscription which the king 
 ordered to be cut upon a stele in the temple of 'Amada 
 in Nubia, and from this we obtain some interesting- 
 details. This temple was founded in the reign of 
 Usertsen II., but had fallen out of repair, and was in 
 a state of ruin until Thothmes III. undertook its 
 restoration. When Amen-hetep returned from Syria 
 he went to 'Amada, and celebrated the festival of the 
 laying of the foundation stone on the 15th day of the 
 third month of the season Shemut, in the third year of 
 his reign, and he formally offered to the god of the 
 temple the repairs which Thothmes III. had made, 
 and the additions to it made by himself. These 
 additions were very considerable, as we may see 
 from the first fifteen lines of the stele. Following 
 the description of these we have the statement that he 
 made this stele 1 " after his majesty came from Upper 
 
 I AAAAAA 
 
 iii. pi. 65. 
 
 0 ^ ]j : < ~^ > ^ ^ » Lepsius, Denkmdler, 
 
B.C. 1500] SLAUGHTER OF SEVEN KINGS 
 
 75 
 
 "Kethennu, ? > Q V\ r^M v , having over- 
 
 " thrown all his enemies and made broader the 
 "frontiers of Egypt in his first victorious campaign. 
 " His majesty came with a heart expanded with 
 "joy to father Amen, [for] he had slain seven 
 " chiefs with his own club when they were living in 
 " the country of Thekhsi, and he hung them up 
 "head downwards at the bows of his majesty's boat, 
 "which bore the name of ' Ea-aa-kheperu-smen-taui/ 
 
 "(of $ ;] [1 ™ } ^ Six of these he had 
 
 " stretched out high up on the walls which were opposite 
 " to the pylon of Thebes, together with their hands, 
 " and the other he placed in a boat and had conveyed 
 " to the rebel chief of Ta-kens, i.e., Nubia, and hung 
 
 /VAAAAA 
 
 "upon the walls of the city of Napata, 1 Q ^ so 
 "that all the folk there might understand the mighty 
 " acts and deeds [of the king] for ever and for ever in 
 " all the countries of the world, and in all the 
 " mountainous desert lands of the country of the 
 
 " Negroes, ^ |1 , and might know that he had 
 
 " grasped with his hands and conquered the Aamu (i.e., 
 " the nomads of the eastern frontier), and the northern 
 "folk who lived away in the swamps in the most 
 "remote parts of the country." The countries over 
 which Amen-hetep claimed to have made himself 
 
 1 A large Nubian city not far from Gebel Earkal. 
 
y6 BUILDINGS OF AMEN-HETEP II. [B.C. 1500 
 
 master are enumerated in a scene in a tomb at Kiirna, 
 published by Lepsius, 1 and are as follows : — Retennu, 
 Mennu, Kefti, Neherna, Menti, Anti of Kenset, 
 Thehennu, Pat, Tares, Sekhet-Am, and Ta-meht, i.e., 
 Nubia, the Eastern Desert, Libya, the Oases, the lands 
 of the northern shores of the Mediterranean, Palestine, 
 Syria, and Babylonia. The building operations of 
 Amen-hetep do not seem to have been conducted on a 
 very large scale, although his name is found in several 
 of the ancient shrines throughout the length and 
 breadth of Egypt. As he worked the quarries at 
 Tura it would seem, as Wiedemann supposes, that he 
 must have repaired some of the old buildings of 
 Memphis, but no trace of such remains. At Karnak he 
 built between two pylons of an old temple a small 
 temple, which seems never to have been finished. This 
 building consisted of a gallery with fourteen square 
 pillars ornamented with reliefs, a hall, entered through 
 a granite door, with a roof supported by sixteen square 
 columns, and a series of small chambers which flank the 
 hall. The bas-reliefs are good, and some of them are 
 coloured. On one of the large pylons he had sculptured 
 on each side of the gateway a scene in which he is 
 depicted in the act of slaughtering his enemies. He 
 repaired or added to the temples at Hermonthis, 
 Elephantine, and at all the principal sites between the 
 First and Second Cataracts, and he caused some works 
 
 Derikmaler, iii. pi. 63. 
 
B.C. 1500] 
 
 HIS MUMMY AND TOMB 
 
 77 
 
 to be carried out at Kummeh, where he is depicted in 
 the act of pouring out libations to the god Khnemu, 
 and of making offerings of various kinds. The mummy 
 of Amen-hetep II. was discovered in his tomb in the 
 Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, by 
 M. Loret, early in the year 1898. The tomb much 
 resembled that of his father, Thothmes III., and its 
 walls are ornamented with a large series of figures of 
 the gods and with the text of the great funereal work 
 entitled, " The Book of [knowing] that which is in the 
 underworld." In the tomb were found three mummies, 
 each with a large hole in the skull, and a gash 
 in the breast ; fragments of a pink leather cuirass 
 worn by the king ; a series of statues of Sekhet, 
 Anubis, Osiris, Horus, Ptah, etc.; a set of Canopic 
 vases, and amulets of all kinds ; a large series of 
 alabaster vessels ; and a collection of mummies of 
 kings and royal personages, whose names have 
 already been enumerated. The funeral chapel which 
 Amen-hetep built for himself was near that ot 
 Thothmes III., and its remains may be seen close to 
 the Eamesseum. 
 
 Ra-men-kheperu, son of the Sun, Tehtjti-mes-kha- 
 
 KHAU. 
 
7 8 
 
 REIGN OF THOTHMES IV. [B.C. 1166 
 
 1 1 1 
 
 m 
 
 Ka-NKKHT-TI'T- 
 
 khau, the 
 Horus name of 
 Thothmes IV r . 
 
 crowns, 
 
 or 
 
 Tehuti-mes IV., or Thothmes IV., 
 the Tovd/jLwaLS of Manetho, is said to 
 have reigned nine years, but of the events 
 of his reign hardly anything is known. 
 In addition to his Horus name "Mighty 
 Bull, form of risings [like the Sun]," he 
 adopted as his titles, " He who is doubly 
 stable in his kingdom like the god 
 Temu," 1 " Lord of the shrines of Nek- 
 hebet and Uatchet," "Horus of gold, 
 mighty one of strength, destroyer of 
 the Nine Bows" (or Bat), 2 "Crown of 
 " The one who riseth with risings " ; the 
 last title he often introduced into the cartouche con- 
 taining his name Thothmes. 3 Judging from a scene 
 which is cut on a rock on Konosso, a little island in the 
 Nile which lies at the northern end of the Island of 
 Bhilae, Thothmes IV. must have undertaken an expedi- 
 tion into Nubia in the seventh year of his reign. Here 
 we see the king in the act of slaying two Nubians with 
 his club in the presence of the Nubian god Tetun, 
 
 Bu -^Su, and the god Khas, ^f - ; these gods declare 
 that they have given to the king all the Anti tribes of 
 Nubia, and every foreign land. 1 On an inscription 
 
 ] 
 
 3 An interesting variant of his prcnomen is 
 Bien-khepern-Sa, prince of Law." 
 
 4 Lepsius, Denhndler, iii. pi. 69 e. 
 
B.C. 1466] HIS EXPEDITION INTO NUBIA 
 
 79 
 
 in the temple at 'Arnada in Nubia, Thothmes IV. is 
 described as the " Beautiful god, the valiant one in 
 "very truth, the conqueror (or destroyer) of Kesh 
 " (Kush) ^Jvj, who maketh the frontiers thereof to 
 " be as if they had never existed, the mighty king by 
 "reason of his bravery like the god Menthu. firm of 
 " heart among the multitudes, crusher of all foreign 
 " lands " ; 1 and thus it seems as if the king made the 
 raid which the Egyptian kings usually made into 
 Nubia in the course of their reigns, whereby they 
 obtained much spoil. In an inscription, dated in the 
 ninth year of the king, published by M. de Morgan, 
 mention is made how Thothmes IV. sailed into Nubia 
 and conquered all the tribes there and also in all 
 foreign countries, and how Ka made him to be feared 
 like Sekhet. 2 That Thothmes IV. made an expedition 
 
 into Tchahi, J or Ph° en i c i a > is proved by the 
 
 inscriptions on the tomb of the scribe Tchanni, 
 
 at Thebes, 3 wherein he says that 
 
 he followed his master there, and that he registered the 
 names of large numbers of soldiers [there], and that 
 the king laid waste the gardens and orchards there, 
 and compelled the nobles of the country to bring 
 tribute to him. Another witness of the expedition into 
 
 1 Lepsius, Denkmaler, iii. pi. 69/. 
 
 2 J. de Morgan, Catalogue, pp. 66, 67. 
 
 3 Chanipollion, Monuments, p. 831 ; the most recent description 
 of the tomb is by Scheil, Miss. Arch. Francaise, torn. v. p. 592. 
 
 J /WWVA /WWSA 
 
80 THOTHMES IV. CLEARS THE SPHINX [B.C. 1466 
 
 Syria is the stele of Amen-hetep, the high priest of the 
 
 god An-her, ^=1 , who says that he was a follower 
 
 of his (i.e., Thothmes IV.) footsteps in the foreign 
 lands " of the south and north [when] he went into 
 
 " Neherin, r— , \\ r^^i , and Kari, (1(1 t^a 
 
 I L J WAAA < Z> | | 
 
 the two countries which represented the limits of Egypt 
 to the north and south respectively. 1 
 
 The name of Thothmes IV. is found on the walls of 
 the temples at many places in Egypt and Nubia, but 
 his contribution to the buildings of Karnak was com- 
 paratively small, consisting as it did of a part of the wall 
 which encloses the obelisks that were set up by Hat- 
 shepset, and the inscribing of a list of gifts which he 
 made to the god Amen when he returned from one of his 
 successful raids. In his short reign of nine years it was 
 impossible for him to erect a large temple whereon to in- 
 scribe a record of his raids or expeditions into Nubia 
 and Syria, and it is probable that he had no great wish 
 to do so, inasmuch as he saw that both these countries 
 had been subdued by his predecessors, and that he was 
 reaping the benefits which accrued through their labours. 
 
 One of the works which he undertook will, how- 
 ever, keep his memory green for centuries, that is 
 to say, the clearing away of the sand from the Sphinx 
 at Gizeh. We have already mentioned in con- 
 nexion with the Pyramids at Gizeh, that the early 
 history of this remarkable object is unknown, and that 
 
 1 Sharpe, Egyptian Inscriptions, pi. 93, lines 5, 6. 
 
VOL. IV. 
 
 a 
 
82 
 
 HISTORY OF THE SPHINX 
 
 [B.C. 1466 
 
 different views as to its age exist ; the view held by 
 those whom we should naturally expect to be the best 
 judges is that the Sphinx dates from the period of the 
 Early Empire, and that it is as old as the IVth Dynasty, 
 or older, but a recent theory declares that it was made 
 in the Xllth Dynasty by Amenemhat III. It is, of 
 course, a curious thing that no mention is made of this 
 monument in the early hieroglyphic inscriptions, but it 
 is quite likely that it was wholly buried in sand, and 
 that it was forgotten for centuries. 
 
 In 1817 Caviglia was carrying on excavations 
 at the Pyramids, and at about this time turned his 
 attention to the digging out of the Sphinx from 
 the sand in which it was buried. In the course 
 of his work he discovered a flight of steps leading 
 up to the monument, and between the paws of the 
 Sphinx a well-laid pavement; passing to the end of 
 the pavement nearest its breast were the remains of 
 what had once evidently been a small open temple. 
 Between the paws of the Sphinx is an altar of red 
 granite, and immediately in front of its breast is a huge 
 red granite tablet, fourteen feet in height, upon which 
 is inscribed the account of how Thothmes IV. dug the 
 Sphinx out of the sand. On the upper portion of the 
 tablet is a vaulted sky, beneath which is the winged disk 
 of Heru-Behutet with pendent uraei. Beneath these 
 are two scenes in which Thothmes IV. is seen making 
 an offering of incense and pouring out a libation before 
 two human-headed lions, or sphinxes, couchant upon 
 
B.C. 1466] THE TABLET OF THE SPHINX 
 
 83 
 
 pedestals, who are the visible types of Heru-eru-khut, 
 
 (Oi , or Harmachis. Between these is a 
 
 vertical line of hieroglyphics which reads, " I grant that 
 " Ba-men-kheperu-Tehuti-mes-kha-khau shall rise like 
 " the sun upon the throne of the god Seb, and that he 
 " shall attain to the rank of the god Tern ; " one sphinx 
 says, " I give victory to the lord of the two lands, 
 " Thothnies, who riseth with risings like [those of] the 
 " sun," and the other says, " I give life and power unto 
 " the lord of the two lands, Thothmes, who riseth with 
 " risings like [those] of the sun." Below these scenes 
 are several lines of text/ from which the following 
 facts are drawn : — 
 
 The tablet was set up on the 19th day of the third 
 month of the season Shat in the first year of the 
 king's reign, and after enumerating a number of high- 
 flown titles which identify Thothmes IV. with several 
 of the gods, e.g., "Beautiful god, the son of Tern, the 
 " avenger of Heru-khuti (Harmachis), the living sphinx, 
 
 " ■¥-, of Neb-er-tcher," the text goes on to say, 
 
 "Behold, his Majesty was like a babe, (J S), like 
 
 " Horus the Child among the papyrus swamps." And, 
 " Behold, he made a hunt in order that he might give 
 " his heart pleasure in the desert country round about 
 "Memphis (literally, the White Wall), and along its 
 
 1 See Lepsius, Denkmaler, iii. pi. 68 ; and for the text see 
 Brngsch, Aeg. Zeitschrift, 1876, p. 89. 
 
8 4 
 
 HERUKHUTI-KHEPERA-RA-TEMU [B.C. 1466 
 
 "roads, which went south and north, in order that he 
 
 "might practise shooting at a target, ^ JJ with 
 
 " [arrows tipped with] copper. And he hunted the lions 
 " and gazelle in the mountains, and he used to drive 
 " away in his chariot [which was drawn by] horses that 
 "were fleeter than the wind; and he would have with 
 "him two attendants, and no man was able to know 
 "where he went with them. And it came to pass that 
 " once when it was the hour for allowing his servants to 
 "rest, he wished to perform an act of worship to 
 " Harmachis at the shrine of Seker in the underworld, 
 "and to make an offering of cornflowers, and to pray to 
 "the goddess Isis, the lady of the North Wall and of 
 
 " the South Wall, and to Sekhet of Xois ^ 1, and to Set. 
 
 " Now a great magical power 1 had existed in this place 
 " from the beginning of all time, and it extended over all 
 " the region as far as Kher-Ahaut wherefrom led the 
 " road of the gods unto the western border of heaven, 
 " Heliopolis. And at this time the Sphinx form of the 
 " most mighty god Khepera came unto this place, and 
 " the greatest of the Souls, and the holiest of the holy 
 " ones rested therein, and the inhabitants of all the city 
 " of Memphis and in all the towns in his territory round 
 " about raised their hands in adoration unto him, and 
 " brought rich offerings unto his ka (or double)." One 
 day the king was hunting in this neighbourhood about 
 
 I.e., a spell had been laid on the country. 
 
B.C. 1466] APPEARS TO THOTHMES IV. 
 
 85 
 
 the time of noon, and he halted to rest under the shadow 
 of the Sphinx ; whilst he was resting sleep overcame 
 him, and he dreamed a dream just at the time when the 
 sun reached his highest point in the heavens. He 
 thought that the majesty of the venerable god came to 
 him and began to speak to him face to face, even as a 
 father speaketh to his son, saying, " Behold me, 0 my 
 " son Thothmes, I am thy father Heru-khuti-Khepera- 
 " Ea-Temu, and unto thee shall it be granted to sit upon 
 " my throne and to rule among the living, and thou shalt 
 " wear upon thy head the crowns of the South and of the 
 " North, and thou shalt sit upon the throne of Seb, the 
 " prince of the gods. Every country upon which the 
 "light of Neb-er-tcher, i.e., the god of the universe, 
 " falleth shall be thine throughout its length and breadth, 
 " and whatsoever is produced by the two lands shall be 
 " thine, together with tribute from the other countries 
 " of the world, and thou shalt live countless years of 
 " life. My face is turned towards thee, and my heart is 
 " set towards thee for good, and thou art indeed enveloped 
 " by my being. But the sand whereon I have my being 
 " hath closed me in on all sides ; say unto me that thou 
 " wilt do for me all that I desire, and then I shall know 
 " that thou art indeed my son and he that will help me. 
 " Draw nigh unto me, and I will be with thee, and I 
 " will guide thee." 
 
 When the god had said these words Thothmes 
 woke up, and took heed to the words of the god, 
 and pondered on the meaning thereof. Then he rose 
 
86 
 
 THOTHMES IV. CLEARS AWAY [B.C. 1466 
 
 up and made offerings to the god, and determined 
 to do what the god had asked him to do. The 
 lower portion of the stele from which the above facts 
 are derived is broken away, and the last few lines on 
 the portion which remains are in a very fragmentary 
 state, but the few legible words in line 14 tell us that 
 the Sphinx was made by king Khaf-Kii, and that it was 
 the image of the god Temu-Harmachis. This piece of 
 information is very important, for it proves that in the 
 XVIIIth Dynasty the priests of Memphis or Heliopolis, 
 who advised the king to undertake the work of clearing 
 away the sand from the Sphinx, believed that it was 
 the image of Temu-Harmachis, and that it was 
 fashioned by Khaf-Ka, the builder of the second 
 pyramid at Gizeh about two thousand years before that 
 date. There is no reason for believing that the stele 
 which we have been considering is not authentic, or 
 that the text on it is not genuine, and there is nothing 
 strange about the king's resolve to clear away the sand, 
 except that it might be considered a comparatively 
 trivial task for Thothmes to undertake. It was not, 
 however, a trivial task, for even in the days when 
 unlimited labour could be obtained for nothing the 
 removal of hundreds of thousands of tons of sand was 
 no small matter, and it must have entailed considerable 
 expense ; from many points of view, however, the 
 inscription is of great interest, especially as we gather 
 from it that Thothmes seems at one time to have been 
 in doubt as to his succession to the throne of his 
 
B.C. 1466] THE SAND FROM THE SPHINX 87 
 
 father Amen-hetep II. He was the son of Amen- 
 lietep II. by a wife who was not of royal rank, and the 
 text on the stele of the Sphinx seems to indicate that 
 he would become king only on the condition that he 
 cleared away the sand from the image of Temu- 
 Harmachis, and so restored the worship of the god. 
 From this it would also seem that the priests of Annu, 
 or Heliopolis, promised to give Thothmes their assist- 
 ance, provided he cleared out and restored the sanctuary 
 of the form of the Sun-god which they worshipped, 
 and when we consider that the king's ancestors had 
 been firm and zealous worshippers of the god Amen 
 or Amen-Ra, it is a remarkable fact that he performed 
 this work, unless he received great assistance from 
 them in obtaining the throne. It may be that 
 Thothmes preferred the worship of the old Heliopolitan 
 gods to that of Amen-Ra, and that the priests of 
 Heliopolis, knowing this, persuaded him to help to 
 restore the worship of one of the oldest gods of the 
 northern kingdom. On the other hand, we know that 
 the heresy of the Aten worshippers, which culminated 
 in the reign of Amen-hetep IV., was akin in some 
 respects to the old worship of Aten, and as this 
 heresy was introduced into Egypt by the princesses 
 from Mesopotamia who married kings of Egypt, 
 it may be that Thothmes IV. supported the priests 
 of Heliopolis because their cult resembled that of 
 his chief wife, who came from Mitanni, or Western 
 Babylonia. 
 
88 
 
 THOTHMES IV. AND ARTATAMA [B.C. 1466 
 
 Whether Thothmes IV. was the first of the kings of 
 Egypt who entered into friendly relations with the kings 
 of Babylonia (Karaduniyash) and Mitanni (Mathen) 
 cannot be said, but we know that in his reign such 
 relations existed, and that they continued during the 
 reigns of two of his successors. Thus in the Tell 
 el-'Aniarna tablet, Berlin, No. 24, 1 Tushratta, the king 
 of Mitanni, says in the third and fourth paragraphs of 
 his epistle to Amen-hetep IV., " Now, my brother, let 
 "the friendship which existeth between me and thee be 
 "ten times stronger than that which existed between 
 " thy father Nimmuriya 2 and myself. In all the 
 " dealings which he had with me he never caused me 
 "sorrow by any word which he spake, and I never 
 "caused him sorrow by any word which I spake; 
 "whatsoever I asked him to do that he did on that 
 " very day, and whatsoever he asked me to do that 
 " I did on that very day. When the father of 
 " Nimmuriya (i.e. Thothmes IV.) sent to Artatama my 
 "grandfather and asked for his daughter to wife my 
 " grandfather refused his request, and though he sent 
 " the fifth time, and the sixth time, he would not give 
 "her to him. It was only after he had sent [the 
 " seventh time] that he gave her to him, being [com- 
 " pelled for many reasons] to give her." Thus we have 
 direct evidence that Thothmes IV. married a princess 
 
 1 Winckler, Die Thontafeln von Tell-el-Amarna, p. 51. 
 
B.C. 1566] 
 
 QUEEN MUT-EM-UA 
 
 8 9 
 
 of Mitanni, and some have thought that she is to be 
 identified 1 with the queen whom the Egyptians called 
 
 " divine wife Mut-em-ua ^ ^ ( ^^^ ^nJ] ." The 
 
 friendly relations which existed between the courts of 
 Babylonia and Egypt are referred to in another Tell 
 el-'Amarna letter, Brit. Mus. No. 29,786, 2 and Burra- 
 buriyash, writing to Amen-hetep IV., says, " From the 
 " time of Kara-indash, 3 when your father's envoys came 
 " to my fathers, even unto the present time our relations 
 "have been friendly, and you and I also are on friendly 
 "terms; your envoys have come to me three times, 
 "but they have brought me no rich gift, and I on 
 "my part also have sent you no rich gift. If I am 
 "refused nothing I will refuse nothing." Thus we 
 may see that in the reign of Thothmes IV. a great 
 king of Mesopotamia sought to gain the favour of 
 the Pharaoh of all Egypt by giving him his daughter 
 in marriage. 
 
 neb, son of the Sun, Amen-iietep-heq-Uast. 
 
 1 See Aeg. Zeitschrift, vol. 28, p. 112 f. ; and also Maspero, Hist. 
 Anc, torn. ii. p. 295. 
 
 2 Bezold-Budge, Tell el-Amarna Tablets in the British Museum, 
 p. xxxi. 
 
 3 Kara-indash was the grandfather of Burraburiyash. 
 
go THE REIGN OF AMEN-HETEP III. [B.C. 1450 
 
 Ka-nekht-kh!- 
 em-Uast, 
 the Horns name of 
 Amen-hetep III. 
 
 Amen-hetep III., or Amenophis III., 
 was the son of Thothines IV. and queen 
 Mut-em-ua, and as Hatshepset maintained 
 that the god Amen became incarnate in 
 her earthly father at the time when she 
 was begotten, and was therefore her true- 
 father, so Amen-hetep III. declared that 
 the god Amen became incarnate in his 
 father Thothmes IV., and that he was the 
 offspring of the union of Amen and the 
 queen Mut-em-ua. 1 Amen-hetep III., 
 or 'A/jLer(0(f)L<;, reigned thirty-one years, 
 according to Manetho, but the monuments prove that 
 his reign was nearer forty than thirty years. He was 
 crowned king on the 13th day of the third month of 
 the season Sheniut, soon after his father's death, and it 
 is probable that he was not twenty years of age. His 
 Horus names were seven in number, and he adopted as 
 his titles, "Mighty Bull, rising [like the sun] with 
 Maat (or, diademed with Maat) " ; "He who uniteth the 
 
 white crown, beloved of Heliopolis," 
 
 " The stable one of many years 
 
 <£K Js37 ; -'Mighty Bull, 
 
 far-reaching," ^ ^J] ^ w fa ; 
 
 prince of princes," j fjj, 
 
 fff 
 
 and festivals," 
 whose power is 
 
 "Mighty Bull, 
 
 "Mighty Bull, 
 
 1 Copies of the reliefs illustrating this will be found in Rosellini, 
 Monumenti Reali, plates 38-41; Lepsius, Denhmdlef? iii. 74, 75; etc. 
 
g2 GREAT PROSPERITY OF EGYPT [B.C. 1450 
 
 the form of risings [like the sun]," f] o ^ ^ ^ ; 
 
 "Prince of all living kau^ ^ ^ ^ j ^ ; 
 
 " Lord of the shrines of Nekhebet and Uatchet ; " " The 
 Horus of gold, stablisher of laws, snbduer of the two 
 lands, great one, smiter of the Asiatics ; " " Mighty one 
 of monuments, unifier of the two lands, whose might 
 extendeth from Heliopolis to Hermonthis, smiter of the 
 Menti, subduer of the Libyans, subduer of the Pati, 
 conqueror of the Anti of Nubia, king of kings, avenger 
 of the gods, lord of Kenset, great god," etc. Amen- 
 hetep III. was, undoubtedly, one of the greatest of the 
 kings of Egypt, and in his long reign the country 
 attained to a state of prosperity and greatness the like 
 of which had never before been seen therein. He con- 
 solidated the empire which his great ancestors had won, 
 and although, with one exception, he carried on no 
 great wars, his supremacy was recognized from the 
 most southerly limit of Nubia known to the Egyptians 
 to the northernmost parts of Syria and Mesopotamia. 
 Vassal nations paid to him the appointed tribute un- 
 hesitatingly, because they knew that they had to deal 
 with the representative of a power which in the past 
 had smitten them swiftly, hard, and often, and because 
 they believed that representative was prepared to 
 smite them as swiftly and as hard again. Under the 
 strong but peaceful rule of Amen-hetep trade between 
 Egypt and her neighbours flourished, and king and 
 subject mutually benefited by the wealth which was 
 
B.C. 1*50] 
 
 EXPEDITION INTO NUBIA 
 
 93 
 
 poured into the country from her possessions in 
 Asia. 
 
 During the first four years of the reign of Amen-hetep 
 the peace of Egypt remained undisturbed, but in the fifth 
 year a rebellion of some magnitude broke out in Nubia, 
 and it was necessary for the king to go and inflict upon 
 the tribes there the punishment which had to be 
 inflicted by every new king of Egypt. The centre of 
 the part of the country which had broken into rebellion 
 was Abhat, a district which seems to have been situ- 
 ated in the Eastern Desert about thirty miles south of 
 Behen, or the modern town of Wadi Haifa. To this 
 place the king marched, and, having joined his forces 
 to those of Merimes, the "Prince of Kush," he did 
 battle with the Nubians, and defeated them utterly ; 
 the sticks, staves, and clubs of the Nubian tribes could 
 resist but weakly the metal weapons of the Egyptians, 
 and the troops of Pharaoh were accustomed to conquer. 
 The booty captured in this campaign was great, and 
 among other things it included about 750 prisoners ; 
 the hands cut off were over three hundred, so we know 
 that at least that number of rebels were killed. This 
 raid must have been on a large scale, and the 
 Egyptians were proud of their success, which they 
 described in the usual way by cutting inscriptions on 
 the rocks on the little Island of Konosso, 1 and at 
 
 1 See J. de Morgan, Catalogue, p. 67 ; and Lepsius, Denkmaler, 
 iii. pi. 82 a. 
 
94 
 
 THE TEMPLE AT SOLEB [B.C. 1450 
 
 Aswan, 1 and on a large stele at Semneh, in the Second 
 Cataract. To commemorate this success the king built 
 a large temple, with two pylons, and two courts, and 
 two hypostyle halls, at Menen-en-kha-em-Maat, near 
 the modern village of Soleb, and not far from the head 
 of the Third Cataract ; it was the largest Egyptian 
 building ever erected in Nubia, and was over three 
 hundred feet in length. Upon the pylons are 
 sculptured scenes in which the king is represented in 
 the act of smiting the heads of a group of his foes in 
 the traditional manner, and a list of the names of the 
 Nubian tribes that he had conquered. The ruins of 
 the temple buildings are still very considerable, and 
 are unquestionably the best preserved of all the 
 Egyptian monuments in Nubia, a result which is due 
 to the fact that the building lies some distance from 
 native villages, and the people have found the task of 
 carrying away the stones too heavy for them. The 
 larger columns are nearly seven feet in diameter. The 
 use of this temple was twofold ; it served to remind the 
 natives of their conqueror, and in time of need parts of 
 it could easily be made into a fortress. The inhabi- 
 tants of the country, seeing the large figures of the 
 king on the pylons, would attach a superstitious 
 importance to them, and the building, which would 
 appear massive to natives who were accustomed to live 
 in tents and huts made of palm branches and reeds, 
 indicated the presence of a power in the land which 
 
 1 Lepsius, op. cit. t iii. pi. 81 7i. 
 
B.C. 1450] THE WIVES OF AMEN-HETEP III. 95 
 
 was to be permanent. This is the view taken by the 
 natives of the Eastern Sudan of the huge red brick 
 palace which Lord Kitchener built at Khartum, and it 
 is more than probable that both Amen-hetep III. and 
 his modern representative, the Sirdar, were as mindful 
 of the moral effect which their buildings would have 
 upon the natives as of the practical uses to which the 
 edifices themselves could be put. 
 
 In Palestine, Syria, and Western Babylonia 
 Amen-hetep III. had no need to make raids, for the 
 tribute was regularly paid to Egypt by the vassal 
 chiefs of these countries. The relations which he 
 maintained with the great kings of Western Asia 
 were of a very friendly character, and the Tell 
 el-'Amarna tablets prove that Kallimma-Sin, or 
 Kadashman-Bel, 1 king of Karaduniyash (Babylonia), 
 and Tushratta, king of Mitanni, were connexions of his 
 by marriage. Thus Amen-hetep III. married a sister 
 of Kallimma-Sin, and from the information given in 
 the draft of his own letter to this king (Brit. Mus. 
 No. 29,784) we know that Amen-hetep III. also 
 married one, if not two, of the Babylonian king's 
 daughters. He married, but apparently not with her 
 father's full consent, a daughter of Shutarna, king of 
 Mitanni, and also a daughter of Tushratta, the son 
 and successor of Shutarna; that Amen-hetep III. 
 
 1 This is probably the correct reading of the king's name, but as 
 the reading Kallimma-Sin is now well-known it has been used in 
 this work. 
 
9 6 
 
 GILUKHIPA, TATUM-KHIPA, THI [B.C. 1450 
 
 married two princesses of Mitanni is proved by the 
 fourth paragraph of Tushratta's letter to Amen-hetep 
 IV. (Berlin, No. 21). Tushratta's sister was called 
 Gilukhipa, and she is mentioned in the inscription on 
 one of the sets of royal scarabs which Amen-hetep III. 
 caused to be made, in these words : — " they brought to 
 " his majesty the daughter of Satharna, the prince of 
 
 "Neherna, the lady Gilukhipa, ^ ^fj, and 
 
 "her principal women, who were 317 in number." 
 Tushratta's daughter was called Tatum-khipa, a fact 
 which we learn from the last lines of the Berlin tablet, 
 No. 296, wherein we have, following after the list of 
 the things, this statement : — " This is a complete list 
 "of all the wedding gifts which Tushratta, king of 
 "Mitanni, gave to Nimmuriya (Amen-hetep III.) his 
 " brother, his son-in-law ; he gave these gifts when he 
 " gave his daughter Tatum-khipa to Nimmuriya in 
 " Egypt to wife." But of all the Mesopotamian or 
 North Syrian women whom Amen-hetep married, the 
 best beloved was the beautiful Thi, or Tiii, whose 
 name appears in the Egyptian texts under the form 
 
 Qj (| [] \\ ^jj , and in the Tell el-'Amarna tablets as 
 
 j^- ^| £:J^ . None of the other Asiatic wives was 
 acknowledged to be " Queen of Egypt," this honour 
 being reserved solely for the lady Thi. Her father's 
 
 name was Iuaa, ^ [j ^jj^ and her mother's 
 Thuaa, s=> ^ (j ^fj; she seems not to have 
 
9§ 
 
 SCARABS OF AMEN-HETEP III. [B.C. 1450 
 
 belonged to any royal house in Mesopotamia, but it is 
 perfectly certain that she was accorded the highest 
 rank and honour which a woman could obtain in 
 Egypt, where she is described as "royal daughter, 
 "royal sister, royal mother, royal wife, great lady, 
 lady of the South and North." The lady with 
 whom she is identified is represented as having a 
 fair complexion and blue eyes, and she has all the 
 physical characteristics of the women belonging to 
 certain families who may be seen in north-eastern 
 Syria to this day. Thi was the mother of Amen- 
 hetep IV., and of his sister Amen-sat, and Amen-hetep 
 III. gave her name prominence everywhere equal to 
 that of his own. It has been commonly said that he 
 married her in the tenth year of his reign, but there is 
 no evidence for this statement, because the large 
 scarabs which are quoted in proof say nothing of the 
 kind. These scarabs are of four kinds ; one kind is 
 dated in the tenth, and one in the eleventh year of his 
 reign, and two kinds are undated. The text on the 
 first group of scarabs reads : — " Year tenth under the 
 "majesty of Horus, the mighty bull, diademed (or 
 "rising) with law, lord of the shrines of Nekhebet and 
 " Uatchet, establisher of laws, pacifier of the two lands, 
 "the Horus of gold, mighty of valour, smiter of the 
 "Asiatics, king of the South and North, the lord 
 " maker of created things, Neb-Maat-Ea, chosen of Ka, 
 " son of the Sun, Amen-hetep, prince of Thebes, giver 
 " of life ; the royal wife, the mighty lady, Thi, the 
 
B.C. 1450] AMEN-HETEP THE LION HUNTER 
 
 99 
 
 " living one — the name of her father was Iuaa, the 
 "name of her mother was Thuaa. Wonders. They 
 "brought to his majesty, life, strength, and health, 
 "Kirkipa (Grilukhipa) , the daughter of Satharna, the 
 " prince of Neherna, and all her chief women, 317 in 
 "number." Thus this scarab proves beyond a doubt 
 that Amen-hetep III. was in the tenth year of his 
 reign already married to Thi when Shutarna's daughter 
 Gilukhipa was brought to him in Egypt. The group 
 of scarabs dated in the eleventh year of his reign gives 
 the names and titles of himself and Thi in the same 
 way and in the same order as the class dated in the 
 tenth year, and then we are told on them that " his 
 "majesty ordered the making of a lake for the royal 
 " wife, the great lady, Thi, in her city (?) of Tcharukha. 
 "Its length was 3600 cubits, and its breadth 600 
 "cubits. The festival of inauguration was performed 
 "by his majesty on the 16th day of the third month of 
 " the season Shat, when his mujesty sailed over it in 
 "his boat called ' Aten-neferu/ " The two undated 
 classes of scarabs repeat the names and titles of the 
 king and Thi in the same way and in the same order, 
 but one class records that in the first ten years of 
 his reign Amen-hetep III. shot with his own hand, 
 
 J ^ = "~ ^Tt' one nun( ^ re( ^ an ^ * wo fi erce lions, 
 and the second that the frontiers of his kingdom 
 extended from Karei, ^ < ~j~ > (j (j rv^i } i u the extreme 
 
 south of Nubia, to Neharina, rrj ^ \\ \ (X) , 
 
ioo Amen-hetep the LION HUNTER [B.C. 1450 
 
 or Western Babylonia. Thns it is impossible to tell 
 from the large scarabs the year of the reign of Amen- 
 hetep III. in which he married Thi. 
 
 Scarab of Amen-hetep III., with text recording the daughter of 102 lions by the 
 king during the first ten years of his ieign. British Museum, Ko. 24,169. 
 
 The building operations of Amen-hetep III. were 
 many and rof various kinds, and remains of them are 
 to be fonnd from one end of Egypt and Nubia to the 
 
B.C. 1450] THE EXTENT OF HIS KINGDOM 
 
 IOI 
 
 other. In the early years of his reign he re-opened 
 the quarries of Tura to enable him to build the 
 Apis chapels of the Serapeum at Sakkara, the oldest 
 part of which dates from his reign, and the first Apis 
 
 Scarab of Amen-hetep EEL, inscribed with a statement as to tbe limits of his 
 kingdom. British Museum, No. 16,988. 
 
 Bull which was laid to rest there was deposited in its 
 subterranean chamber during his reign. 1 Inscriptions 
 in the Sinaitic Peninsula prove that work was carried 
 
 1 The Serapeum was excavated by Marietta in 1850. 
 
102 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR 
 
 [B.C. 1450 
 
 on there for the king in the 36th year of his reign, 
 and at Silsila and elsewhere the quarries were worked 
 continuously, so that abundant supply of good stone 
 might he forthcoming for his buildings at Thebes. At 
 Karnak he built a large pylon, and completed certain 
 works which had been begun in the reign or reigns of 
 his predecessors, and he cut inscriptions and sculptured 
 reliefs upon some of the walls of the great temple of 
 Amen-Ra which enumerate the various gifts that he 
 dedicated to the great god of Thebes, and illustrate the 
 great boat of the Sun which was employed in the 
 temple processions at that period. But the greatest of 
 all the buildings which he set up on the east bank of the 
 Nile at Thebes is the temple dedicated to the Theban 
 
 Triad of Atnen-Ea, f\ « <f |, M ut, ^ ~ |, and 
 
 Khensu, ^ 1 ^ ^ ' w hich was styled by its builder 
 " The House of Amen in the Northern Apt," and is 
 now known as the " Temple of Luxor." It was and 
 still is a wonderful building, and must have been the 
 handsomest temple at Thebes. It was nearly 500 feet 
 long and about 180 feet wide ; it was connected with 
 Karnak by means of a paved way, on each side of 
 which was arranged a row of rams with their faces 
 turned towards its main axis. It was added to by 
 Heru-em-heb, Seti I., Kameses II., and others, and it 
 must have been considered a shrine of great sanctity 
 for several hundreds of years. Amen-hetep's son, the 
 heretic king Amen-hetep IV., ordered the name and 
 
104 THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR [B.C. 1450 
 
 figure of Amen to be erased from the walls, and lie 
 built a shrine near the temple in honour of Aten ; at 
 his death, however, it was pulled down, and the stones 
 which formed it were used in other parts of the 
 building. The greatest injury to the temple was 
 wrought by the early Christians, who smashed statues, 
 disfigured bas-reliefs, and destroyed the shrines in it 
 with characteristic savage and ignorant zeal ; certain 
 parts of it they altered and turned into " churches." 
 In the sanctuary at the south end is a chamber in 
 which are depicted scenes of the transformation of 
 Amen, who under the form of Thothmes IV. becomes 
 the father of Amen-hetep III., and the conception, 
 birth, and rearing of the royal child. These scenes 
 are, of course, copied from those on the walls of the 
 temple of Der al-Bahari, which describe the divine 
 origin of the great queen Hatshepset. At Thebes Amen- 
 hetep III. built a temple in honour of the god Menthu, 
 and another to the goddess Mut, which he provided 
 with a large number of black basalt seated statues of 
 the goddess Sekhet, sphinxes, etc. 
 
 On the west bank of the Nile he built a large temple, 
 and in front of it he set up two colossal statues of him- 
 self, which are generally known throughout the world 
 as the "Colossi of Memnon." These statues are made 
 of quartzite sandstone, and when new were about 53 
 feet high, not, of course, including the crowns, which 
 were several feet in height ; the pedestals which sup- 
 port them are each a little over twelve feet high. The 
 
B.C. 1450] THE COLOSSI OF MEMNON 
 
 105 
 
 northern statue is the better preserved, and before it 
 was repaired by Septimius Severus it was said to emit a 
 sweet, sad note daily just after sunrise ; for this reason 
 the colossus became known as the vocal statue of 
 Memnon, the son of Tithonus and Eos, and brother of 
 Emathion. At a comparatively late period, when the 
 Greeks became acquainted with this fact, they identified 
 the statue with the son of Eos, although it was well 
 known that the statue was one intended to represent 
 Amen-hetep [III.]. The sound, which was heard by 
 many in ancient days, is variously described as the ring 
 of a piece of metal when struck, or a singing sound as 
 of a human voice, or a low soft sound from a horn, etc. 
 Many celebrated visitors to Egypt journeyed to Thebes 
 expressly to hear Memnon's note, but sometimes they 
 were disappointed ; apparently those who beard showed 
 their gratitude by inscribing verses of poetry on the 
 statue, but it is a noteworthy fact that of all the inscrip- 
 tions found on it only one is in the Egyptian language. 
 The upper part of the statue was cracked and thrown 
 down during an earthquake, B.C. 27, but an attempt to 
 make the damage good was made by Septimius Severus, 
 who built on the part of the statue in situ several layers 
 of sandstone, after which the sounds at sunrise were no 
 longer heard. 1 
 
 1 A great deal has been written about the cause of -the sound 
 emitted by the statue of Memnon, but every one who has passed the 
 night among the ruins of old stone buildings in the East is quite 
 familiar with the singing noises which detached pillars, statues, 
 and stones emit. I have heard such sounds come from the lime- 
 
io6 
 
 AMEN-HETEP SON OF HAP [B.C. 1450 
 
 The Egyptian official who was most concerned 
 in the building of the temple of the " Colossi 
 of Memnon " was Amen-hetep, the son of Hap, 1 
 and grandson of Kha-ern-Uast, an official of high 
 rank who flourished in the reign of Thothmes III. 
 The inscriptions found upon his broken statue 
 supply a considerable amount of information about 
 his duties, and it would seem that he was the king's 
 chief minister. After twenty-six lines of introductory 
 matter, in which Amen-hetep, the son of Hap, de- 
 scribes his own abilities and how the god Thoth had 
 given him the understanding which made him a most 
 valuable servant to his lord, and an adept in the know- 
 ledge of " divine books," he goes on to say that Amen- 
 hetep III. appointed him to be a royal scribe, and that 
 he became skilled in the "book of the god," and saw the 
 glories of Thoth, and knew all the deep mysteries of 
 literature, and that every secret thing was known to 
 him. He then became an orator, and the king promoted 
 him to be an inspector of the people, and he assessed 
 the taxes justly, and did this in such a way that the 
 people who were taxed applauded him. He appointed 
 
 stone pillars at Palmyra in the early morning, and from stones in 
 the Valley of Giran in the Singar Mountains, and in mountains 
 between Biredjik and Urfa, and at Aswan and at several places in 
 the Sudan. Dr. Brugsch also heard the same kind of sound in 
 the temple at Karnak. (Egypt, vol. i. p. 431.) 
 
 1 He was also surnamed Hui ; compare (J 
 
 1 1 1 mji*j 
 
 /wwv\ ^ D 
 
B.C. 1450] 
 
 THE COLOSSI OF MEMNON 
 
 IO7 
 
 inspectors to patrol the roads which led into foreign 
 lands, and to make the people dwell in their appointed 
 places on the east and west banks of the Nile, and they 
 were supposed to keep strict watch upon the nomads 
 
 called Nemausha, 
 
 o I 
 
 he also made men to keep watch over the river ways 
 
 The Colossi of Amen-lietep III. at Thebes. 
 
 From a photograph by A. Beato, Luxor. 
 
 into Egypt, and he was the captain of the company of 
 men who maimed the king's boats for this service. He 
 divined what his master wished to do in respect of the 
 people that were subject to him ; and he was in charge 
 of the prisoners taken by the king. In return for all 
 these services the king made him overseer of works, 
 
T08 AMEN-HETEP SON OF HAP [B.C. 1450 
 
 I mer hat, and the able servant made to live the 
 
 name of the great king for whom the mountains of sand- 
 stone had been created. He says, " Through the love 
 " which was in my heart I worked to make his two 
 " images in this his great temple from block[s] of stone 
 "each of which is as solid as heaven." 1 The like was 
 never done for any king of Egypt since the days of 
 the Sun-god Ra, 2 and as each statue was forty cubits 
 high, the pylon of the temple behind them seemed 
 comparatively insignificant ; when each statue bad been 
 set in its place the pair resembled the gods Kii and 
 Temu. To fetch the blocks of stone for the statues the 
 overseer of works tells us that he had to build eight 
 boats, and that when they were set up the heart of 
 every man who had been employed by him in the 
 service was very glad. The thankfulness which the 
 architect must have felt at the end of this difficult task 
 can be better imagined than described. 
 
 Amen-hetep, the son of Hap, also built a temple at the 
 place now called Der al -Medina, and by a decree which 
 Amen-hetep III. promulgated on the 6th day of the fourth 
 month of the season Shat, in the eleventh year of his 
 reign, it was ordered that the building should be maiu- 
 
 Mariette, Karaalc, pi. 36. 
 
 - I.e., the like had never been done at all. 
 
B.C. 1450] 
 
 AND HIS WORSHIP 
 
 IOg 
 
 tained for all time out of the endowments provided for 
 the temple of Ainen-Ra, the king of the gods, and that 
 the sons of the great architect should be the priests 
 thereof for ever. The king then pronounced a series of 
 awful curses, which in many respects resemble those 
 found on Babylonian landmarks, upon any of his 
 successors who should allow the temple to fall into ruin, 
 or who should alienate any part of the income set aside 
 for its up-keep, and enumerates the honours which shall 
 come upon those who seek to carry out the terms of the 
 decree. 1 In course of time the temple fell into decay, 
 but in the time of the Ptolemies another was built in its 
 place, and the builder of the original temple was 
 worshipped in the new one as a god whose word never 
 faileth. It was believed that Amen-hetep, the son of 
 Hap, was possessed of magical knowledge, and that he 
 wrote certain formulae which he had always used for 
 his own protection ; a copy of the words of power which 
 he composed is extant in the papyrus of Heter, now 
 preserved in the Louvre at Paris, 2 and another is 
 in a papyrus at Leyden. 3 In short Amen-hetep was 
 included in the group of divine sages such as Heru- 
 tata-f and I-em-hetep, or Imouthis, and to his 
 
 1 A copy of this decree will be found in Birch, Inscriptions in 
 the Hieratic and Demotic Character, pi. 29; see also Brugsch, Aeg. 
 Zeitschrift, 1875, p. 123 ff. The stele on which it is written is in 
 the British Museum (No. 138). 
 
 2 See Maspero, Memoires sur quelques papyrus, pp. 23, 58. 
 
 3 See Pleyte, Chapitres supple mentaires au Livre des Morts, 
 p. 71 ff. 
 
no 
 
 TEMPLE AT EL-KAB 
 
 [B.C, 1450 
 
 words was attributed power of a most remarkable 
 character. Curiously enough, a mention of Anien- 
 hetep the sage occurs in the tract which Josephus 
 wrote against Apion (i. 26), wherein it is said, " This 
 " king (Amenophis) was desirous to become a spectator 
 " of the gods, as had Orus, one of his predecessors in 
 "that kingdom, desired the same before him; he also 
 " communicated that his desire to his namesake Amen- 
 " ophis, who was the son of Papis, and one that seemed 
 " to partake of a divine nature, both as to wisdom and 
 " the knowledge of futuries." In answer to the king's 
 request Amen-hetep " told him that he might seethe 
 "gods, if he would clear the whole country of the lepers 
 " and of the other impure people." Now the name 
 given to Amen-hetep's father by Josephus, i.e., Papis, 
 is nothing but the Egyptian name of his father, Hap, 
 with the article pa, "the," added thereto. 1 
 
 In other parts of his kingdom Amen-hetep III. built 
 largely. At El-kab he completed the small temple 
 which Thothmes IV. had begun to build in honour of 
 the goddess Nekhebet, and at Elephantine he built a 
 small but most interesting temple in honour of Khnemu, 
 the Nubian god of the First Cataract. This building- 
 was comparatively small, and was approached by a short 
 flight of steps, on each side of which, at the top, was a 
 column with a lotus capital. On each side of the 
 temple were seven square pillars, and a portico ran 
 
 1 This was first pointed out by Erman, Aeg. Zeitsclirift, 1887, 
 p. 147. 
 
B.C. 1450] 
 
 TEMPLE OF SOLEB 
 
 III 
 
 round the building, which consisted of one hall and a 
 small shrine chamber leading out of it; the main portion 
 of the edifice measured about 40 feet, by 30 feet, by 13 
 feet. This temple was still standing, and was in a good 
 state of preservation when in 1799 the members of the 
 great French Expedition made drawings of it, which they 
 fortunately published later ; 1 but in 1 822 Muhammad 
 Ali wished to have a palace built for himself at Aswan, 
 and the whole building was torn down, stone by stone, 
 by the local governor, who burnt the slabs of calcareous 
 stone to make lime for mortar, and employed the blocks 
 of granite, etc., to make the foundations of the new 
 palace. At several places in the First Cataract are 
 inscriptions which refer to works of various kinds 
 carried on by Amen-hetep III., and the remains of his 
 buildings in Nubia testify to his care for the shrines of 
 that country. The temple of Soleb has already been men- 
 tioned, but we may note in passing that the importance 
 which it possessed in the opinion of its builder is testified 
 by the fact that Amen-hetep III. specially visited Nubia 
 to attend the inauguration ceremonies. At Sedenga, a 
 little to the north of Soleb, he built a small temple in 
 honour of his wife Thi, and here may be seen the 
 cartouche of the queen side by side with those of her 
 husband. To Amen-hetep III. is sometimes given the 
 credit of having first discovered the suitability of the 
 plain which lies between Gebel Barkal and the Nile for 
 building purposes, and there is no doubt that he built a 
 
 1 Description de VlZgypte, torn. i. plates 34-37. 
 
112 
 
 TOMB OF AMEN-HETEP III. 
 
 [B.C. 1450 
 
 temple there, for otherwise the two granite lions in the 
 British Museum, and the colossal ram in the Berlin 
 Museum, all of which are inscribed with the king's 
 names and titles, would not have been found there. 
 The writer, however, saw many fragments of stelae and 
 statues which had all the appearance of having belonged 
 to monuments of the Xllth Dynasty, and it is im- 
 possible to believe that the Egyptian officers and 
 generals, who visited Nubia long before the period of 
 the XVIIIth Dynasty, did not recognise the importance 
 of such a station a few miles from the foot of the Fourth 
 Cataract, whether for a fortress or a temple. The fine 
 pair of lions referred to above, which were brought 
 from the ruins of the temples at Gebel Barkal by Lord 
 Prudhoe, are thought by some to have been taken there 
 from the north by the king who usurped them, but 
 that seems unlikely. 1 
 
 Amen-hetep hewed for himself a tomb out of the 
 solid rock in the Western Valley of the Tombs of the 
 Kings, and he appears to have been the first king to 
 make a sepulchre there. The walls of the corridors and 
 chambers were ornamented with coloured representations 
 of the king holding converse with the various great gods, 
 
 1 The king whose name occurs with that of Amen-hetep III. 
 upon the lions is Tut-ankh-Amen, ^(] "f" ^^ > ° > I | ^ H' 
 in the words "he restored the monuments of his father," M. Loret 
 sees a proof that he was the son of Amen-hetep III., and that he 
 repaired the temples which that great king had built at Gebel 
 Barkal. See Recueil, torn. xi. p. 212. 
 
B.C. 1430] REIGN OF AMEN-HETEP IV. 
 
 113 
 
 but nearly all these have disappeared. The tomb seems 
 not to have been finished, for many of the scenes on the 
 walls are incomplete, and many of the rooms are orna- 
 mented neither with texts nor inscriptions. When MM. 
 Jollois and Devilliers discovered the tomb in 1799 they 
 found in it the cover of a red granite sarcophagus, and 
 several fragments of ushabtiu figures ; on the walls of the 
 second chamber were inscribed passages from the 
 " Book of [knowing] what is in the underworld." The 
 mummy of the king was found in the tomb of Amen- 
 hetep II. by M. Loret, as has already been said. 
 
 4 
 IP 
 
 Ka-nefer-kheperu-Ua-en-Ra, son of the Sun, Amen- 
 HETEP-neter-heq-Uast. 
 
 Amen-hetep IV., or Amenophis IV., 
 the V2po? of Manetho, was the son of 
 Amen-hetep III., and his Mitannian wife 
 Thi; of the circumstances which caused 
 him to be selected from among the sons of 
 Amen-hetep III. to be king of Egypt we 
 have no knowledge whatsoever, but his 
 accession to the throne was most probably 
 arranged by Thi, the favourite wife of his 
 father. Besides his Horus name Qa-shuti, or "Exalted 
 one of the double plumes," he adopted as his titles, 
 " Divine prince of Thebes," and " King of the South 
 
 VOL. IV. 1 
 
 Qa-shcti, 
 the Horus name 
 of 
 
 Amen-hetep IV. 
 
ii 4 
 
 AMEN-HETEP IV. AND HIS [B.C. 1430 
 
 "and North, high-priest of Rfi-Heru-khuti (Ra-Harina- 
 " chis), the exalted one in the horizon in his name of 
 "Shu who is in his disk," 1 and "Mighty one in his 
 " duration of life." 3 It appears that in the early years 
 of his reign his mother Thi took a prominent part in 
 the government of the country, and that she ordered 
 certain works to be carried out as if she were the 
 mistress of Egypt, but there is nothing to show that 
 she assumed a position similar to that held by 
 Hatshepset when Thothmes III. was a boy. When 
 Amen-hetep IV. ascended the throne he must have 
 arrived at man's estate, for he was married, and it is 
 thought that he married the wife who is called 
 in the texts, "Royal wife, great lady, Nefer-tith," 
 
 Q ° J) ^ ^0 ' towal '^ s tne ell( l °f n * s Cher's reign. 
 We know from the Tell el-'Amarna tablets that 
 Tushratta, king of Mitanni, gave his daughter 
 Tatumkhipa to Amen-hetep III. to wife, for, in his 
 letter to the Egyptian king (Brit. Mus. No. 29,793),* 
 he says in the first paragraph, "To Nimmuriya, king of 
 "Egypt, my brother, my son-in-law, whom I love, and 
 "who loveth me, Tushratta, king of Mitanni, who 
 
 3 See Bezold-Budge, Tell el-Amarna Tablets, No. 10, p. 42. 
 
B.C. 1430] WIVES FROM MESOPOTAMIA 115 
 
 " loveth thee, thy father-in-law. With me it is well. 
 "May it also be well with thee, and thy house, and 
 "with my daughter Tatum-khipa, thy wife whom thou 
 " lovest, and may it be well with thy wives, and with 
 " thy sons, and with thy nobles, and with thy chariots, 
 " and with thy horses, and thy warriors, and with thy 
 " land, and with everything which is thine may it be 
 " well indeed." When Tushratta sent his daughter to 
 Amen-hetep III. he sent with her a dowry suitable for 
 a lady who was going to marry the great king of Egypt, 
 but it is most unlikely that such a dowry would have 
 been given to her had she been going to marry a mere 
 prince, whose succession to the throne was not well 
 assured. In any case, in view of such a definite state- 
 ment as that contained in Tushratta's letter it is 
 impossible to speak of the Mitannian princess as the 
 wife of Amen-hetep IV. only, as some have done, for 
 we know that she became the wife of both father and 
 son. An attempt has been made to prove that Nefer- 
 tith, the wife of Amen-hetep IV., and Tatum-khipa are 
 one and the same person, but it is, as M. Maspero says, 1 
 far more likely that Nefer-tith was an Egyptian lady 
 and the daughter of some princess of royal blood, whom 
 the son of Amen-hetep III. and Thi married in order to 
 make good through her his right to the throne, which 
 was, of course, seriously compromised by his descent 
 from Thi, a foreign mother. 
 
 During the first few years of his reign Amen-hetep 
 
 1 Op. cit., torn. ii. p. 317. 
 
Il6 AMEN-HETEP IV. AND ATEN WORSHIP [B.C. 1430 
 
 IV. appears to have been guided by his mother's 
 counsels, and it is quite easy to see from one of the 
 titles which he assumed on ascending the throne, that 
 he had by nature, or had been taught to have, views on 
 religion which were in some respects akin to those of 
 the priests of Heliopolis. It will be remembered that 
 his grandfather, Thothmes IV., had dug out from the 
 sand the Sphinx, the symbol of Ra-Harmachis, who 
 was a god of Heliopolis, and that his father, Amen- 
 hetep III., had celebrated the festival of the opening 
 of the lake, which he had made to please Thi, by 
 sailing over it in a boat called the " Beauties of Aten," 
 i.e., of another god who was worshipped at Heliopolis, 
 the city where all the forms of the sun-god, e.g., Ra, 
 Temu, Khepera, Hern, Heru-khuti, Ra-Heru-khuti, 
 Aten, etc., were adored. When Amen-hetep IV. came 
 to the throne, he called himself the " high priest of 
 " Ra-Harmachis, the exalted one in the horizon in his 
 " name of Shu, who is in his disk;" thus it is clear that 
 he was an adherent of the religion of Aten, and there 
 is no reason for doubting that his mind had been led to 
 take such theological views through the teachings of 
 his mother, Thi. It may have been that these views 
 were strengthened by the opposition which was offered 
 by the priests of Amen to his succession to the throne, 
 for it is clear that the deep hatred with which he 
 regarded them and their god was not of sudden growth, 
 but on this point the inscriptions are silent. In the 
 early part of his reign, Amen-hetep IV. followed the 
 
B.C. 1430] 
 
 THE BENBEN AT THEBES 
 
 117 
 
 example of the earlier kings of his dynasty, and lived 
 at Thebes, though at the same time he was carrying- 
 on building operations at Memphis and Heliopolis, and 
 was working the quarries for stone to be used at these 
 places. He was politic enough to pretend to please the 
 ecclesiastical authorities at Thebes by building a 
 massive Benben J] J] n> i- e -> a shrine which was 
 part pylon and part temple, m honour of the god 
 Heru-khuti, and all Egypt seems to have been laid 
 under contribution to provide for the work. The 
 priests of Amen must have regarded with strong dis- 
 approval the intrusion of another shrine among the 
 temple buildings at Thebes, when they understood 
 what views of the king it represented, for after his 
 death it was taken down, and the stones were employed 
 by Heru-em-heb in building operations at another place 
 on the sacred site. 
 
 Whilst the Benben of Harmachis was being 
 built at Thebes, Amen-hetep IV. was planning the 
 foundation of a new capital for himself at some 
 distance from Thebes, and definite form was given to 
 his views on this subject by the growing hostility 
 of the priests of Amen. The site which he chose 
 for the new city lay on the east bank of the Nile, 
 about two hundred miles south of Cairo, and it is 
 marked to-day by the Arab villages of Haggi Kandil 
 and Tell el-'Amarna. The building of the city began 
 in the fifth year of his reign, and it consisted of a 
 temple for the god Aten, (1 a/w^, a palace for the king, 
 
n8 
 
 AMEN-HETEP IV. AND HIS [B.C. 1*30 
 
 and houses for those court officials who were bold 
 enough to cut themselves off from the old traditions of 
 Thebes; the neighbouring mountains would afford 
 resting-places for the dead, and the king felt that when 
 he had once taken up his abode in his new city he 
 would be able to defy the rest of Egypt. Meanwhile, 
 however, the relations between the king and the priests 
 of Amen became strained, and this is not to be wondered 
 at when we remember that soon after his accession to 
 the throne- the king began to cut out the name of Amen 
 as well as his figure from every building in Egypt. At 
 length an open rupture took place, and the king found 
 it desirable from every point of view to remove himself 
 and his family to his new city, which he called " Khut 
 Aten," & (] , i.e., the " Horizon of the Disk." 
 
 About this time he discarded his name, Amen-hetep, 
 because it contained the name of the 
 hated god Amen, and gave himself the new 
 
 name, "Khut- en- Aten," — (] > 
 
 i.e., the " Spirit, or Glory of Aten," or 
 the Sun's Disk. At the same time he 
 changed his Horus name from "Exalted 
 One of the double plumes" to "Mighty 
 Bull, beloved of Aten," and he styled 
 himself " Lord of the shrines of Nekhebet 
 " and Uatchet, mighty one of sovereignty 
 " in the city of the Horizon of the Sun, 
 "the Horus of gold, who exalteth the 
 
 /WW\A 
 
 o 
 
 rm 
 
 Ka-nekht-aten- 
 meki, the Horns 
 name of Khut- 
 en-Aten. 
 
B.C. 1430] NEW CAPITAL KHUT-ATEN HO 
 
 "name of the Disk, the king of the South and North, 
 " living in Maat, the lord of the two lands, the lord of 
 " crowns." The break was now complete, and Amen- 
 hetep IV. settled down to worship his god Aten in his 
 own way in the city " Horizon of Aten." 
 
 Much has been written about the worship and creed of 
 Aten, but as the inscriptions do not give us any definite 
 information on the subject, a great deal of theorizing is 
 made to take the place of fact. The worship of Aten 
 was a very old one in Egypt, and its original home was 
 Heliopolis, but it had never provoked the enmity of the 
 Egyptians, who tolerated it and were tolerated by its 
 priests. The worship of Aten as understood by Anien- 
 hetep IV. was, however, a very different thing, for 
 whereas the old Aten worship was tolerant, the new 
 Aten worship was not, for had it been tolerant the king 
 would have betaken himself to Heliopolis, where the 
 priests would have received him gladly. It is clear 
 from the reliefs which have been found at the city 
 Khut-Aten, that the god Aten was regarded as the 
 giver of life, and the source of all life on this earth, and 
 that his symbol was the light, or fire, or both, of the 
 Sun ; Aten was the physical body of the Sun, and the 
 creed of Aten ascribed to the god a monotheistic 
 character or oneness of which it denied the existence in 
 any other god. This being so, the new religion could 
 not absorb or be absorbed by any other, and similarly, 
 Aten could not absorb or be absorbed by the other gods 
 of Egypt, because he had nothing in common with 
 
120 
 
 THE WORSHIP OF ATEN [B.C. 1430 
 
 them. Attempts have been made to prove that the Aten 
 worship resembled that of the monotheistic worship of 
 the Hebrews, and to show that Aten is only another 
 form of the name Aden, a Semitic word which is 
 usually rendered "lord," but as far as can be seen now 
 
 The rays of Aten, which terminate in human hands, shining upon the 
 cartouches of Amen-hetep IV. and his wife Nefertith. 
 
 the worship of Aten was something like a glorified 
 materialism, which had to be expounded by priests, 
 who performed ceremonies similar to those which 
 belonged to the old Heliopolitan sun-worship, without 
 any connexion whatsoever with the worship of Yahweh, 
 
B.C. 1430] 
 
 THE WORSHIP OF ATEN 
 
 121 
 
 and a being of the character of the Semitic god Adon 
 had no place in it anywhere. In so far as it rejected 
 all other gods, the Aten religion was monotheistic, 
 but to judge by the texts which describe the power 
 
 Amen-hetep IV. 
 
 and works of Aten, it contained no doctrines on the 
 unity or oneness of Aten similar to those which are 
 found in the hymns to Ka, and none of the beautiful 
 ideas on the future life, with which we are familiar 
 
122 WORSHIP OF ATEN AT KHUT-ATEN [B.C. 1430 
 
 from the hymns and other compositions in the Book 
 of the Dead. 
 
 The temple of Aten was called Het Benben, 
 
 y ^ JJ Jj ^ ^ , and was a very large building, but 
 
 it was never finished, as far as the ornamentation of the 
 walls is concerned ; in its courts were altars on which 
 incense was burnt and offerings were laid, and it is 
 possible that the idea of the altar was suggested to the 
 architect Bek, the son of Men, by the altar which the 
 great queen Hatshepset had erected in her temple at Der 
 al-Bahari. 1 It is an interesting fact that no sacrifices 
 of any kind were offered up, either on the queen's altar 
 or on the altars of her successors, and it must be 
 noted that the queen says in her inscription on her 
 altar that she built it for her father Ka-Harmachis, 
 
 and that Ka-Harmachis was the one ancient god of the 
 Egyptians whom Amen-hetep IV. delighted to honour. 
 The high priest of the temple at Khut-Aten was made 
 to adopt the old title of the high priest of Ra at 
 
 Heliopolis, i.e., Ur-maau, (j ^ and 
 
 in many respects the new worship was carried on 
 in the temple by means of many of the old forms and 
 ceremonies of the Heliopolitan priesthood ; on stated 
 occasions, however, the king himself officiated. 
 
 1 This altar measures 16 feet by 13 feet by 5 feet, and its top is 
 reached by a flight of ten steps at the western end ; it was 
 excavated by Naville. Temple of Deir el-Bahari, pt. i. p. 8. 
 
124 DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW [B.C. 1430 
 
 Meanwhile the new city Khut-Aten prospered and 
 grew, and many wealthy people and nobles who had be- 
 come terrified at the growth of the power of the priests 
 of Amen left Thebes and took up their abode there ; a 
 number of court officials naturally followed their king, 
 and as the new canon of art, which he proclaimed and 
 patronized, gave abundant employment to sculptors 
 and artists of every kind, to say nothing of the skilled 
 workmen who were needed for the carrying out of his 
 projects, the city soon became well populated. The 
 houses were beautifully decorated, and many of them 
 had plaster pavements, which were ornamented witli 
 unusually artistic designs and patterns; 1 large gardens 
 full of choice plants and rare trees were laid out, not 
 only in the grounds of the palace, but also in the 
 houses of high officials, and the architect Bek and his 
 workmen spared no pains in making the new city 
 beautiful in every sense of the w r ord. The artists 
 threw off many of the old trammels and conventionali- 
 ties of their profession, and indulged themselves in new 
 designs, new forms, new colours, and new treatment of 
 the subjects which they wished to represent. Indeed 
 it is to the buildings of the city of Khut-Aten and 
 their decorations that we owe many, of the ideas of the 
 possibilities of Egyptian art; the art of the period is 
 characterized by a freedom and a naturalism which is 
 never before or after met with in Egyptian history. 
 
 1 A number of these were uncovered by Prof. Petrie in the 
 course of his excavations at Tell el-'Amarna. 
 
B.C. 1430] CAPITAL OF AMEN-HETEP IV. 125 
 
 And as the king Khu-en-Aten adopted a style of art 
 different from any which had been employed by his 
 predecessors, so the texts which he inscribed upon the 
 walls of his buildings were of a character different 
 from those with which we are familiar from the monu- 
 ments of an earlier period. The subject of most of his 
 inscriptions is Aten, whose glory and power he was 
 never tired of proclaiming, nnd a good illustration of 
 the terms which he employed in his praises of the god 
 will be found in a hymn which has been twice published 
 in recent years. 1 In this we find that Aten is said to 
 
 exist in the form of Ba, (j ^\ *zrz* / , and 
 
 that he is called the " living Aten, the beginning of 
 
 life," Kl^f^^fT- 
 Aten resteth in the west the land is dark, men sleep in 
 their houses, no eye can see, and the lions come forth 
 from their dens, and the creeping things bite ; these 
 last statements find parallels in Psalm civ. 20. When 
 Aten riseth men wake up, and wash, and dress, and 
 praise him, and then " go forth to their labours ; " all 
 creatures rouse themselves joyfully. It is Aten who 
 turneth the seed of man into men and women, and it is 
 he who giveth life to the son in the body of his 
 
 mother, 
 
 1 First by Bouriant in Memoires de la Mission, torn. i. p. 2ff., and 
 later by Mr. Breasted, De Hymnis in Solem sub rege Amenophide IV 
 conceptis, Berlin (no date). 
 
126 AMEN-HETEP IV. OR KHU-EN-ATEN [B.C. 1430 
 
 who bringeth him forth a perfect being at the appointed 
 time. Aten is the creator of all living things, and of 
 all men of whatever language and colour, and of the 
 Nile ; in short, Aten, and Aten only, is praised as the 
 creator of material things, and the sun is Aten, and all 
 people were called upon to adore him. 
 
 We have seen that when Amen-hetep IV. finally 
 declared himself in favour of Aten as opposed to Amen- 
 Ra, he changed his name from Amen-hetep to Khu- 
 en Aten, and it must now be noted that the form and 
 figure of the king as depicted in bas-reliefs also changed. 
 In the earlier monuments of his reign he is represented 
 as possessing the typical features of his father and 
 others of his ancestors, but at Tell el-'Amarna his 
 physical characteristics are entirely different. Here he 
 is portrayed with a very high, narrow, and receding 
 forehead, a large, sharp, aquiline nose, a thin, weak 
 mouth, and a large projecting chin, and his head is set 
 upon a long and extremely slender neck ; his chest is 
 rounded, his stomach inflated, and his thighs are large 
 and broad, and in many respects his figure resembles 
 that of a woman. It is impossible that such repre- 
 sentations of the king would be permitted to appear in 
 bas-reliefs in his city unless the king approved of 
 them, and it is clear that he did approve, and that his 
 officials understood that he approved of this treatment 
 of his person at the hands of sculptors and artists, for 
 some of the high officials were themselves represented 
 in the same manner. Still, some of the drawings of 
 
128 PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF AMEN-HETEP IV. 
 
 the king must be regarded as caricatures, but whether 
 intentional or otherwise cannot be said. Some have 
 thought that the features given to the king by the 
 artists were in some way supposed to be connected 
 with the views held by the worshippers of Aten, and 
 it has also been suggested that he was a eunuch, 1 
 but for neither suggestion is there any satisfactory 
 ground. 
 
 During Khu-en-Aten's comparatively short reign of 
 less than twenty years the whole of the king's energies 
 seems to have been expended in superintending the 
 building of his city, and in developing the worship of 
 Aten. With the view of furthering the latter he built 
 small temples at Heliopolis, and Memphis, and other 
 ancient cities, but of these very few remains have been 
 found. War seems to have been abhorred by him, for 
 we do not hear even of the old familiar raids into 
 Nubia, which nearly every Egyptian king was obliged 
 to make as soon as he came to the throne ; on 
 the other hand, we learn from the tomb of Huia,~ 
 
 , the king's treasurer, that in the 
 
 1 "Est is vermutet worden, der Konig sei bei einem Feldzuge 
 " entmannt worden, und habe so die charakteristischen Ziige der 
 " Eunuchen angenommen ; dem widerspricht es jedoch dass 
 " derselbe sieben Tochter besass und demzufolge die Entmannung 
 "erst ein rorgeschrittetenen alterhiitte erfolgt seiti konnen, wo 
 " dieselbo auf die Aenderung der Physiogiiomie kaum mehr einen 
 " Einfluss ausiiben konnte." Wiedemann, A eg. Gesch., p. 397. 
 
 - This name is found in the Tell el-'Amarna letter, Berlin, No. 6, 
 under the form ►-J^J ^^^J ' 
 
B.C. 1430] 
 
 ATEN WORSHIP 
 
 129 
 
 twelfth year of his master's reign he brought tribute 
 from Syria, and the Islands of the Great Green, i.e., 
 the Mediterranean Sea, and Nubia. If we consider 
 the amount of exact information concerning the con- 
 dition of the rising in Syria at this time we shall see at 
 once that Huia was an ambassador who spoke smooth 
 words, for that Syria, or any other of the possessions of 
 Egypt, paid during the reign of Khu-en-Aten tribute 
 in the way in which the older kings understood the 
 expression, it is impossible to believe. 
 
 The mummy of Amen-hetep IV. was found in the 
 tomb of Amen-hetep II. at Der al-Bahari, whither it was 
 removed in troublous times, although he had caused a 
 tomb to be hewed out of the living rock in a moun- 
 tainous valley which stretches towards the east, and 
 lies between the two groups of tombs, one on the north 
 and the other on the south ; it is about eight or ten 
 miles, according to the route followed, from the Nile. 
 The tomb is approached by two nights of steps and a 
 corridor, and a little beyond the small chamber at the 
 end of the second flight is the hall or chapel wherein 
 the sarcophagus once stood. The paintings are nearly 
 all destroyed, and it is certain that the ornamentation 
 of the tomb was never completed. Such scenes as 
 remain represent people of every tribe and nation 
 worshipping the Disk, or Aten, but many of them were 
 painted, not for the king, but for one of his daughters 
 who died before her father, and who was buried in his 
 tomb. 
 
 VOL. IV. K 
 
13° 
 
 TATUM-KHIPA, WIFE OF [B.C. 1430 
 
 In all the bas-reliefs at Tell el-'Amarna Khu-en- 
 Aten is always accompanied by his wife Nefertith, 
 to whom he gave the title Nefer-neferu-Aten, i.e., " the 
 
 beauty of the beauties of Aten" ( ^^^.^^1^0 i 
 and with whom several writers have identified the wife of 
 Amen-hetepIII.,Tatum-khipa,^yy^y ^JgE ^ f^fz, 
 the daughter of Tushratta, king of Mitanni. Prof. 
 Petrie says, 1 "Amenhotep III. was negotiating for his 
 " son's marriage before his death ; and from another 
 " letter (9) we learn that Tadukhipa was the daughter 
 "thus married to Akhenaten, and who [sic] was known 
 " in Egypt as Nefertiti." M. Maspero takes the view 2 
 that when Tatum-khipa, who had left Mitanni on the 
 understanding that she was going to marry Nimmuriya 
 (i.e., Amen-hetep III.), king of Egypt, arrived in 
 Egypt she found that the old king was dead, and that 
 his son Amen-hetep IV. took his place and married her. 
 In support of his statement Prof. Petrie merely refers 
 to tablets Nos. 6 and 9, and passes on ; but M. Maspero 
 to prove his point quotes the British Museum 
 letter No. 11, and the description of its contents 
 drawn up by Prof. Bezold and the present writer. 
 This letter is addressed to the " Queen of Egypt," and 
 it is generally thought that the queen referred to 
 is Thi, especially as mention is made in it of " Thy 
 son Napkhuriya," or Amen-hetep IV. The opening 
 words contain greetings "to thyself, greetings to thy 
 
 1 History, vol. ii. p. 207. 2 Hist. Anc, torn. ii. p. 329. 
 
B.C. 1430] AMEN-HETEP III. AND AMEN-HETEP IV. 131 
 
 " son, greetings to Tatum-khipa [my daughter], thy 
 " Kdllatu" i.e., thy bride or daughter-in-law. And in 
 another letter 1 Tatum-khipa is directly referred to as 
 the wife of Napkhuriya (Amen-hetep IV.). But she 
 was not originally intended to be the wife of this king, 
 for Amen-hetep III. had negotiated with Tushratta 
 not, as Prof. Petrie says (Hist. p. 207), for his son's 
 marriage, but for his own, and Tushratta clearly 
 describes him as his son-in-law, as he also describes 
 Amen-hetep IV. later on. Prof. Maspero's description 
 of Amen-hetep III. as epoux pretendu, i.e., as a 
 husband to whom Tatum-khipa was never married, 
 because he was either dead or dying when she reached 
 Egypt, is disproved by letters from Tushratta to 
 Amen-hetep III., which contain greetings to " Tatum- 
 khipa, my daughter, thy wife." 2 It is evident that 
 Tatum-khipa was for some time before the death of 
 Amen-hetep III. his co-wife with Thi, and that after 
 his death she was taken over by his son Amen- 
 hetep IV. That this view is shared by Dr. Winckler, 
 the editor and translator of a large number of the 
 Tell el-'Ainarna tablets, is shown by his translation of 
 the words kallati-k by which Tatum-khipa is described 
 in Tushratta's letter to queen Thi, already mentioned 
 above, not as " to thy daughter-in-law," or even as 
 " to thy bride," as was done by Dr. Bezold and myself 
 
 1 Memoires de la Mission, torn. vi. p. 302, line 8. 
 
 2 Winckler, Die Thontafeln, pp. xii. 41 (No. 18), 49 (No. 20). 
 
132 
 
 FAMILY OF AMEN-HETEP IV. [B.C. 1430 
 
 in 1892/ but as " deiner Mitfrau," "to thy co-wife/' 
 
 1. e., the co-wife with Thi, of Amen-hetep III. For 
 Prof. Petrie's identification of Tatum-khipa with 
 Nefertith no good grounds can be discovered. 
 
 The family of Amen-hetep IV. consisted of daughters, 
 
 who were called: — 1. Aten-merit, (j aa^a "^r. ^ ^fj . 
 
 2. Maket-Aten, fllji ^ (| ^. 3. Ankh-s-en-pa- 
 
 At6 "> fTZ^1~irl|- 4 - Nefer-neferu. 
 Aten-ta-shera, (j J J J J ^ '<~!. Ij ^ . 5. Nefer- 
 neferu-Ra, oJJJJCjj 1 - 6. Setep-en-Ra, 
 
 /ww* 7. Aten-Baket, ij'^'^^'*^jf • Tnese 
 
 names mean, " Beloved of Aten," " Virtue (or, protection) 
 of Aten," "Aten is her life," "Beauty of the beauties 
 of Aten the Less," 3 " Beauty of the beauties of Rfi," 
 
 1 The word Icallatum means in the Semitic dialects "bride," and 
 also " daughter-in-law," a fact proved by several passages in the 
 Cuneiform inscriptions, e.g., the goddess Tashmetum is called 
 Icallatum rabitum, "great bride"; Night is called Icallatum 
 Jcuttumtum, "the veiled Bride" ; and elsewhere we have, Itti emeti 
 Icallati iprusu, itti Icallati emeti iprusu, "he hath set the mother- 
 " in-law at variance with the daughter-in-law, he hath set the 
 "daughter-in-law at variance with the mother-in-law." See 
 Cuneiform Inscriptions, iv. pll. 49, obv. 2 ; 51, 1, 26, 27 ; 52, 41. 
 Dr. Winckler obtains his translation Mitfrau from the meaning 
 "bride." 
 
 2 The words "the Less " are added to distinguish her from her 
 mother. 
 
B.C. 1430] THE TELL EL-'AMARNA TABLETS 133 
 
 " Chosen one of Ka," " Servant of Aten." The eldest 
 daughter died before her father, and some of her 
 sisters married husbands who, in turn, succeeded to 
 the throne. 
 
 One of the most interesting subjects for study in 
 
 Amen-hetep IV. seated upon his portable throne beneath the rays of Aten 
 whilst attendants fan him. 
 
 connexion with the reign of Amen-hetep IV., or Khu-en- 
 Aten, is the correspondence which was carried on between 
 him and the kings and governors of Western Asia, and 
 which is revealed to us by the Tell el-'Amarna letters ; 
 it is, however, most unfortunate that we have not copies 
 
134 RELATIONS OF EGYPT WITH [B.C. 1430 
 
 of the despatches which were sent by the king of Egypt 
 to his vassal princes and governors in Palestine and 
 Syria, and to the kings of the independent kingdoms of 
 Assyria, Babylonia, and Mitanni. In a separate chapter 
 a brief sketch of the contents of the letters from Western 
 Asia is given, but a few paragraphs must be devoted to 
 a consideration of the state to which the possessions 
 of Egypt in Palestine and Syria had been brought by 
 the incapacity of Amen-hetep IV. His grandfather 
 Thothmes IV. had married a wife from Western Baby- 
 lonia, and his father Amen-hetep III. had married a 
 sister and a daughter of Kallimma-Sin (Kadashman- 
 Bel), king of Karaduniyash, a daughter of Shutarna, 
 king of Mitanni, and a daughter of Tushratta, king of 
 Mitanni ; thus Amen-hetep IV. was connected with the 
 greatest of the royal houses of Western Babylonia, and 
 the heads of those houses were anxious to continue with 
 him the friendly relations which they had enjoyed with 
 his fathers. Besides this, Ashur-uballit, king of Assyria, 
 was quite prepared to do business with him, and clearly 
 had no wish to become involved in war with Egypt ; and 
 as far as regards Syria and Palestine, its vassal kings and 
 princes would have paid to the son the tribute which 
 they had paid to the father, had the son taken the pains 
 to journey into their lands and to show them that he 
 was a capable successor to his father. This, however, 
 Amen-hetep IV. did not do, for there is no mention in 
 the inscriptions of a war or expedition of any kind having 
 been undertaken during his reign ; had he occupied his 
 
B.C. 1430] 
 
 KINGS OF WESTERN ASIA 
 
 135 
 
 mind after the manner of his fathers we should probably 
 have heard little about the heresy of Aten, or of the 
 worshipping of the Disk. It seems that Amen-hetep 
 IV. began to build his city Khut-Aten in the fourth 
 year of his reign, and therefore the strife between the 
 priests of Amen and himself must have assumed large 
 proportions earlier ; in any case, from the fourth year 
 of his reign to its end he had neither the time 
 nor the opportunity of attending to the affairs of his 
 empire. 
 
 As soon as the peoples of Palestine and Syria learned 
 how he was spending his time they became restless, 
 especially as they found themselves in a difficult position. 
 That they had no great love for the rule of Kgypt is 
 shown by the fact that they never lost an opportunity 
 of rebelling against her king, but now they began to 
 realize that she was not strong enough either to make 
 them pay tribute as of old or to protect them against 
 the growing power of the peoples of the Kheta, 
 J D rJv], who had forced their way towards the south 
 and were threatening the independence of the tribes 
 of Northern Syria. The Egyptian officials, who 
 journeyed from place to place throughout the country 
 and administered many parts of it for their master, also 
 found themselves in a difficult position, for they soon 
 perceived how weak his rule was becoming, and that 
 they were powerless to enforce their commands. Be- 
 fore many years had passed nearly all the country of 
 Palestine and Syria was in a state of revolt, for the 
 
136 
 
 GROWTH OF THE KHETA POWER [B.C. 1430 
 
 great princes attacked each other, and city after city 
 fell into the hands of its enemies, the king's caravans 
 were openly plundered on their way to Egypt, the 
 mercenary soldiers of the Shirdana and the Kashi, who 
 were in the service of the Egyptians, were slain, and 
 the vassal princes of Egypt boldly made league with the 
 Kheta and with the Khabiri. The Kheta, who are no 
 doubt the people referred to by the Assyrians under the 
 name of Khatti, have been identified with the Hittites 
 of Holy Scripture, but on insufficient grounds, and 
 similarly the Khabiri have been identified with the 
 Hebrews. The first possessions which were lost to 
 
 Egypt were Simyra, J Tchamdre, Ullaza, 
 
 AAAAAA f\ r\ WWW 
 
 Ni, ^ (j (j (J^j, and Tunip, ^ _^ Q > anc * Aziru, 
 the son of Abd-Ashratum, the governor of Amurri, in 
 league with the Kheta, laid waste the whole of the 
 district which was under the rule of the prince of 
 Katna ; about the same time the country of Nukhashshi, 
 
 f) (j ^ S r^^i Andukasa, was captured by 
 
 the Kheta on their own initiative. The governors of 
 the cities on the coast were next attacked, and we find 
 that the Khabiri and the Kheta and their rebel allies 
 
 captured Berut, JJ '^^^ < ~^ > "jj (] pX] B are thd, and be- 
 sieged Tyre, and compelled the inhabitants of Ascalon, 
 and Gezer, and Lachish, etc., either to supply them 
 with provisions, or to attempt to murder their 
 governors. 
 
B.C. 1430] REVOLTS IN PALESTINE 
 
 137 
 
 The Tell el-'Amama letters, written from Palestine 
 and Syria, all tell the same story, and all contain 
 the same piteous appeals for help from Egypt; 
 they also show that in the majority of cases 
 their writers received no answers to their petitions. 
 Prominent for loyalty was Abdi-khiba, the governor 
 of Jerusalem, who himself tells us that he received his 
 appointment from the " strong arm " of the king, and 
 that since he depended upon Egypt as his supporter it 
 would be impossible for him to act disloyally to her 
 king. In the seven letters which he sent to the king 
 of Egypt he describes how the revolt is spreading, how 
 city after city is throwing off its allegiance to the king, 
 how the presence of a very few Egyptian troops would 
 save not only his own city but the country round 
 about, how Egyptian viceroys were being slain, and 
 how within a year the whole land would be in the 
 possession of the Khabiri unless help from Egypt 
 were sent. In like manner Rib- Adda sent letter after 
 letter to Amen-hetep IV. containing information of the 
 progress of the disaffection and the rebellion, and 
 though he promises to keep his hold upon his city 
 Grebal, i.e., Byblos, as long as he has life, he shows 
 that he knows how fruitless all his petitions and letters 
 will be. At one time he pleads humbly for help, at 
 another he taunts the king by mentioning the former 
 greatness of the Egyptian power in Syria, and at 
 another he writes in despair because every governor 
 of every city round about him is hostile to him, and 
 
138 
 
 ABI-MILKI OF TYRE 
 
 [B.C. 1430 
 
 because each month he sees more clearly what the end 
 must be. 
 
 The position of Abi-Milki, governor of Tyre, was 
 a serious one at this time, for he seems to have 
 been driven from his abode on land and to have 
 established himself on the two rocks of Tyre, which 
 were some distance from the city on the mainland. 
 The enemy had occupied the mainland, and had cut off 
 his supplies of food, and water, and wood, with the 
 view of starving him out, and their ships also prevented 
 him from obtaining provisions by sea ; it was only with 
 the greatest difficulty that he was able to despatch a 
 letter to the king. The following rendering of one of 
 his letters will illustrate the troubles of this long- 
 snffering servant : — " To the king, my sun, my gods. 
 " Thus [saith] Abi-Milki thy servant, I fall down seven 
 "times and seven times at the feet of my lord the 
 " king, and I am the dust beneath the sandals of my 
 "lord the king. Indeed I am keeping guard over the 
 " fortress of the king which he placed in my hands. 
 " My face is set towards going to see the face of my 
 " lord the king, but I am unable to do so because of 
 "the hand (i.e., action) of Zimrida of the city of 
 " Sidon j for should he hear of my departure to the 
 " palace he will perforin acts of enmity unto me. Let 
 " the king my lord give me twenty (?) men to guard 
 " the fortress of the king my lord, and then let me 
 " come before the king my lord, so that I may see his 
 "happy face. I have set my face to perform the 
 
B.C. 1430] 
 
 ABI-MILKI OF TYRE 
 
 x 39 
 
 " service of the king my lord, and let the king my lord 
 " ask his inspector if I had not before set my face [to 
 " go] into the presence of the king my lord. I have 
 " sent my envoy to the kiDg my lord with his despatch, 
 " therefore let the king my lord send his envoy to me 
 " with his despatch, and I will depart straightway to 
 
 "the king my lord Let the king my lord turn 
 
 " his face [to me] and give me water to drink 
 
 "and wood for his servant [to burn] Let the 
 
 " king my lord know that we are cut off from the land, 
 " and that we have neither water [to drink] nor wood 
 " [to burn]. I have already sent my envoy to the king 
 "my lord, and I gave him five talents of copper, a 
 "wooden throne (?), etc. The king my lord wrote to 
 "me, saying: — 'Acquaint me by letter with whatso- 
 " ' ever news thou hearest in Canaan,' [and I therefore 
 "say], The king of Danuna is dead, and his brother 
 "hath become king in his room, and his country is 
 " quiet. Let the king know that fire broke out in the 
 "city of Ugarit, and that one-half of the city hath 
 "been burnt, but the other half hath escaped. The 
 "Khatti have disappeared. Itakama hath conquered 
 " the city of Kadesh, and Aziru 1 hath made enmity 
 "with Namyawiza. I know the evil act which 
 ." Zimrida 2 hath committed and how he has gathered 
 "together ships and men from the cities which are 
 "friendly to Aziru, [and that they will come] against 
 
 1 The son of Abd-Ashratmn. 
 
 2 Governor of Sidon and Lachish. 
 
140 BURRABURIYASH AND AMEN-HETEP IV. [B.C. 1430 
 
 " me. .... Let the king turn his face to his servant, 
 
 " and set ont to come [to us]." 1 
 
 The letters which were sent to Amen-hetep IV. 
 by the independent kings of Western Asia also 
 prove that the king was not maintaining with 
 them the ancient friendship in the traditional 
 manner, for Burraburiyash II., king of Karaduni- 
 yash, says in one despatch, "Your envoys have 
 "come to me three times, but you have sent no rich 
 " gift ; therefore I have sent you nothing." 2 In 
 another he says, "The caravan of my messenger whom 
 "I sent to you has been twice plundered in your 
 "territory," 3 a statement which proves how unsafe the 
 country, presumably Syria, was in Amen-hetep's time. 
 Elsewhere the Babylonian king complains that his 
 merchants have been killed and robbed, and demands 
 satisfaction from the king of Egypt ; 4 Tushratta, king 
 of Mitanni, also complains of double-dealing on the 
 part of Amen-hetep IV., 5 and judging of the case as he 
 presents it to us it would seem that trickery was 
 devised in the city of Khut-Aten as well as in other 
 cities of Egypt. 
 
 Opinions differ as to the character of Amen-hetep IV, 
 but when all is said that can be said on his behalf the 
 
 1 The text is published in Bezold-Budge, Tell el-Amarna Tablets, 
 p. 64, and a summary will be found on page lxi. of the same work ; 
 another rendering will be found in Winckler's Die Thontafeln, 
 p. 277. 
 
 a Bezold-Budge, op. cit., No. 3. 3 Winckler, 'op. ext., p. 25. 
 
 4 Ibid, p. 27. 5 Ibid, p. 57 ff. 
 
B.C. 1530] CHARACTER OF AMEN-HETEP IV. 141 
 
 fact still remains that he led a life of pleasure in 
 his new city, surrounded by his wife and daughters, 
 and enjoying to the full the dances, and processions, 
 and feastings, and merry-makings of every kind, whilst 
 the empire which his great ancestors had built up with 
 such labour was crumbling away piecemeal. That he 
 had insulted the priesthood of Amen, and put to shame 
 an ancient god of Upper Egypt, who was identified 
 with the liberation of his country from the Hyksos, and 
 who was the great god of his ancestors and of most of 
 the inhabitants of his country, concerned him little as 
 long as he could act the high-priest to his own god, 
 and declare that Aten was in his heart. That he was 
 a fond husband and father is likely enough, but the 
 spectacle of the king spending his time in heated 
 disputes with the priests of Amen on a point of doctrine, 
 and living in luxury among artistic surroundings of 
 every kind, whilst his empire was falling to pieces, and 
 his too loyal servant Abi-Milki was sitting shivering 
 with cold and hunger upon the rocks of Tyre, or writing 
 piteous appeals for help to protect his master's interests, 
 is not edifying. That such a man ever sat upon the 
 throne of the Amenemhats and Usertsens is a fine 
 example of the irony of fate. 
 
 ankh-kheperu, son of the Sun, Ra-se-aa-ka-tcheser- 
 
 KHEPERU. 
 
142 
 
 REIGN OF SEAAKA-RA 
 
 [B.C. 1400 
 
 Amen-hetep IV. was succeeded by a king whose 
 name has been read in various ways, i.e., Ea-se-aa-ka, 
 Ea-se-aa-ka-kheperu, Ea-se-iia-ka-nekht-kheperu, and 
 Ea-smenkh-ka-ser-kheperu ; the first of these forms, 
 Ea-se-aa-ka, seems to be the correct form of the first 
 part of the king's nomen or Ea name, especially as the 
 full form of the nomen as given at the head of this 
 paragraph is found upon porcelain rings at Tell 
 el-'Amarna. King Se-aa-ka 1 -Ra-tcheser-kheperu 
 ascended the throne of Egypt because he married 
 Aten- merit, a daughter of Amen-hetep IV. ; of the 
 details of his reign, which does not appear to have 
 been a long one, probably only two or three years, 
 nothing is known. On the wall of a tomb which dates 
 from the time of his father-in-law he is represented as 
 king and is accompanied by his wife Aten-merit, and 
 from the fact that Amen-hetep IV. also appears in this 
 scene we may assume that Se-aa-ka-Ea-tcheser-kheperu 
 was made co-regent some time before the king's death. 
 This successor of Amen-hetep IV. appears to have 
 carried on the worship of Aten after the death of his 
 father-in-law, and to have made the city of Khut-Aten 
 his capital. 
 
 Ea-kheperu-neb, sou of the Sun, Amen-tut-ankh 
 
 HEQ AN-RESU. 
 
 1 In some copies of this king's cartouches we may read Se-klierp- 
 l;a-Ra, etc. 
 
B.C. 1400] REIGN OF TUT-ANKH-AMEN I43 
 
 Tut-Ankh-Amen was the son of Amen-hetep III. 
 by a wife who was not of royal rank ; he married a 
 daughter of Amen-hetep IV. called Ankh-s-en-pa-Aten, 
 and thus obtained the right of succession to the 
 throne of Egypt. He was not a follower of Aten, as 
 his name proclaims, and it is a remarkable fact that 
 his wife changed her name from Ankh-s-en-pa-Aten, 
 which she had used during her father's lifetime, into 
 Ankh-s-en-Amen, thus proclaiming her devotion to 
 Amen-Ea. He adopted many of the titles of the old 
 kings of Egypt, i.e., " Mighty Bull, the Horus of gold, 
 beautiful god, lord of the two lands," etc., and also 
 called himself "Prince of Annu of the South" i.e., 
 Hermonthis. His nomen or Ka name has been 
 explained to mean "the living image of Amen." The 
 chief event in the life of Tut-ankh-Amen was his 
 removal of the court from the city of Khut-Aten back 
 to Thebes, where he showed himself to be a loyal 
 servant of the god Amen, and set to work to repair or 
 rebuild parts of the great temples of the god in the 
 Northern and Southern Apts. He caused a series of 
 reliefs illustrating the chief scenes in the procession of 
 the festival of " Opening of the year," i.e., New Year's 
 Day, to be sculptured on the walls of the colonnade of 
 the temple of Luxor, which had been built by his 
 father, and he carried on certain works in the temple 
 of Karnak; and everywhere possible he restored the 
 name and figure of Amen which his father-in-law had 
 ordered to be cut out or mutilated. During his reign 
 
144 DECLINE OF EGYPT'S POWER IN SYRIA [B.C. 1400 
 
 the "royal son of Kush" was one Hui (j (j and 
 it is probable that through him Tut-jinkh-Amen 
 carried out the repairs to the temple of Amen-Ka, 
 which have been mentioned above. 1 From the tomb 
 'of this official at Kurnet-Murrai we learn that the 
 tribes of Kush brought tribute to the king, but this is 
 not to be wondered at, seeing that Nubia was ruled by 
 a " royal son of Kush " who had not been affected by 
 the heresy of the Disk worshippers. The scenes on the 
 tomb represent the Nubian chiefs bringing gold rings, 
 gold dust, skins of animals, ebony head-rests, precious 
 stones, thrones, couches, oxen, etc. ; elsewhere are 
 pictures which are explained as the bringing of 
 tribute by the chiefs of the people of the Ruthennu, or 
 Syrians. With the evidence of the Tell el-'Amarna 
 tablets before us it is difficult to believe that the 
 northern Syrians paid tribute to Tut-ankh-Amen so 
 soon after the collapse of the Egyptian power in 
 Western Asia, therefore it is far more likely that the 
 Syrians depicted on the walls of Hui's tomb are a 
 company of merchants, who have come to barter with 
 the Egyptians and not to bring them tribute. We 
 must probably interpret many scenes of " the bringing 
 of tribute " in the tombs of Egypt in this manner. 
 Meanwhile, after the departure of the court from 
 Khut-Aten to Thebes, the capital of the worshippers 
 of the Disk declined rapidly, for the temple services 
 languished, and as there was no one in the palace to 
 
 1 See page 143. 
 
B.C. 1500] 
 
 THE REIGN OF Al 
 
 145 
 
 employ the artists and sculptors who had flocked to 
 the city in the reign of Amen-hetep IV., all business 
 ceased ; those who settled there in order to be where 
 the court was quickly left the place, and in less than 
 twenty-five years after the death of the founder of the 
 city Khut-Aten was quite deserted. Soon the buildings 
 began to fall into ruin, and long before the end of the 
 XVIIIth Dynasty there was little left besides the 
 foundations to mark where the city had stood. The 
 god Amen and his priests had conquered Aten, and 
 Egyptian art once again put on its shackles of con- 
 ventionality in obedience to their behests. 
 
 13. m (offii^] ^ (oimmilO 
 
 Ra-rheperu-Maat-ari, son of the Sun, Neter-tef 
 Ai neter-heq-Uast. 
 
 Tut-ankh-Amen was succeeded by Ai, 
 who seems to have held some office in the 
 temple of Amen-Ra at Thebes, for he added 
 to his second cartouche the title " divine 
 father ; " Ai was not a man of royal 
 descent, but he obtained a claim to the 
 
 TTTT 
 
 s! 
 
 throne by marrying the lady Qj (| (| , 
 
 who was related to the house of Amen- 
 of hetep IV., and who is described as " Royal 
 wife, great lady, princess, great of favours, 
 lady of the two lands." Ai, in addition to his Horus 
 
 VOL. IV. L 
 
 Ka-nekh 
 thehent-khau 
 the Horus name 
 Ai. 
 
146 
 
 THE REIGN OF AI 
 
 [B.C. 1400 
 
 name, "Mighty Bull, of saffron-coloured risings," 
 adopted as his titles, "Lord of the shrines of Nekhebet 
 and Uatchet," " Power doubly strong, smiter of Asia, 
 "the Horus of gold, the prince who keepeth Maat (i.e., 
 " the law), the creator of the two lands," and " Divine 
 governor of Thebes." The last mentioned title he 
 had placed in his second cartouche. According to 
 Brugsch, Ai was the " superintendent of the whole 
 " stud of Pharaoh," and his wife Thi had been nurse of 
 Amen-hetep IV., but whether this be so or not it is quite 
 certain that both Ai and Thi were great favourites at 
 the court of this king, for they appear •in a scene in 
 prayer with Amen-hetep and his wife, who are elsewhere 
 represented as bestowing gifts upon them. 1 From this 
 it is clear that Ai was a devotee of the god Aten, but 
 whether a sincere one or not depends upon the identifi- 
 cation with him of the king who built a tomb for him- 
 self in the Western Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. 
 The " divine father " Ai, who was beloved by Amen- 
 hetep IV., certainly built a tomb, which was never 
 finished, at Tell el-'Amarna, and a king Ai, who was 
 also a "divine father" and had married a wife called 
 Thi, hewed out a tomb for himself and his wife in the 
 Western Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, and there 
 is every reason for thinking that both tombs were built 
 by one and the same person, though at different periods 
 of his life. The first may, as M. Maspero suggests, 
 
 1 These scenes are in Ai'stombat Tell el-'Amarna; see Lepsius, 
 Denkmdler, iii. pll. 103 ff., 111. 
 
148 
 
 THE TOMB OF AI 
 
 [B.C. 1400 
 
 have been made at the time when Ai had no expectation 
 of becoming king of Egypt, and the second when 
 he was actually the king of Egypt ; the second 
 tomb itself proves that the man who made it was 
 king of Egypt. This being so, there are no good 
 grounds for not thinking that Ai the king built 
 both tombs. But whatever may have been Ai's views 
 about the supremacy of Aten in the days when he 
 worshipped this god at Khut-Aten in company with 
 Amen-hetep IV., it is quite clear that they underwent 
 a very considerable modification when he was about 
 to become king of Egypt, for he adopted names and 
 titles in which the god Aten is not even mentioned, 
 and he made a tomb for himself and his wife in the 
 Valley of the Tombs of the Kings near that of Amen- 
 hetep III., thereby showing that he wished to be 
 buried near the great kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty 
 who had worshipped Amen and made Thebes their 
 capital. In the new tomb he placed a beautiful, richly 
 sculptured and inscribed red granite sarcophagus ; at 
 the four corners are figures of four goddesses, i.e., Isis, 
 Nephthys, Nit and Serqet, or Selqet, with outspread 
 wings, and on the front is the winged disk with uraei 
 and outspread wings. The tomb is not very large when 
 compared with the other royal tombs of the period. It 
 is usually called the " Monkey Tomb " by the modern 
 Arabs, because on the walls are pictures of several dog- 
 headed apes. During the reign of Ai no military 
 expeditions were undertaken, and it is pretty certain 
 that nothing whatever was done to try to regain Egypt's 
 
B.C. 1*00] THE REIGN OF HERU-EM-HEB 
 
 149 
 
 lost possessions in Palestine and Syria ; we are there- 
 fore justified in assuming that no tribute was paid to 
 Egypt by the tribes of these countries. With Nubia 
 the case was different, for the viceroy Pa-ur, or Pa-ser, 
 
 ^ 6 " r °y a * son °^ Kush,the governor of the 
 south," was living there, and could make the tributary 
 tribes bring in their usual gifts to Egypt. The country 
 there was sufficiently quiet to enable him to build the 
 rock shrine at Addah, or Mashakit, or Shataui, near 
 Abu Simbel, wherein we see Ai and a high official 
 making offerings to Amen, Ptah, Ra, Horus, Sebek, and 
 the local goddesses Anuqet and Satet ; with these are 
 also worshipped Usertsen III., a king of the Xllth 
 Dynasty who effectually conquered Nubia. 
 
 14. M(Wii^]^(il^] 
 
 tcheser-kheperu-setep-en-Ba, son of the Sun, Amen- 
 
 f\ MERI HERU-EM-HEB. 
 
 5^ 
 
 mm 
 
 Ka-nekht-bept- 
 
 sekherc, 
 the Horns name 
 of Heru-em-heb. 
 
 Heru-em-heb, the "Apfiais of Manetho, 
 succeeded to the throne of Egypt by right 
 of his descent from the queen Mut- 
 netchemet, | ^ who appears 
 
 to have been his mother, though some 
 think she was his wife ; Mut-netchemet 
 was closely related to Amen-hetep III., 
 or to his son Amen-hetep IV. According 
 to one account Heru-em-heb himself 
 was grandson of Thothmes III., but the 
 
150 GENEALOGY OF HERU-EM-HEB [B.C. 1400 
 
 details of his genealogy are not known. On ascend- 
 ing the throne he adopted as his Horns name, 
 " Mighty Bull, endowed with plans, or, counsels," 
 and the most frequent of his other titles are, "Lord 
 " of the shrines of Nekhebet and "Hatchet, mighty 
 "one of marvels in the Apt," "The Horus of gold, 
 "resting upon Mailt, making to be the two lands," 
 " Mighty one of valour," etc. Of the life of Heru-em- 
 heb we gain some interesting information from an 
 inscription 1 found on the back of a double statue which 
 is preserved in the Museum at Turin ; here we have 
 the king and the queen Mut-netchemet, the former 
 holding the symbol of life and a sceptre to his breast, 
 and the latter wearing the headdress of a royal lady, 
 which was originally surmounted by plumes. The text 
 is full of high-sounding phrases, and the breaks 
 at the beginning of the first twenty lines make it 
 difficult at times to form a connected sense, but the 
 principal facts recorded are as follows:— He was be- 
 gotten by Amen-Ra, who took upon himself the form of 
 Heru-em-heb's earthly father, just as the god took upon 
 himself the forms of the fathers of Hatshepset and 
 Amen-hetep III. when they were begotten ; he was 
 
 born in the city of Het-suten, ^ Q ^ , the Alabastron- 
 
 polis of the Greeks, and Horus, the god of the city, 
 took him straightway under his protection, and be- 
 stowed upon him all manner of physical gifts and 
 
 1 First published with an English translation by the late Dr. Birch 
 in Trans. Soc. Bill. Arch., vol. iii. p. 486 If. 
 
B.C. 1400] HERU-EM-HEB ASCENDS THE THRONE 151 
 
 mental powers, and clothed him in the " skin of the god." 
 He was held in great honour by gentle and simple, 
 even as a child, and every one recognized that he was 
 the offspring of the god and was destined to occupy a 
 most exalted position in Egypt. In due time the god 
 Horus brought him before the king in the palace, 
 
 and he was at once made 
 
 Be-her, ^ ^ ( , or governor of the country. Later 
 
 he became the Aten, (j <= ^ 3 ^ , or " deputy" of the 
 
 king in the two lands, a position which he occupied 
 with great success for many years ; the nobles of Egypt 
 rendered homage to him, and " the chiefs of the foreign 
 "nations of the south and of the north stretched out 
 " their hands towards him, and made supplication to his 
 " face as unto a god." At length Horus of Het-Suten 
 wished to establish his son upon his everlasting throne, 
 and arranged that Heru-em-heb should go to Thebes and 
 appear before Amen, in order that this great god might 
 seat him upon the throne of Egypt. Horus himself 
 took him to Thebes, and their journey through the 
 country was hailed with delight by all men. When 
 Heru-em-heb arrived in Thebes he went to the temple 
 of Amen, and was received joyfully by the god, who led 
 the young man to his mother Mut-netchemet, and she 
 embraced him, and apparently resigned then and there 
 on his behalf all her claims to the throne of Egypt ; on 
 this Nekhebet, Uatchet, Nit, Isis, Nephthys, Horus, 
 
152 HERU-EM-HEB RESTORES THE TEMPLES [B.C. 1400 
 
 Set, and all the company of the gods raised a shout of 
 joy. After an interval Amen led his son into the large 
 hall of the temple, in order to "stablish his crown upon 
 his head," and the gods saluted him and besought the 
 king of the gods to bestow upon the new king the years 
 of a long life and thirty-year festivals, and to give him 
 the power to augment the worship which was paid to 
 
 the gods in Thebes, Heliopolis, and Memphis, 
 
 U 
 □ 
 
 Iiet-Ptah-ka. Thereupon the names and titles of the 
 new king were decided upon, and the remainder of the 
 coronation ceremony was duly performed. The coro- 
 nation over, Heru-em-heb appears to have left Thebes 
 and to have sailed down the river " in the form of the 
 " god Harmachis, having taken possession of the country 
 " according to the decree which had been passed con- 
 " cerning him from the time of Ka." Next he " restored 
 " (or rebuilt) the temples of the gods from the region of 
 
 " the papyrus swamps in the Delta, ^) c=f ^ 3 j[ ]| ® ' 
 
 " to the land of Ta-kenset in Nubia, and he caused to be 
 
 " sculptured images of the gods, ^ " !, which were 
 
 " larger and more beautiful than any that had ever 
 " been made before. The Sun-god Ea rejoiced to see 
 " his shrines which had been desolate for a long time 
 " made to flourish again, and where formerly there had 
 " been one statue there were now a hundred." Having 
 restored the buildings and set up the figures of the gods 
 in them, he bestowed upon the temples lands and goods, 
 
B.C. 1400] AND MAKES FRIENDS OF THE PRIESTS 153 
 
 and appointed priests to minister in them, and servants 
 to keep them clean, and lie provided for their main- 
 tenance in perpetuity. 
 
 The above summary will show what are the general 
 contents of the inscription on the statue at Turin, and 
 it will be seen that it teaches us nothing about the 
 events of the king's reign; in fact, all that it really 
 tells us is that Heru-em-heb was descended from a 
 family of worshippers of Amen, that he obtained the 
 throne through the influence of the priests of Amen, 
 who worked upon the queen Mut-netchemet, and made 
 her to resign her rights to the throne on behalf of their 
 nominee, and that the king performed during his reign 
 the promises which he had made to support the 
 authority of Amen, and to carry out the commands ot 
 the god as interpreted by his priests. The titles which 
 the king assumed indicate that he was a man of some 
 learning and wisdom, and unless the words of the 
 earlier part of the inscription are not true, he must 
 have been a tactful as well as a just man ; to please 
 the nobles of Egypt as well as the priests of Amen 
 must have been by no means an easy task. Some- 
 interesting light is thrown upon the reign of Heru- 
 em-heb by a stele, about sixteen feet high, which was 
 discovered by M. Maspero in 1882, 1 when conduct- 
 ing excavations on the site of the pylon built by 
 
 1 See Aeg. Zeitschrift, 1882, p. 134; Bouriant, Eecueil, torn. vi. 
 pp. 41-56, where a copy of the text will be found; and Aeg. Zeit- 
 schrift, 1888, pp. 70-94, where a number of difficult passages in it 
 have been explained by Miiller. 
 
154 REFORMS OF HERU-EM-HEB [B.C. 1400 
 
 Heru-em-heb at Karnak. The inscription upon it is 
 unfortunately much mutilated, and large gaps occur in 
 it, but enough of it is legible to show that it contains 
 copies of the decrees passed by the king in council with 
 his ministers for the suppression of frauds and crimes 
 of various kinds. The king, it is said, watched both 
 by day and by night to do good to Egypt, and he 
 intended to put down with a strong hand the shameful 
 irregularities which had grown up in connexion with 
 the collection of taxes, etc. Then follows a list of the 
 offences which had been brought before the notice of 
 the king personally, and it seems that he punished the 
 delinquents in the same manner in which Thothmes III. 
 had punished men who were proved to have committed 
 similar offences. We see that the tax-collectors seized, 
 in the name of the king, whatsoever they pleased, 
 declaring that they needed it for the execution of their 
 duty, and having once taken the property of the poor 
 in this way they refused to give it up again. The 
 collectors were accompanied by scribes, who made false 
 entries in the government registers, and both classes of 
 officials expected to gain on every transaction which 
 they carried out for their master. When a local Wali 
 of the day moved from one place to another, his 
 servants seized, in the name of the government, the 
 boats and beasts of burden belonging to any one who 
 had such things, and made use of them without 
 payment. What goes on to this day in Turkey went 
 on then in Egypt, and the poor were plundered on all 
 
B.C. 1400] HIS COURTS OF JUSTICE 155 
 
 hands ; on the slightest provocation the tax-collectors 
 would swear that those who had paid taxes had not 
 paid them, and the amount of the rate levied on the 
 people often depended on the good will or good nature 
 of the collector. Heru-em-heb found that it was 
 useless to appoint inspectors, because they frequently 
 became corrupted, and in turn they corrupted other 
 officials who had the power to bring them to book ; as 
 a result the king was robbed, and many of the people 
 were brought to beggary. The decrees of Heru-em-heb 
 were humane and just ; among others he ordered that 
 the tools or means by which a man earned his living 
 were not to be confiscated if he could not pay his taxes ; 
 some slight offences he punished by beating, but an 
 offender who committed an act of glaring injustice and 
 cruelty was punished by having his nose split and by 
 banishment to Tchar, I JE^ 1 ' , i.e., a district 
 near the Sirbonian Lake of classical writers, and a 
 notorious criminal settlement. On stated days Heru- 
 em-heb sat in his palace to hear complaints and 
 petitions, to adjust differences, and to pass sentence on 
 those who had been charged in his court and found 
 guilty ; and if the exercise of his powers in these 
 respects was guided by a knowledge of human nature 
 we may well believe that he did a vast amount of good. 
 Many Eastern rulers have established courts of justice 
 on this pattern, but they have usually degenerated into 
 courts of injustice on the deaths of their founders, and 
 done more harm than good. 
 
I56 RESTORATION OF THE TEMPLES [B.C. 1400 
 
 We have already seen that Heru-em-heb ascended 
 the throne through the influence of the priests of Amen, 
 and it is time to refer to the great works which he 
 did in honour of that god. His first act seems to 
 have been to pull down the Het-Benben which 
 Amen-hetep IV., the misguided heretic, had set up in 
 the very midst of the buildings of the temple of Amen, 
 in honour of the god Harmachis, in order to proclaim 
 that he was a high priest of this rival of Amen, and to 
 insult the priests and people of Thebes. Heru-em-heb 
 destroyed this edifice with great thoroughness, and 
 used up the stones of which it was built for the founda- 
 tions of the two pylons, which he erected at the south 
 end of the great temple of Amen-Ka at Karnak. To 
 carry on his building operations here and elsewhere 1 he 
 worked the quarries of Silsila, and on the walls of the 
 small temple which he hewed in the mountain there he 
 caused to be painted scenes illustrating the principal 
 events which took place during the expedition which 
 he led into Nubia. This temple is entered by five 
 doorways, and consists of a long, narrow, vaulted 
 chamber, with an opening immediately opposite the 
 middle doorway leading into a smaller room, which 
 probably formed the sanctuary. On the wall at the 
 southern end of the larger chamber is a relief in which 
 the king is depicted seated on a throne borne by twelve 
 soldiers wearing feathers, and he is followed by rows of 
 
 1 For a list of his buildings and restorations see Wiedemann, 
 Aeg. Geschichte, p. 410. 
 
B.C. 1400] EXPEDITION INTO SYRIA 157 
 
 Nubian princes bearing tribute, or gifts. This little 
 temple was hewn by the king to commemorate his 
 victory over the Nubians, and its walls formed excellent 
 surfaces whereon kings and officials under the XlXth 
 Dynasty loved to sculpture scenes illustrating their 
 devotion to the gods, and to inscribe records of their 
 prowess. Judging from the fragmentary lists of names 
 and inscriptions on one of the walls of the temple of 
 Amen at Karnak, it seems that Heru-em-heb undertook 
 in person, or sent, an expedition into Palestine and 
 Syria with the view of compelling the former vassal 
 nations and tribes to pay tribute to him as they had 
 done to his predecessors, and he claims to have made 
 them do so. In the lists of the countries which he 
 declares he has conquered we meet the names of 
 Alashiya (Cyprus ?) and Kheta, and those of cities in 
 Northern Syria, but it is difficult to believe that the 
 peoples there either acknowledged his sovereignty or 
 paid him much tribute. The want of ships belonging 
 entirely to Egypt would prevent him from landing an 
 army in Cyprus, and any expedition which he made to 
 that island must have concerned merchandise rather 
 than conquest. The power of the peoples who formed 
 the Kheta confederacy precludes any idea that they 
 submitted to him, for during the years which had 
 elapsed since they broke Egypt's power in Northern 
 Syria they had made themselves masters of that 
 country. Still, the Egyptians had become accustomed 
 to objects of Syrian merchandise, and any gift made to 
 
158 
 
 EXPEDITION TO PUNT 
 
 [B.C. 1*00 
 
 the Egyptian king, or even any bartering which was 
 distinctly advantageous to him, was termed " tribute'' 
 by the court scribes, who had to draw up the descrip- 
 tions of his expedition and the list of " conquered" 
 cities, which were to be inscribed on the walls of the 
 temple of Amen at Karnak. 
 
 Heru-em-heb sent ships to Punt to bring back loads 
 of gum, and of other products of that country, and the 
 people would also regard as "tribute" the results of these 
 mercantile expeditions. Records of this kind, however, 
 prove that Egypt was beginning to feel the desire to 
 regain her former possessions, and that she possessed a 
 ruler who wished to give effect to this desire. Before 
 Heru-em-heb ascended the throne he seems to have 
 begun to build a tomb at Sakkara, and from the 
 inscriptions upon its walls we learn that he was a 
 ha prince, and a smer, and that the offices which he 
 held at court were those of fan-bearer and royal scribe, 
 and commander-in-chief of the soldiers. It has been 
 thought that this tomb was built for one Heru-em-heb 
 who is not to be identified with the man who became 
 king of Egypt, but there are many reasons for consider- 
 ing this view untenable. The inscriptions on the 
 statues at Turin prove that the king was of noble 
 though not necessarily royal, rank and birth, and 
 indicate that he was held in high honour because of it. 
 Unfortunately, they do not say what king it was who 
 promoted him to the government of the country, but it 
 may well have been Tut-ankh-Amen, who was glad to 
 
B.C. 1400] 
 
 TOMB OF HERU-EM-HEB 
 
 159 
 
 find a capable man and soldier to set over the country 
 of the North. The official who built the tomb at 
 Sakkara is represented with the uraeus on the fore- 
 head ; this proves that he was connected with the royal 
 family of the XVIIIth Dynasty, and agrees very well 
 with the inscription at Der al-Bahari, which says that 
 king Heru-em-heb's grandfather was Thothmes III. 
 Viewed in this light, the inscriptions on the walls of 
 the temple of Amen, describing conquests in Syria, may 
 be interpreted in another way, for they may refer to 
 events which took place during expeditions conducted 
 when the king was a young man, i.e., about the time 
 when Tut-ankh-Amen was reigning. At any rate, it is 
 much more likely for the high official of Memphis to 
 have been the nominee of the priests of Amen than a 
 comparatively unknown man, and for the queen 
 Mut-netchemet to have resigned her claims to the 
 throne in favour of a relative of the old royal house, 
 than of a stranger. The length of the reign of Heru- 
 em-heb is unknown, but according to an inscription 
 published by the late Dr. Birch he reigned twenty-one 
 years. 1 
 
 1 Inscriptions in the Hieratic and Demotic Character, pi. 14. 
 
( i6o ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. — SUMMARY. 
 
 The kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty were undoubtedly 
 the greatest who ever occupied the throne of Egypt, 
 and their rule marks a new era in the history of Egypt. 
 With the advent to the throne of the early kings of 
 this dynasty Egypt began her career of foreign con- 
 quest, culminating in the formation of an empire which 
 covered the greater part of Western Asia, and which 
 lasted in a more or less flourishing condition for a 
 period of nearly three hundred years. Aahmes I. 
 completed the expulsion of the Hyksos, which was 
 begun by Seqenen-Ra III., and pursued them into 
 Palestine and captured their stronghold Sharuhen ; 
 his son Amen-hetep I. was occupied in extending the 
 southern rather than the northern frontier of the 
 kingdom, but his successor Thothmes I. conceived and 
 began to carry into execution the conquest of the 
 whole of Palestine and Syria, and actually succeeded 
 in reaching the city of Ni, which was probably situated 
 near the Euphrates, and set up a memorial tablet 
 
DECLINE OF THE POWER OF EGYPT l6l 
 
 there. His conquests were, however, not permanent, 
 and the consolidation of the Egyptian power in 
 Western Asia did not take place until the reign of 
 Thothmes III. Under Amen-hetep II. and his son 
 Amen-hetep III. Egypt attained the zenith of her 
 power, and the greatest height of her prosperity, for 
 during the greater part of the reign of the later monarch 
 the authority of the king of Egypt was undisputed 
 from the Fourth Cataract on the Nile in the south to 
 the mountains of Armenia in the north. But this vast 
 empire was not held together by any internal power of 
 its own, and its continued existence depended entirely 
 upon the energy and personality of the reigning 
 Pharaoh. 
 
 As soon as Amen-hetep III. became old and 
 feeble the signs of decay of empire began to appear, 
 and the whole imperial edifice temporarily collapsed in 
 the reign of his successor Amen-hetep IV., who is 
 better known perhaps as " Khu-en-Aten," the " Disk- 
 worshipper." Whilst this weak and incapable monarch 
 was engaged in the congenial occupations of disputing 
 with the theologians at Thebes, and in subverting the 
 historic canons of Egyptian art, the empire of Western 
 Asia, which had been built up by his mighty ancestors, 
 slipped from his grasp, and was not restored to Egypt 
 until the reign of Seti I., about fifty years later. The 
 frontiers of Egypt on the south were also extended by 
 the early kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty, especially by 
 Amen-hetep I. ; in the reign of Amen-hetep II. the 
 
 VOL. IV. M 
 
l62 THE " ROYAL PRINCE OF CUSH " 
 
 further submission of the Nubian tribes was brought 
 about, and under Amen-hetep III. the whole of Nubia 
 was effectively occupied, the Egyptian frontier having 
 been pushed as far south as the city of Napata, or 
 Gebel Barkal, at the foot of the Fourth Cataract. 
 Here the frontier remained until the secession of the 
 Nubian kingdom from Egypt under the rule of the 
 princes of the house of Piankhi, some five or six 
 hundred years later. The administration of Nubia 
 was organized in the reign of Thothmes I., when a 
 viceroy was appointed, whose official title, "Boyal prince 
 of Kesh " (Cush), appears for the first time in Egyptian 
 history ; at first the person selected to fill this post 
 was a great noble or trusted military officer, but 
 later the office became an appanage of one of the royal 
 princes, who was, no doubt, usually an absentee. 
 
 The administration of Western Asia was a more 
 serious matter, and could not be so easily provided for. 
 Palestine and Syria were inhabited by a number of 
 tribes which were usually at war with each other, but 
 the people were not barbarians like the Nubians, for 
 they were nearly as civilized as the Egyptians them- 
 selves, having for centuries been included in the sphere 
 of influence of the ancient culture of Babylonia, which 
 may well be older than that of Egypt itself. The 
 language and writing of Babylonia had been long used 
 throughout the country, and remained the medium of 
 communication between all the nations on the eastern 
 shores of the Mediterranean, When Syria and Pales- 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING IN SYRIA 163 
 
 tine were actually under the rule of Egypt, and paid 
 tribute to the Egyptians, the Babylonian language was 
 the official speech of the country, and was used by the 
 Egyptian conquerors in corresponding with their 
 subjects as well as with the non-Semitic princes of 
 Cyprus, Cilicia, and Armenia, who made Babylonian 
 the language of diplomacy. The coast of Palestine 
 was already in the XVIIIth Dynasty inhabited by the 
 famous race of the Phoenicians, who had at that time 
 attained the position of merchants, and carriers by sea, 
 which they always afterwards retained. Many passages 
 in the Tell el-'Amarna tablets show us that in the 
 XVth century B.C. they already possessed fleets of 
 merchant ships, and we know from a fresco in a Theban 
 tomb 1 that the importers of objects of curiosity and 
 value from the northern countries into Egypt were 
 Phoenicians. This nation also used the cuneiform 
 writing at this period, for the Phoenician script as we 
 find it on the cup of Hiram I. 2 had not yet been developed 
 by them. They were brought under the control of the 
 Egyptians by Thothmes III., and during the revolt of 
 the Canaanitish tribes in the reign of Amen-hetep IV. 
 they proved themselves to be the most faithful of 
 all the Asiatic subjects of Egypt. The Egyptians 
 administered their Asiatic possessions chiefly by making- 
 use of the local chiefs, who were no doubt subsidized, 
 and who ruled their tribes as the representatives of 
 
 1 Daressy, Revue Arch., S^vae s £r M 1895, vol. xxvii p. 286. 
 
 2 Corpus Inscrip. Semit., torn. i. pi. iv. 
 
164 
 
 THE BABYLONIANS AND KASSITES 
 
 the Egyptian Government to which they had to send 
 back tribute. To the courts of the more important 
 chiefs Egyptian residents were appointed, much in the 
 same way as British officials are appointed to reside at 
 the courts of Indian Kajahs. Besides these, travelling 
 commissioners 1 were despatched from time to time 
 from Egypt to investigate matters and to adjust 
 differences between the various tribes, and high 
 Egyptian officials were often temporarily appointed 
 governors of some disaffected region. 
 
 The well-being and fortunes of the Egyptian Empire 
 in Western Asia were greatly affected by the presence on 
 its frontiers of a series of powerful and highly civilized 
 kingdoms, e.g., Karaduniyash, or Babylonia, Mitanni, 
 i.e., the classical Matiene, or Southern Armenia, Kheta, 
 or the Khatti of the Assyrians, Arsapi, or Cilicia, 
 and Alashiya, or Cyprus. At this time Babylonia was 
 under the rule of a dynasty 2 of foreign kings who 
 belonged to an eastern race of uncertain origin, known 
 to us as "Kassites." This dynasty was founded about 
 B.C. 1725 by a king called Gandish, and its kings, who 
 were contemporaneous with the XYIIIth and XlXth 
 Dynasties, will be found in the note below. Of these 
 monarchs Kara-indash was a contemporary of Thothmes 
 
 1 Compare the positions of Yankhamu and others whose existence 
 is made known to us by the Tell el-'Amarna tablets. 
 
 - I.e., Agum (b.c. 1600), Kara-indash, Kadashman-Bel, Kadash- 
 man-Harbe, Kurigalzu I., Burraburiyash, Kara-IIardash, Nazibu- 
 gasb, Kurigalzu II., Nazimaruttash, Kadashman-Turgu, and 
 Shagashalti-buriyash (about B.C. 1300). 
 
RELATIONS OF EGYPT WITH BABYLONIA 165 
 
 III., and was no doubt the first Babylonian king to 
 enter into direct relations with Egypt. Karaduniyash, 
 i.e., the name given to Babylonia by the Kassites, was 
 at once recognized as a monarchy possessing a civili- 
 zation as advanced as its own, and the sister and 
 daughter of Kadashman-Bel, or as the name has been 
 commonly read, Kallimma-Sin, were given in marriage 
 to Amen-hetep III. The intimate relations which 
 existed between the royal houses of Egypt and Baby- 
 lonia will be found described in the chapter on the 
 Tell el-'Amarna tablets. Amen-hetep III. and Amen- 
 hetep IV. married respectively Gilukhipa and Tatum- 
 khipa, the sister and daughter of Tushratta, the king 
 of Mitanni, the rival power of Karaduniyash. The 
 immediate predecessors of Tushratta on the throne of 
 Mitanni were Artashumara and Artatama, who had 
 entered into very friendly relations with Egypt. It 
 must not be forgotten that Thi, the chief wife of 
 Amen-hetep III., and mother of Amen-hetep IV., was 
 of Mitannian origin, and thus it is possible that the 
 Aten worship was modified by the influence of the 
 Mitannian religion. The people of Mitanni spoke a 
 non-Semitic language, but they adopted the Babylonian 
 system of writing to express it ; it has not as yet been 
 satisfactorily deciphered. 
 
 Situated between the rival kingdoms of Babylonia 
 and Mitanni was the territory which as early as 
 B.C. 2100 was known by the name of Ashur, i.e., 
 Assyria. This district had always been under the 
 
l66 END OF THE KINGDOM OF MITANNI 
 
 direct influence of Babylonia, and had been generally 
 ruled by the monarchs of that country. During 
 the period of the rule of the Hyksos in Egypt 
 a Semitic prince called Ishmi-Dagan ruled in a semi- 
 independent fashion over Assyria, and in the time of 
 Kara-indash, king of Babylonia, Ashur-bel-nishi-shu, 
 the king of Assyria, was recognized as an independent 
 monarch by the Kassites, who were compelled to agree 
 to a treaty in which the boundaries of the two kingdoms 
 were defined. At the same period, however, the 
 kingdom of Assyria was regarded by the Egyptians as 
 a tributary nation, a position which was never assigned 
 to the kingdoms of Karaduniyash and Mitanni, and it 
 remained tributary until the end of the reign of Amen- 
 hetep III., when, simultaneously with the revolt of the 
 Syrian tribes against Egypt, Ashur-uballit, king of 
 Assyria, not only threw off the Egyptian yoke, but at 
 the same time attacked Babylonia, with the result that 
 he ultimately obtained sufficient power to set a king 
 — Kuri-galzu II. — upon the throne of Babylonia. 
 Henceforth for some hundreds of years the Assyrian 
 power eclipsed that of Babylonia. The kingdom of 
 Mitanni seems to have collapsed soon after the reign of 
 Tushratta, and the country was divided between the 
 Assyrians and the powerful race of the Kheta, who 
 must now be mentioned. The Egyptians first came in 
 conflict with the Kheta in the reign of Thothmes III. ; 
 they seem to have been originally a mountain race 
 of Armenian origin, and their home was probably 
 
RISE OF THE KHETA POWER 
 
 167 
 
 the high lands of Cappadocia. During the XVIIIth 
 Dynasty their power increased towards the south, until 
 in the time of Ainen-hetep IV. we find them occupying 
 the whole of the country round about Aleppo and 
 Emesa. They were extremely warlike and no longer 
 paid tribute to Egypt, indeed they were greatly feared 
 by Babylonians, Mitannians, and Egyptians alike ; the 
 disturbances in Syria and Palestine at this period 
 were chiefly due to their interference in the affairs of 
 these countries. The kingdom of Khanigalbat, which 
 is mentioned in the Tell el-'Aniarna letters, must be 
 placed in or near the territory of the Kheta. 
 
 The position of the land of Arsapi can be fixed 
 with certainty, and it represents the later Cilicia ; 
 its language, at present undecipherable, is written in 
 cuneiform characters, and judging from the name of 
 the king Tarhunclaraush it must have belonged to the 
 non-Semitic and non-Aryan speech of Asia Minor. 1 
 
 The country of Alasa, (j ^jj ^ r^^i , or Alashiya, 
 
 with which the Egyptians at the end of the XVIIIth 
 Dynasty were in constant communication, must, it 
 seems, be placed in Cyprus, of which it was probably 
 a part, and in this island must also be placed the land 
 
 of Asi, (j r^^i , which Thothmes III. rendered 
 
 tributary. The Egyptian name for the whole island 
 
 1 See Kretschmer, Einleitang, p. 370 ff . ; Hall, Oldest Civilization, 
 
 p. 90 er. 
 
i68 
 
 CYPRUS AND THE KEFTIU 
 
 is Inthanai, ~jj (j ^ (j (j ,1 which is probably 
 
 the hieroglyphic equivalent of Yatnana, the Assyrian 
 name for Cyprus. The Egyptians imported from 
 Alashiya large quantities of copper and precious woods, 
 which seem to have come from the forests of Troodos. 
 
 The extension of the Egyptian Empire to the borders 
 of Asia Minor, and the partial subjugation of the Island 
 of Cyprus, brought the Egyptians more or less into 
 contact with the nations of Western Asia, Asia Minor, 
 Crete, etc. ; the generic name of the lands wherein 
 
 these nations dwelt is, in Egyptian, Kefti, r^^i , 
 
 or Kefthu, "jj ^ r^^i , a term which, according 
 
 to Brugsch, means nothing more nor less than " Hinter- 
 land." The old theory which regarded the Keftiu 
 as Phoenicians must, therefore, be abandoned. The 
 nations of the Keftiu were at the time of the XVIIIth 
 Dynasty included within the sphere of influence of the 
 early European civilization which is called "My- 
 cenaean/' the chief seat of which appears to have been 
 in the Island of Crete. 2 Ambassadors from a nation 
 of Kefti were received at the court of Thothmes III., 
 and representations of them and of the gifts which 
 they brought with them are depicted in the tombs 
 of Rekh-ma-Ra, 3 and Men-kheper-Ra-senb, two great 
 
 1 This identification is due to Mr. Hall ; see op. cit. y p. 163. 
 
 2 Evans, Cretan Picto graphs (passim) ; and Annual, British School 
 at Athens, vol. vi. (passim). 
 
 3 Prisse d'Avennes, Hist, de VArt, torn. ii. ; Midler, Asien und 
 Europa, pp. 348, 319. 
 
THE NATIONS OF THE KEFTIU l6g 
 
 officials who flourished at Thebes during his reign. 
 The dresses worn by the ambassadors are similar to 
 those of the Mycenaeans depicted on the walls of the 
 palace at Knossos, discovered by Mr. A. J. Evans in 
 1900. 
 
 Of the various nations whom the Egyptians included 
 under the name of Keftiu in the XVIIIth Dynasty we 
 know the names of two only, i.e., Sirdana and Dan- 
 una, which names occur in the Tell el-'Amarna tablets ; 
 the former are mentioned as mercenary soldiers, the 
 latter as having established a settlement on the coast 
 of Palestine. 1 These two nations are identical with 
 the Shartina and the Taanau, or Tanauna, who are 
 mentioned in texts of the XlXth and XXth Dynasties ; 
 but of the other nations, e.g., Aquinasha, Tartenui, 
 Masa, Maunna, Pitasa, Qaleqisha, Thuirsha, Shakelesha, 
 Tchakarui, and Uashasha, who were associated with 
 them in later days, we have in the XVIIIth Dynasty 
 no mention. The Lycians, who were known to the 
 
 Egyptians as " Buka," jj^, and to the 
 
 Babylonians as "Lu-uk-ki," ^ E? V£T <JS=|, and 
 who were no doubt also included under the generic name 
 of "Kefti," were renowned in the XVIIIth Dynasty 
 as pirates, and a correspondence was carried on 
 between the governments of Alashiya and Egypt in the 
 reign of Amen-hetep IV. in respect of their predatory 
 
 1 See Winckler, Die Thontafeln, Berlin, 1896, p. 143 ; and Tell el- 
 Amarna Tablets in the British Museum, London, 1892, p. lxi. 
 
170 THE KING'S POWER ABSOLUTE 
 
 raids. 1 The nation of the Pursatha, which must be 
 identified with the Philistines, is not mentioned in 
 the XVIIIth Dynasty, and at this period it does not 
 appear as yet to have settled on the coast of Palestine. 
 The relations between Egypt and the above mentioned 
 peoples of the Mediterranean at this time appear to 
 have been, on the whole, friendly, and the discovery of 
 Mycenaean objects with Egyptian remains of this date 
 and the evidence of the great influence which Egyptian 
 art exercised over that of the Mycenaeans, prove that 
 these relations were of a continuous and not intermittent 
 character. 
 
 The history of the XVIIIth Dynasty shows that the 
 power of the king was absolute as far as the dictation 
 of the foreign policy of the government was concerned ; 
 but though in theory he controlled the internal affairs 
 of the country in the same way, we see that in practice 
 he was checked by the necessity of consulting the 
 wishes of the priests of Amen-Ea at Thebes, who were 
 now becoming very powerful, and by the impossibility 
 of dominating the actions of the large army of officials, 
 both civil and military, who had by this time taken 
 the place of the old aristocratic and semi-independent 
 governors of the nomes. The troubles which ac- 
 companied the Hyksos invasion, and the long wars of 
 liberation carried on by the princes of the XVIIth 
 Dynasty resulted in the disappearance of the old erpa 
 ha princes, or chiefs of nomes, who in the XVIIIth 
 
 1 Winckler, Tell el-Amarna, p. 87. 
 
khut-Aten made the capital 171 
 
 Dynasty were replaced by royal officials, all the power 
 of the government being centralized at Thebes. The 
 ancient political capitals, Memphis and Herakleopolis, 
 declined greatly in the XVIIIth Dynasty, and the 
 ancient religious capital, Heliopolis, sank into obscurity ; 
 on the other hand Abydos revived, chiefly because it 
 was the most ancient centre of Osiris worship, which 
 at this time was far more prominent than under the 
 kings of the Middle Empire. The temporary transfer 
 of the court and government administration from 
 Thebes to Khut-Aten (Tell el-'Amarna) in the reign of 
 Amen-hetep did not result in any permanent dis- 
 organization of the administrative machinery, but the 
 religious upheaval which accompanied it was very 
 considerable. It seems as if the king was obliged to 
 quit Thebes, for the capital was as sincerely devoted 
 to the worship of Amen as he was to that of A ten; 
 his departure probably saved the country from rebellion 
 and civil war. The episode of the retirement of the 
 heretical king with his whole court to the new palace 
 and city of the " Spirit of the Sun-Disk," which he 
 built far away from the shrines of the ancient religion 
 which he had repudiated, and the strange life of 
 religious and artistic propaganda which he led there, 
 utterly oblivious of the fate of the foreign possessions 
 of his empire, is one of the most curious and interesting 
 in the history of the world. 
 
 The history of the development of the Egyptian 
 religion at this period is dominated by the transitory 
 
172 THE ATEN WORSHIP 
 
 episode of the Aten heresy. The word Aten, (j , 
 means " Sim-Disk," and the veneration of it was ex- 
 tremely ancient in Egypt, or rather in those parts of 
 the country where the influence of the priests of 
 Heliopolis was paramount. The old veneration in- 
 cluded no monotheistic conceptions, and the Aten was 
 venerated solely as the disk of the Sun-god Ea ; at 
 base, then, the worship of the Aten was of Heliopolitan 
 origin, but it only became a heresy when monotheistic 
 ideas were imported into it, and the sun-disk was 
 regarded as the sole deity of heaven and of earth, the 
 source of all light and life. It seems that these new 
 views were introduced into the worship of the Aten 
 by the importation into Egypt of foreign religious 
 ideas of a monotheistic character, which were brought 
 from Mitanni by Thi, the Mitannian wife of Amen- 
 hetep III., and mother of his son Amen-hetep IV. 
 (Khu-en-Aten). The cause of the bitter dispute 
 between Amen-hetep IV. and the priests was the fact 
 that the worship of the Aten as developed by him 
 admitted of the existence of no other gods ; all the 
 anthropomorphic and theriomorphic gods of Egypt 
 were to be abolished, and the sole deity to be wor- 
 shipped was the actual, burning, and radiant disk of 
 the Sun, who was no longer to be regarded as the 
 god of the sky, but as God Himself, One and Alone. 
 Such revolutionary ideas as these were, no doubt, 
 exclusively confined to the king and court at Tell 
 el-'Amarna, for all the priests and the bulk of the 
 
THE ATEN WORSHIP 
 
 173 
 
 people remained faithful to the old gods of Egypt, 
 who were restored to their old positions within ten 
 years after the death of Amen-hetep IV., when the 
 name of Amen, which he had erased from the monu- 
 ments wherever possible in order to insert in its place 
 that of Aten, was restored by the orthodox king Heru- 
 em-heb. The vigour of the opposition offered to the 
 views of the heretics by the priests of Amen is evident 
 from the violence of the hatred displayed towards their 
 god and his name, and it is interesting to note that the 
 names of Ea and Heru-khuti, gods of Heliopolis, were 
 left undisturbed by Khu-en-Aten. 
 
 Among the religious literature of the XVIIIth Dynasty 
 the hymns to the Aten are characterized by loftiness of 
 sentiment and beauty of expression. The Book of the 
 Dead attained its fullest development at this period, 
 when the Theban Recension was finally elaborated. 
 Many of the most ancient chapters had long been 
 unintelligible throughout, and many passages in it had 
 been interpreted by means of glosses and commentaries 
 from very ancient times. The greater portion of the 
 book as it was constituted in the XVIIIth Dynasty 
 consists of the original texts mixed with and overlaid 
 by a number of explanatory notes and glosses, which it 
 is often difficult to separate from the original texts. 
 In connexion with this subject it must be noted that 
 sepulchral stelae in the XVIIIth Dynasty differ 
 greatly from those in use under the Xllth and earlier 
 Dynasties. On the earlier stelae we see representations 
 
174 FUNERAL CUSTOMS IN THE XVIIIth DYNASTY 
 
 of the making of offerings to the deceased by his wife 
 and the various members of his family, from which it is 
 clear that the veneration of ancestors was a sacred 
 duty ; in the XVIIIth Dynasty, however, we see that 
 the deceased himself is usually depicted in the act of 
 making offerings to a god, who is generally Horns, 
 and this remained the most striking characteristic of 
 sepulchral stelae until the latest times. In the descrip- 
 tion of the remains of the dynasty of Antef kings given 
 above reference has been made to the fashion which 
 grew up in their time of making coffins in the shape of 
 the mummified human body ; under the XVIIIth 
 Dynasty this custom became universal, and the old 
 rectangular coffins did not come into use again until 
 the Koman Period. In the XVIIIth Dynasty exalted 
 personages were buried in two or three coffins, and a 
 board, elaborately painted and decorated with a human 
 face, was often laid upon the mummy j this board was, 
 in later days, replaced by a cartonnage casing made of 
 layers of linen and plaster, which fitted the body 
 closely. In still later times cartonnage cases were 
 made of old papyri, which were broken up and mixed 
 with gum, and so formed a kind of cardboard. 
 
 The kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty were not buried 
 in pyramids like their predecessors, but in large rock- 
 hewn tombs, which contained corridors and galleries of 
 great length, and several chambers which were used for 
 commemorative festival services and for the making of 
 offerings. Each king began to build his tomb as soon 
 
THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS 175 
 
 as he ascended the throne, and its extension and the 
 decoration of the walls, etc., continued until the time of 
 his death ; practically, the longer a king reigned the 
 larger his tomb became. The earlier kings of the 
 XVIIIth Dynasty were buried in the mountain near 
 the temple of Der al-Bahari, and their tombs could 
 probably be approached from that building ; the later 
 kings built tombs for themselves in the rocky ravine, 
 commouly called the " Valley of the Tombs of the 
 Kings," in Arabic, Biban-al-Muluk. Of the latter 
 group one of the oldest and most interesting is the 
 tomb of Amen-hetep II., which was discovered by 
 M. Loret in 1898. In addition to the mummy of this 
 king there were found in it the mummies of Thothmes 
 IY., Amen-hetep III., Amen-hetep IV., Seti II., 
 Sa-Ptah, Kameses IV., Rameses V., Rameses VI., and 
 Set-nekht. These mummies were probably removed 
 from their tombs and placed for safety in the tomb of 
 Amen-hetep II. in the time of the XXIst Dynasty, 
 when a number of mummies of other kings, including 
 those of Seti I. and Rameses II., were removed for 
 similar reasons to the famous hiding-place near Der 
 al-Bahari, to which reference has already been made. 
 In the tomb of Amen-hetep II. were also found three 
 mummies, each with a large hole in his skull and a 
 gash in his breast. At the time of their discovery a 
 theory was promulgated to the effect that these were 
 slaves who had been sacrificed during the final funeral 
 ceremonies which took ^lace in the tomb, but further 
 
176 TOMBS OF PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS 
 
 examinations of these mummies seem to show that they 
 owe their wounds to the violence of the robbers of the 
 tomb in ancient times, who dragged them out of their 
 coffins and mishandled them in search of treasure. 
 
 The tombs of private individuals retained a modifica- 
 tion of the pyramidal form as far as their entrances 
 were concerned, and the walls were ornamented, 
 especially in the case of great officials, with scenes in 
 which the chief events of their own lives and of the 
 times in which they lived were represented, a very 
 favourite subject being the introduction and presenta- 
 tion at court of the ambassadors and bearers of tribute 
 from foreign potentates and vassal nations. However 
 faithful in point of costume and minute peculiarities 
 such scenes may have been, their general design and 
 treatment were strictly conventional, the old Egyptian 
 canon of art being faithfully adhered to. In the reign 
 of the heretical king, Khu-en-Aten, whose artistic 
 predilections have already been referred to, art as well 
 as religion became infected with the taint of heresy. 
 Excellent illustrations of this fact will be found in the 
 frescoes and pillar decorations of the king's palace at 
 Tell el-'Amarna, where we find plant motifs especially 
 treated with a freedom from conventionality and truth 
 to nature which were hitherto unknown, and which 
 are never found in later periods. It cannot be said 
 that Khu-en-Aten's sculptors and painters obtained 
 either greater or less success in the treatment of the 
 human figure than their predecessors, but one great 
 
REALISTIC DEVELOPMENT OF ART 177 
 
 step in advance, i.e., shading in painting, was made by 
 them, though it was, unfortunately, retraced later ; it 
 was only during the reign of this king that the 
 Egyptian artist ever showed that he understood the 
 effects of light and shade in his work. With the 
 cessation of religious heresy the artistic heresy ceased 
 also. Some have thought that the artistic development 
 which took place under Khu-en-Aten was due to the 
 influence of the highly realistic and bizarre contem- 
 poraneous art of the Mycenaeans, but there is as yet 
 no satisfactory evidence for this view, indeed it seems 
 more probable that Egyptian art influenced that of the 
 Mycenaeans than the reverse. It must never be 
 forgotten that the Egyptian artist possessed a good 
 deal of freedom in the treatment of designs intended for 
 small objects, especially mirrors and other articles of 
 the toilet, spoons, and the like ; and in the treatment 
 of animals he had more freedom allowed him than in 
 the case of the human figure, or of trees, plants, etc. 
 The extraordinary naturalistic development which took 
 place in the reign of Khu-en-Aten was entirely of 
 Egyptian origin, and, as far as can be seen now, owed 
 little or nothing to foreign influence ; on the other 
 hand, one of the bases of Mycenaean art is of Egyptian 
 origin, i.e., the conventional use of red colour in 
 frescoes to denote the flesh of men, and yellow to 
 denote the flesh of women. In one branch of Egyp- 
 tian art, i.e., the making and inscribing of scarabs, 
 a revolution seems to have taken place earlier in the 
 
 VOL. IV. N 
 
178 ARCHITECTURE IN THE XVIIlTH DYNASTY 
 
 XVIlItli Dynasty, when under Amen-hetep I. the old 
 styles of scarab-engraving, which are so characteristic 
 of the Middle Empire, and are distinguished by a 
 profuse use of the spiral ornament and by deeply-cut 
 inscriptions, gave way to lighter and more elegant 
 fashions. At the same period the inscribed seal 
 cylinder ceased to be used, and the style of the 
 Egyptian hieratic writing underwent a very consider- 
 able change. 
 
 Of the houses in which the Egyptians lived at this 
 period we know little, but it is certain that those of the 
 wealthy had large gardens attached to them, and that 
 the main building stood in the midst of a courtyard 
 which was bounded by a high wall. Of the furniture 
 which was used in such houses we know a great deal, 
 thanks to the tombs at Thebes, from which have been 
 recovered so many truly beautiful examples of tables, 
 chairs, couches, etc., often inlaid with ebony, ivory, 
 and cedar wood ; and the fact should always be remem- 
 bered that by far the greater number of the objects of 
 this class which are found in the Museums of Europe 
 are the product of the XVIIIth Dynasty, and belong- 
 to no later period. 
 
 The hieroglyphic inscriptions which are found 
 throughout Egypt and Nubia show that under the rule 
 of the kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty the shrines of 
 all the gods of Egypt were restored, and most of their 
 temples rebuilt, and a comparatively permanent provision 
 seems to have been made for the maintenance of the 
 
TEMPLES OF KARNAK AND LUXOR 
 
 179 
 
 services and sacrifices of the gods, and for the support of 
 those who ministered to them out of the gifts brought 
 from foreign nations and the tribute paid by vassal 
 tribes. Hatshepset tells in her temple at Der al- 
 Bahari and in the Speos Artemidos that she restored the 
 shrines which the Aamu, i.e., Hyksos, had wrecked, and 
 rebuilt the altars and the temples which were in ruins, 
 but it must be noted that most of the temples which 
 she built were those of goddesses. Early in the 
 XVIIIth Dynasty the ancient shrine of Amen in the 
 Northern Apt (Karnak) was restored, and beautified, 
 and greatly enlarged, king vying with king in adding 
 court to court, and building to building, in honour of 
 the god of the city who had worked their deliverance 
 from the Hyksos plague. Later, in the reign of Amen- 
 hetep III., a new temple to Amen-Ra was begun in 
 the Southern Apt (Luxor), and succeeding kings added 
 largely to it. Both temples were under the high-priest 
 
 of Amen, T 9 f *ww\ (] J) , and were served by the 
 
 I A O I AAAAAA \ I 
 
 whole body of the priests of Amen in Thebes, who, 
 although they did not yet control the political and 
 military policy of the country, as in later days, were 
 nevertheless fast becoming a very powerful corpora- 
 tion, the influence of which was already eclipsing that 
 of the more ancient hierarchies of Heliopolis and 
 Memphis. Many women of high rank in Thebes were 
 appointed to offices connected with the worship in the 
 temple, and received titles accordingly, e.g., " qemat en 
 
l8o POSITION OF THE PRIESTHOOD 
 
 Amen," J-A ^ f\ 1 ~~~ J % , i.e., " singer of Amen," 
 
 T I AAAAAA i I 
 
 and the influence of the brotherhood of Ainen was 
 thereby greatly increased, and it acquired great wealth 
 from the gifts of such devotees. Another source of 
 great wealth to the brotherhood was the share which 
 was always set apart exclusively for the god Amen out 
 of the booty captured from foreign nations, and we 
 must not forget the profits which accrued to the priests 
 of Amen from the labours of the lower classes of the 
 order who mummified the dead and carried out all the 
 funeral arrangements in Thebes. We may note in 
 passing that the position of the priest had undergone 
 great modifications since ancient times, for under the 
 XVIIIth Dynasty it could not any longer be said that 
 the head of the family was ipso facto a priest, nor do 
 we find that all great officials any longer held priestly 
 offices as a matter of course. The priests now began 
 to form an entirely distinct class of the population, and 
 their position was of a most exalted character ; but to 
 enter the priesthood was open to every man, and the 
 son of the peasant who owned an acre or two of land, 
 having once entered the priesthood, might, as well as a 
 son of a high official, aspire to the highest offices of the 
 order, provided he possessed the necessary ability. 
 Reference has already been made to the large class of 
 officials, forming a sort of bureaucracy, who performed 
 the functions of local government, which in the time of 
 the earlier dynasties had been carried out by the local 
 ha princes, and among such must be mentioned the 
 
EGYPTIAN OFFICIALS OF HIGH RANK l8l 
 
 royal scribes, ^j, jfjoj of various kinds, who were 
 scattered throughout the country ; the local governor, 
 T ^ Z 1 ^1 ^ c ^ ia ^' mer nu t J the headman of 
 the village, ^ aaa^ | (| (j ^ © M-na- 
 
 temdit ; the commander - in - chief of the police, 
 
 r£ ^ fT. & i Ik fl fl 1 si i - ia "-^ rM m<aeW « >• 
 
 the chief magistrates or town-council of Thebes, 
 
 ffi ^ ^ ! - a "^f^ f] ^ : j WM > the treasury 
 
 scribe, jjjoj n | [71 *w peru* Ae£c/i / the tax-collectors, 
 
 and the officials connected with the administration of 
 justice, the head of whom was the " chief judge," 
 
 As the functions of the nobles in the early dynasties 
 were now performed by paid officials, so the command 
 of the soldiery of Egypt passed into the hands of 
 professional officers, and a more or less centralized 
 army, with a nucleus consisting of royal guards, 
 
 ^ %~=J\ ^ i , or " mighty men of valour," was 
 
 formed, and had its headquarters at Thebes. This 
 army was under the direction of a coinmander-in-chief, 
 
 <=> ^ ! ® mer mashdu ur tep, and seems 
 
 to have been divided into more or less organized 
 regiments, e.g., the " regiment of Amen," the " regiment 
 
182 HORSES EMPLOYED IN THE EGYPTIAN ARMY 
 
 of Ptah," etc. A new feature of the equipment of 
 the army of the New Empire was the introduction of 
 
 the war chariot, ; . the corps of 
 
 charioteers was called "| ^ (j £ ^? thent 
 
 hetrdu, i.e., " those who belong to the horses." But 
 although the Egyptians readily adopted from the 
 Asiatics the use of the horse in a chariot, they never 
 formed bodies of cavalry in our sense of the word, and 
 though they were ready enough to drive horses, they 
 seem never to have had any great desire to ride them. 
 Under the XVIIIth Dynasty it cannot be said that 
 
 the lot of the common folk, J ^ ! tchamu, 
 
 was as happy and prosperous as it had been in the 
 Xllth Dynasty, for not only had they become liable to 
 forced military service in foreign lands, but the greatly 
 increased expenditure of the court and administration 
 resulted necessarily in greatly increased taxation. 
 Moreover, it is open to considerable doubt if the paid 
 official of Pharaoh was as forbearing or as just towards 
 the people uuder his charge as the bailiff of the old 
 ha prince 1 had been. 
 
 It has often been said that the period of the Xllth 
 Dynasty was the "Golden Age" of Egypt, but if a 
 nation's greatness is to be gauged by its material 
 
 1 Although the old powers of the erpd ha princes had lapsed, we 
 see that in the XVIIIth Dynasty this title was bestowed upon 
 favourites as a court distinction, e.g., upon Senmut. 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF EGYPT 183 
 
 wealth and power this title will more justly be applied 
 to the period of the XVIIIth Dynasty, which undoubt- 
 edly marks the highest point which Egyptian civiliza- 
 tion and power ever reached. The reign of Amen- 
 hetep III. was the culminating point in Egyptian 
 history, for never again, in spite of the efforts of the 
 Kamessids, did Egypt occupy so exalted a place among 
 the nations of the world as she had in his time. At 
 his death a decline set in, the progress of which was 
 not arrested, either by the energy and ability of Seti I. 
 or by the fictitious glory of his pretentious *son 
 Eameses II., who in modern times has been commonly 
 but erroneously called the " Great." 
 
( i8 4 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE TELL EL-'AMARNA TABLETS. 
 
 The Tell el-'Amarna Tablets consist of a number of 
 letters, despatches, etc., which were written to Amen- 
 hetep III. and to his son Amen-hetep IV., kings of 
 Egypt in the X Vlllth Dynasty, by kings and governors 
 of certain countries, and districts, and cities, and towns 
 in Western Asia. They are written in a cursive cunei- 
 form character, chiefly in a Semitic dialect — Babylonian 1 
 — and a few of them contain dockets in the Egyptian 
 hieratic character recording the names of the countries 
 from which they came, and probably the dates when 
 they were received. It would be hard to over-estimate 
 the importance of the Tell el-'Amarna Tablets from a 
 historical point of view, for they supply information of 
 a character which exists in no other body of documents 
 known to us. We learn, moreover, from them not only 
 concerning the relations which existed between the 
 
 1 A peculiar feature in these tablets is the frequent use of glosses, 
 which explain certain Sumerian ideographs both by Babylonian and 
 by Palestinian words. In some cases Babylonian words are ex- 
 plained by their Palestinian equivalents. 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF THE TABLETS 185 
 
 kings of the independent countries and the rulers 
 of the vassal states of Western Asia and the kings of 
 Egypt mentioned above, but also concerning certain 
 of the alliances and friendships which had grown up 
 between the early kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty, who 
 had successfully invaded Syria and Palestine, and the 
 native viceroys whom they appointed to rule over their 
 newly gotten lands on their behalf. They also supply 
 much information concerning offensive and defensive 
 alliances between the kings of Egypt and of other 
 countries, and concerning marriage customs, religious 
 ceremonies, intrigues, etc., and they give us for the 
 first time the names of Artatama, Artashumara, and 
 Tushratta, kings of Mitanni. The philological and 
 geographical information which may be derived from 
 these documents is, in its peculiar way, almost as 
 valuable as the historical facts which they supply, and 
 for this reason summaries of the contents of the prin- 
 cipal documents of the " find " are here given. 
 
 The Tell el-'Amarna Tablets were found about the 
 end of the year 1887 in a chamber which was situated 
 in the small building that lies to the east of the palace 
 built by Amen-hetep IV. in the city of Khut-Aten, 
 the ruins of which have been called by the Arabs "Tell 
 el-'Amarna." The finder was a woman, who was 
 digging out dust from among the ruins to lay upon 
 her land for " top-dressing," and who handed over her 
 interest in the find to one of her friends for the sum of 
 two shillings (10 piastres). The exact number of the 
 
l86 THE DISCOVERY OF THE TABLETS 
 
 tablets which were originally deposited in the chamber 
 will never be known, for several were broken accidentally 
 and the pieces destroyed by the Arabs who dug them 
 out of the chamber, and others were broken wilfully by 
 them, either for the purpose of easy carriage on the 
 persons of those who helped to dig them up and were 
 concerned in the secret removal of antiquities from one 
 place to another, or that the number of men who were 
 to have a share in the profit derived from the sale of 
 the tablets might be increased. Moreover, several 
 fragments were lost or destroyed by certain natives who 
 were sent to take them to the antiquity dealers in 
 Cairo. 1 The British Museum acquired^ about 81 
 tablets, the Berlin Museum about 160 pieces, some 
 of them being of considerable size, the Museum in 
 Cairo about 60 tablets, and about a score of small 
 tablets and several fragments fell into the hands of 
 private collectors ; judging by these figures it appears 
 that the number of tablets which were preserved 
 of the "find" was about three hundred. With the 
 tablets were found a clay seal having two impressions 
 of the prenomen of Amen-hetep IV. ; five square 
 alabaster plaques, inlaid with the prenomen and name 
 of Amen-hetep III. in dark blue glazed faience ; a light 
 blue glazed faience plaque, rounded at the top, and 
 
 1 I obtained these facts in December, 1887, from a gentleman 
 in Egypt who was, I believe, the first European who saw the Tell 
 el-'Amarna Tablets, and who had personal knowledge of the men 
 who bought them from their finder. 
 
AMEN-HETEP III. AND KALLIMMA-SIN 187 
 
 inlaid in dark blue faience characters with the names 
 and titles of Amen-hetep III. and his wife Thi in 
 hieroglyphics ; and a red stone jar cover carved to 
 represent a lion and a bull fighting. The contents 
 of the principal tablets of the " find " may be thus 
 summarized : — 
 
 1 . Letter from Amenophis 1 III. to Kallimma-Sin, 
 or as the name may also be read, Kadashnian-Bel, King 
 of Karaduniyash. The letter opens with the words, 
 "To Kallimma-Sin, King of Karaduniyash, my brother, 
 "thus saith Amenophis, the Great King, the King of 
 " -EgyP^ thy brother : 'I am well, may it be well with 
 " thee, with thy government, with thy wives, with thy 
 " children, with thy nobles, with thy horses, and with 
 "thy chariots, and may there be great peace in thy 
 " land ; with me may it be well, with my government, 
 " with my wives, with my children, with my nobles, 
 " with my horses, with my chariots, and with my troops, 
 "and may there be great peace in my land.'" Amen- 
 ophis refers to the refusal of Kallimma-Sin to give him 
 his daughter to wife on the ground that he did not 
 know whether his own sister, whom Amenophis had 
 married, was alive or dead, and tells him to send to 
 the Egyptian court a messenger to see her and the 
 happy conditions under which she lives. Kallimma-Sin 
 
 1 Amenophis is called Nimmuriya, or Immuriya, or Mimmuriya, 
 all of which forms represent the Egyptian prenomen Neb-Mafit-Ra, 
 
 (EE)- 
 
l88 AMEN-HETEP III. AND KALLIMMA-SIN 
 
 appears to have clone so, but neither the messenger nor 
 any of his colleagues had known the lady personally, 
 and they were therefore unable to identify her. In 
 answer to the remark of Kallimma-Sin that he was 
 accustomed to give his daughters in marriage to " kings 
 of Karaduniyash," and to receive handsome gifts in 
 return, Amenophis says that he will give in return 
 for his daughter richer gifts than any Babylonian 
 could give him, and that he will besides give him a 
 gift on behalf of the sister concerning whom Kallimma- 
 Sin was making inquiries; also that it is useless to 
 refer to the old treaty between the king of Karaduniyash 
 and Thothmes IV., for Amenophis has duly observed 
 it, and fulfilled its conditions. In answer to the com- 
 plaint made by Babylonian envoys to the court of 
 Egypt both to Kallimma-Sin and to his father, to 
 the effect that they had been ill-treated, Amenophis 
 declares that all such statements are lies, for they 
 had been treated with great respect ; the king of 
 Egypt also denies emphatically that he made any 
 complaint whatsoever about the beauty of the woman 
 whom Kallimma-Sin had sent him to wife, and 
 calls the envoys liars. The text at the end of the 
 tablet is incomplete, but the fragments which remain 
 seem to refer to some dispute about chariots and 
 horses, and the Babylonian king seems to accuse the 
 king of Egypt of bad faith. (Brit. Mus., 1 No. 29,784.) 
 
 1 The numbers here given are those which appear in the British 
 Museum Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities, London, 
 
AMEN-HETEP III. AND KALLIMMA-SIN 189 
 
 2. Letter from Kallimma-Sin to Amenophis III. 
 After salutations the Babylonian king reports that his 
 maiden daughter, whom Amenophis wished to marry, 
 is now grown up, and he asks the king of Egypt to 
 send him word about her, so that she may be brought 
 to him. He begs that his messenger may not be 
 detained long in Egypt, and complains that his last 
 envoy was kept there for six years, and that when he 
 did return he only brought back 30 manehs of gold 
 (B. 
 
 3. Letter from Kallimma-Sin to Amenophis III. 
 In one letter Kallimma-Sin asked the king of Egypt to 
 send him an Egyptian princess to wife, and Amenophis 
 replied, " The daughter of the king of the land of 
 Egypt hath never been given to anybody " (i.e., 
 a nobody). To this Kallimma-Sin replies, "Why not? 
 " Thou art king and canst act as thou pleasest ; and if 
 " thou art willing to give her to me, who shall say a 
 " word against it ? " In the present letter Kallimma- 
 Sin says that there must be many beautiful women in 
 Egypt, and asks that one of these may be sent to him, 
 
 1900, p. 154 ff., and the summaries are based upon those which were 
 drawn up for the official publication, The Tell el-Amarna Tablets in 
 the British Museum, 1892, by Dr. Bezold and myself in 1891. 
 
 1 B = Berlin or Bulak, and the numbers which follow are those 
 given to the texts in the publication of Messrs. Abel and Winckler, 
 Der Thontafelftind von El-Amarna, Berlin, 1889, 1890, who included 
 in the official publication of the Berlin Museum copies of the Tell 
 el-'Amarna tablets at Bulak. Renderings of most of the tablets of 
 the find, with transliterations of the cuneiform texts will be found 
 in Winckler, Die Thontafeln von Tell el-Amarna, Berlin, 1898. 
 
igO KALLIM MA-SIN AND AMEN-HETEP III. 
 
 for " who here could say that she is not a princess ? " 
 He adds, "to increase the closeness of the relations 
 " between us, thou didst write to me of marriage, and 
 " I, in order that we might become more nearly related, 
 " and that there might be brotherhood and friendship 
 " between us, did the same. If thou wilt not send me 
 " a wife I will not send thee one." . . . . " And as 
 "concerning the gold about which I wrote to thee, 
 " saying, ' Send me much gold with thy envoy,' thou 
 " must send it during the season of harvest, either in 
 " the month of Tammuz or that of Ab, and if thou wilt 
 " do this I shall be able to finish the work which I 
 " have begun, and I will give thee my daughter. If 
 " the gold be not sent in one of the months mentioned 
 " I cannot complete the work which I have undertaken; 
 " and if thou sendest it later, when the work which I 
 " have undertaken is ended, of what use will it be to 
 " me ? If thou sendest to me 3000 talents of gold 
 " then I shall not accept it, and I will not give thee 
 "my daughter to wife " (B. 3). 
 
 4. Letter from Kallimma-Sis to Amenophis III. 
 Kallimma-Sin acknowledges with thanks and hearty 
 greetings the arrival of the lady whom the king of 
 Egypt has sent him to wife, and he announced in 
 return by the hands of Shuth, his envoy, the despatch 
 of couches and thrones made of precious woods and 
 » gold, and other valuable objects as gifts for the king of 
 Egypt. On this tablet is an impression of a scarab, 
 on the base of which is inscribed the hawk of Horus 
 
AMEN-HETEP III. AND TUSHRATTA 191 
 
 wearing the crowns of the South and North, the 
 disk of the sun, O, etc. The scarab must have been 
 made in Egypt, judging by the impression, which shows 
 that the characters were cut accurately upon it, and 
 Kallimma-Sin seems to have had it impressed on this 
 tablet as a compliment to the king of Egypt (Brit. 
 Mus. No. 29,787, and B. 2). 
 
 5. Letter from Tushratta, King of Mitanni, to 
 Amenophis III. He mentions the letter which he 
 had sent to Amenophis to inform him that he had 
 killed the murderers of his (i.e., Tushratta's) brother, 
 Artashumara, and that he had slain Pirkhi, who 
 usurped the throne of Mitanni after the death of 
 Shutarna, his father, and refers to the friendly 
 relations which existed between the kings of the 
 countries of Mitanni and Egypt. He next reports that 
 the king of Khatti invaded his land, and that the lord 
 Tishub had given him into his hand, and that he had 
 killed him and his forces to a man. Amenophis III. 
 had married Gilukhipa, 1 a sister of Tushratta, and now 
 Tushratta states that he is sending gifts of chariots and 
 horses to the king of Egypt, and articles of jewellery 
 for his sister ; in conclusion he begs that his 
 messengers, Giliya and Tunip-ipri, may be sent back 
 speedily with a gift (Brit. Mus. No. 29,792). 
 
 6. Letter from Tushratta to Amenophis III. 
 Tushratta refers to the great friendship which existed 
 
 1 The Egyptian form of the name is . 
 
ig2 AMEN-HETEP III. AND TUSHRATTA 
 
 between his father Shutarna and Thothines IV., the 
 father of Amenophis, but says that the friendship 
 which now exists between Amenophis and himself is 
 ten times stronger than that which existed between 
 their fathers, and he hopes that the god Tishub 
 (= Rammanu = Rimmon) of Mitanni and Amen of 
 Egypt will make their friendship to prosper. Tushratta 
 then mentions that he has allowed the Egyptian envoy 
 Mani to see his daughter, whom Amenophis wishes to 
 marry, and he hopes that she may be as pleasing to 
 Amenophis himself as she was to the envoy, and that 
 the goddess Ishtar of Mitanni and Amen of Egypt may 
 mould her to please the will of the king of Egypt. 
 Tushratta then asks that a large quantity of gold may 
 be sent to him, and says that he is making ready 
 certain implements and weapons of war and the chase, 
 which his grandfather had promised to send to 
 Amenophis, but omitted to do so ; he suggests that 
 the gold which he expects to receive from the king of 
 Egypt be regarded as payment for these objects, and as 
 his daughter's dowry. He asks that the envoy Giliya 
 may be sent back as quickly as possible, and states 
 that he is sending gifts of lapis-lazuli, horses, 
 chariots, precious stones, and thirty women (Brit. Mus. 
 No. 29,791). 
 
 7. Letter from Tushratta to Amenophis III. 
 Referring to the arrival of the Egyptian envoy, Mani, 
 whom Amenophis has sent to bring to Egypt another 
 daughter of Tushratta, called Tatum-khipa, to be his 
 
AMEN-HETEP III. AND TUSHRATTA 
 
 195 
 
 wife, Tushratta says that lie is quite willing to send her 
 to Egypt, only that her wedding apparel is not ready yet, 
 and that she cannot start for six months. Meanwhile 
 he sends a messenger of the king of Egypt called 
 Haramashshi back to him with the present letter. It 
 seems that Amenophis had despatched a quantity of 
 gold to Tushratta, who had it examined, and found 
 that it was either not pure gold or not gold at all. 
 This being so he refuses to send his daughter Tatum- 
 khipa to Amenophis, and he asks in the letter which 
 Haramashshi took back to him that the objects which 
 he had already sent him, and which belonged to his 
 father Shutarna, may be returned to Mitanni (B. 22). 
 
 8. Letter from Tushratta to Amenophis III. 
 Tushratta announces the despatch of his daughter 
 Tatum-khipa, in company with the Egyptian envoy 
 Mani and the Egyptian interpreter Hani, and he prays 
 that Shamash and Ishtar may go before her, and make 
 her a delightful thing in the sight of the king of Egypt, 
 and that she may bring to him both blessing and joy. 
 He sends gifts to Amenophis, which he prays may be 
 safely guarded for one hundred thousand years among 
 the treasures of Amenophis (B. 21). 
 
 9. Letter from Burraburiyash, King of Kara- 
 duniyash, to Amenophis 1 IV. Burraburiyash writes 
 
 1 In the Tell el-'Amarna Tablets Amenophis IV. is called 
 Napkhurriya, which is intended to be the equivalent of 
 Nefer-kheperu-Ra, i.e., the first portion of the prenomen 
 
 f O J ^ j J> Ra-nefer-kheperu-ua-ex-Ra. 
 
I96 BURRABURIYASH AND AMEN-HETEP IV. 
 
 to say that lie hopes the friendship which existed 
 between Amenophis III. and himself will be continued 
 between himself and Amenophis IV. ; whatsoever the 
 king of Egypt wishes for from Karaduniyash shall be 
 sent to him, and he hopes that the king of Egypt will 
 send him anything he may wish to have from Egypt 
 (B. 4). 
 
 10. Letter from Burraburiyash to Amenophis 
 IV. Burraburiyash says that because our fathers were 
 friends they sent gifts to each other, and neither 
 refused the request of the other, no matter how costly 
 was the thing which was desired. He complains that 
 Amenophis IV. has sent him only two manehs of gold, 
 and begs that he will send to him as much gold as 
 Amenophis III. sent ; but if he cannot do that let him 
 send at least half as much. Burraburiyash is in great 
 need of money because he is building a temple, and he 
 is very anxious to finish the work as soon as possible. 
 In the time of Kurigalzu, the father of Burraburiyash, 
 the Canaanites wrote to him and asked him to join 
 them in making an attack upon the frontiers of Egypt, 
 but Kurigalzu wrote and told them that he would not 
 associate himself with them, and warned them that if 
 they attempted to do an unfriendly act towards the king 
 of Egypt, his "brother," he himself would march 
 against them and plunder them, for the king of Egypt 
 was an ally of his. Now the Assyrians under their 
 king Ashur-uballit, who was a vassal of Burraburiyash, 
 had made their way into Egypt, presumably with the 
 
BURRABURIYASH AND AMEN-HETEP IV. I97 
 
 idea of making an alliance with Anienophis IV., and 
 Burraburiyash having heard these things begs the 
 king of Egypt to have nothing to do with them, just 
 as his father Kurigalzu had nothing to do with the 
 Canaanites. He sends as a gift to Amenophis three 
 manehs of lapis-lazuli, and five chariots with the horses 
 necessary for drawing them (Brit. Mus. No. 29,785). 
 
 11. Letter from Burraburiyash to Amenophis 
 IV. Burraburiyash refers to the friendly relations 
 which have existed since the time of his grandfather 
 Kara-indash between the royal houses of Egypt and 
 Karaduniyash, and remarks that, although the friendly 
 relations have been continued down to their own times, 
 and the king of Egypt has sent three missions to his 
 country, yet on no occasion have the Egyptian envoys 
 brought him a gift. Moreover, he complains that the 
 twenty manehs of gold ore which Amenophis IV. sent 
 to him only yielded when melted five manehs of gold. 
 The text contains an allusion to wild oxen and their 
 skins, which Burraburiyash had already sent to 
 Amenophis IV., who seems to have promised to send 
 some chariots in return for them ; if the skins already 
 sent were spoiled on the journey, new ones would be 
 sent under the charge of the Egyptian envoy who was 
 to travel back in company with Shindishugab, the 
 envoy of Burraburiyash. A gift of a lapis-lazuli object 
 is sent for the king of Egypt, and also a necklace 
 consisting of 1048 precious stones for the daughter 
 of Amenophis IV., who had married a son of 
 
igS BURRABURIYASH AND AMEN-HETEP IV. 
 
 Burraburiyash, but who was living at lier father's court 
 in Egypt. It is interesting to note that an Egyptian 
 princess was allowed to marry a son of a Mesopotamian 
 prince, especially as Amenophis III. had refused to 
 allow his daughter to marry Kallimma-Sin. The 
 name of the Mesopotamian prince has not yet been 
 found (Brit. Mus. No. 29,786). 
 
 12. Letter from Burraburiyash to Amenophis 
 IV. Burraburiyash refers to the envoys whom he had 
 sent to Amenophis III., saying that though he was 
 unable to give him the daughter whom the Egyptian 
 king wished to marry, he was prepared to send another; 
 Amenophis sent back an answer, but before the Egyp- 
 tian envoy could convey it to Burraburiyash, Amen- 
 ophis died, and the daughter who had been promised 
 him to wife died of the plague. The text is mutilated, 
 but it seems that a Mesopotamian woman was sent to 
 Egypt as a wife for Amenophis IV., only a difficulty 
 arose because a sufficiently imposing escort could not 
 be provided for her. The sister of Burraburiyash was 
 sent to Egypt to become the wife of Amenophis III., 
 and her escort consisted of 3000 men, but Burraburiyash 
 can only manage to find five chariots for the escort. 
 Burraburiyash asks Amenophis IV. to send him certain 
 objects inlaid with floral designs in ivory, and sends as 
 a gift to him and to the "mistress of his house" 1 
 
 1 The Babylonian words Bilti Uti are the exact equivalents of 
 
 the Egyptian words ne ^ P er > " * a( ^ °^ ^ e nouse >" ky 
 
 which the wife is always described in the funeral texts. 
 
BURRABURIYASH AND AMEN-HETEP IV. igg 
 
 pieces of lapis-lazuli. The lady's share is only twenty 
 pieces of the stone, and his reason for sending her so 
 little is because she showed Burraburiyash no sympathy 
 when he was in some serious trouble, or affliction, 
 or illness (B. 6). 
 
 13. Letter from Burraburiyash to Amenophis 
 IV. Burraburiyash reports that he has been ill, and 
 that his sickness was so sore that he could not enter- 
 tain the Egyptian envoy, who, in consequence, has 
 neither eaten nor drunk with him ; he was very ill and 
 expected to die, and was very angry because Amenophis 
 had not sent him letters of condolence. Eventually he 
 spoke to the Egyptian envoy about it, and he pointed 
 out that the distance between Karaduniyash and Egypt 
 was so great that it was impossible for the king of 
 Egypt to have heard anything about his sickness ; 
 when this view was also taken by the envoy of Burra- 
 buriyash he was satisfied, and he now writes to say 
 that he will maintain his friendly relations with 
 Amenophis. He reports the despatch to Egypt of the 
 Egyptian envoy, and asks Amenophis to send back the 
 Mesopotamian envoy ; as the road is dangerous, and 
 water is scarce, and the heat is great, he only sends 
 a small gift now, but he hopes to send a second mes- 
 senger to Egypt who will bring many pretty things 
 to Amenophis. The gold which had been sent from 
 Egypt had turned out to be full of alloy, and of inferior 
 quality, and Burraburiyash begs that more may be 
 sent to him, only he hopes that Amenophis will himself 
 
200 BURRABURIYASH AND AMEN-HETEP IV. 
 
 inspect it, and make certain that it really is of the 
 finest quality. Burraburiyash next complains that his 
 envoy Salmu has been twice robbed on his road to 
 Egypt, the first time by Biriainaza, and the second time 
 by Pamahu ; and inasmuch as the territory in which 
 the robberies tooks place was under the rule of Egypt, 
 he demands that his envoy shall be admitted into the 
 king's presence, and that his loss shall be made good 
 to him by the king of Egypt (B. 7). 
 
 14. Letter from Burraburiyash to Amenophis 
 IV. Burraburiyash refers to the treaty of peace which 
 has been concluded between them, and then goes on to 
 report that a number of his merchants, who were 
 journeying with [his envoy] Ahi-Tabu, tarried for 
 purposes of trade in the city of Kinahhi ; after Ahi- 
 Tabu had gone on his way, Shurnadda, the son of 
 Balumini, and Shutatna, the son of Shuratu, a native 
 of Acco, sent their followers after the merchants, and 
 having overtaken them in the city of Hinaton they 
 killed them and took possession of their goods. Burra- 
 buriyash at once sent his envoy to report the matter 
 to the king of Egypt, and he advises Amenophis to 
 question the man about it. He then calls upon Amen- 
 ophis to make good the value of the property which 
 has been stolen in his country, and to slay the men 
 who slew the merchants, for unless he does so more 
 merchants, and perhaps even government envoys, will 
 be killed, and the trade between the two countries 
 will be destroyed, and the influence of Amenophis 
 
ASHUR-UBALLIT AND AMEN-HETEP IV. 201 
 
 himself in the land will be diminished. Shnmadda 
 cut off the feet of one of the subjects of Burraburiyash 
 and kept him with him, and Shutatna having healed 
 another of his wounds kept him as a slave. Burra- 
 buriyash sends a gift and begs Amenophis to let his 
 messenger return at once (B. 8). 
 
 15. Letter from Ashur-uballit, King of Assyria, 
 to Amenophis IV. Ashur-uballit enumerates the gifts 
 which he is sending to the king of Egypt, and asks 
 him to send back in return a quantity of gold, of 
 which he has great need because he is building a 
 new palace. When his father Ashur-nadin-ahi sent 
 to Egypt for gold 20 talents of the precious metal 
 were sent to him, and when the king 1 of Hanirabbat 
 (or Hanigalbat) sent for gold the same amount was 
 sent to him ; therefore Ashur-uballit expects 20 talents 
 of gold. In return he is willing to give Amenophis 
 whatsoever he wants. He explains that he did not 
 send back the Egyptian envoys sooner, for had he 
 done so, the Suti would have sent men after them, 
 and they would have been killed to a certainty (B. 9). 
 
 16. Letter from Tushratta, King of Mitanni, 
 to Amenophis IV. The writer addresses the king of 
 Egypt as my son-in-law, " whom I love, and who 
 loves me," and sends salutations to Thi, the mother of 
 Amenophis IV., and to his own daughter Tatum-khipa. 
 He refers to the extremely friendly relations which 
 
 1 Probably Tushratta, for Hanirabbat was a nome, or part, of 
 Mitanni. 
 
202 TUSHRATTA AND AMEN-HETEP IV. 
 
 had always existed between himself and Ainenophis 
 III., and bids Amenophis IV. ask his mother Thi 
 about them. He then goes on to say that his grand- 
 father, Artatama, was asked for his daughter six times 
 in vain by Thothmes IV., and that he only consented 
 to give her to him on the seventh application ; Tush- 
 ratta's father, Shutarna, was asked for his daughter 
 five times in vain by Amenophis III., and it was 
 only on the sixth application that he consented to 
 give Gilukhipa, Tushratta's sister, to him. Amen- 
 ophis III. next sent to Tushratta and asked for his 
 daughter Tatum-khipa, and at length she went to 
 Egypt to become a wife of the king ; her dowry was 
 paid to the Egyptian envoy Hamashshi within three 
 months, and Amenophis was well pleased. He gave 
 gifts to the envoys, but the gift which he sent to 
 Tushratta was a poor one. He, however, promised to 
 send to Tushratta certain gold statues, but they were 
 never sent, for Amenophis died, and Tushratta assures 
 Amenophis IV. that his grief was so sore when he heard 
 the news that he lifted up his voice and wept ; when 
 he heard later that Amenophis IV. had succeeded 
 him he was much comforted, for he knew that the 
 friendly relations which existed between Mitanni 
 and Egypt would be maintained. Tushratta next 
 recalls the circumstances under which the promise to 
 give the gold statues was made, and says that Amen- 
 ophis IV. did on one occasion send statues to him 
 by the hands of Giliya and Mani, but that the 
 
TUSHRATTA AND THI, QUEEN OF EGYPT 203 
 
 statues were made of tvood. Kelying, however, upon 
 the old friendship, he asks Amenophis IV. to fulfil 
 his father's promise, and to send him the gold statues, 
 for which he now makes a second request. The 
 letter concludes with some remarks about some weapons 
 of war which Tushratta had been meaning to despatch 
 for some time past, but had not done so because 
 Amenophis IV. had not sent the gold which he re- 
 quired, and some allusions to the delay which had 
 occurred in sending back the envoys from Egypt 
 (B. 24). 
 
 17. Letter from Tushratta to Thi, Queen 
 of Egypt. After salutations to the queen, and to 
 her son, and to "thy daughter-in-law," 1 Tatuin-khipa, 
 he refers to the ancient friendship between the royal 
 houses of Mitanni and Egypt, and reminds her that 
 she knows better than any one else how firm this 
 friendship was. He recalls the message which she had 
 sent to him by the hands of Giliya, the Egyptian envoy, 
 begging him to be a friend to her son Amenophis IV., 
 and asking him to send envoys with peaceful salutations 
 as before. He then mentions her husband's promise 
 to send him statues of gold, and complains that the 
 two statues which her son had actually sent were 
 made of icood, and asks Thi to bring the matter 
 
 1 The words kallati-ka can have no other meaning, and it wonld 
 therefore seem as if Tatnm-khipa married Amenophis IV. and also 
 Amenophis III., who seems to have died shortly after her arrival 
 in Egypt. 
 
204 TUSHRATTA AND AMEN-HETEP IV. 
 
 under his notice. He hopes that Thi will send an 
 envoy to his wife Inni in company with the envoy 
 of Amenophis IV. to himself, and promises that Iuni 
 shall send an envoy in return to her ; Tushratta sends 
 Thi a gift of "good oil," etc. (Brit. Mus. No. 29,794). 
 
 18. Letter from Tushratta to Amenophis IV. 
 Tushratta acknowledges gratefully the receipt of the 
 gifts which had been sent to him from Egypt, but 
 he complains that the two gold statues which had 
 been made and exhibited to his envoy Giliya had 
 never been sent to him, and that two made of wood 
 were all the statues which he had received. He is 
 quite willing to maintain the old friendly relations 
 with Egypt, but if he does the two statues of gold 
 must be sent to him, in addition to the gold which 
 he needs. He mentions the gifts which he is sending 
 to Amenophis IV. and to the queen-mother Thi, 
 and to Tatum-khipa his sister, and states that he is 
 sending his letter by the hand of the envoy Perizzi • 
 on the tablet is inscribed a hieratic note, which states 
 that it was received in the first month of winter in 
 the twelfth year [of the reign of Amenophis IV.] 
 (B. 23.) 
 
 19. Letter from Tushratta to Amenophis IV. 
 Tushratta says that he has once before sent his envoys 
 Perizzi and Bubri to Egypt, and begs that now he is 
 sending them again Amenophis will let them return 
 quickly with gifts from him ; if he does, Mani, the 
 Egyptian envoy, shall be sent back to Egypt quickly, 
 
ALASHIYA AND EGYPT 205 
 
 and there is, meanwhile, no need to be anxious about 
 him. (In a private collection.) 
 
 20. A group of Letters written chiefly by the King 
 of Alashiya 1 to the " King of Egypt." (1) Letter 
 announcing the despatch of 500 [talents of] copper, 
 and saying that more would have been sent but for the 
 fact that the hand of Nergal (i.e., the plague) had slain 
 all the people ; silver, oil, etc., are asked for in return. 
 A citizen of Alashiya has died in Egypt, and the writer 
 asks the king to send back his effects ; the king is also 
 begged to have nothing to do with the kings of Hatti 
 and Shanhar (Brit. Mus. No. 29,788). (2) Letter 
 announcing the despatch of five talents of copper, and 
 five pairs of horses, and asking for silver in return, as 
 well as the return of the envoys Pashtummi, Kunia, 
 Itilluna, . . . gurumma, Ushbarra, and Bil-ram (Brit. 
 Mus. No. 29,790). (3) Letter announcing the despatch 
 of 100 talents of copper, and asking for certain gifts in 
 return, and suggesting the making of an alliance 
 (Brit. Mus. No. 29,789). (4) Letter disclaiming any 
 connexion with the Lukki who have raided Egyptian 
 territory, and saying that they have also plundered the 
 city of Sihru in Alashiya (B. 11). (5) Letter asking 
 that the Alashiyan envoy be sent back quickly, and 
 
 1 This country has been identified with Cyprus because copper 
 was exported from it to Egypt ; the Egyptian form of the name is 
 
 Alesa or Alusa, (j ^jj < ~~^ > ^ ^ r^^i . A group of notes on the 
 
 country will be found in Hall, Oldest Civilization of Gretce, p. 163. 
 
206 ADAD-NIRARI AND ABD-ASHRATUM 
 
 warning the king of Egypt not to let his officials 
 interfere unduly with the Alashiyan merchants and 
 their ship (B. 12). (6) Letter to Amenophis IV. (?), 
 announcing despatch of 200 talents of copper, and 
 asking for the envoy's return (B. 15). (7) Letter 
 referring to a despatch of copper, and asking for some- 
 thing in exchange (B. 19). (8 and 9) Letters from the 
 chief official of Alashiya to the chief official of Egypt 
 announcing despatch of gifts, and pointing out that as 
 the ship and its goods are royal property they must not 
 be interfered with by the Egyptian officials (B. 13). 
 
 21. Letter from Adad-nirari, King of Nu- 
 hashshi, 1 mentioning that his grandfather was 
 appointed governor of the district by Thothmes III., 2 
 and reporting that the Hatti king is troubling him 
 greatly (B. 30). 
 
 22. Three Letters from Abd-Ashratum, Governor 
 of Amurri, reporting his fidelity, and asking for help, 
 and saying that he is trying to keep his hold upon 
 Sumur and Ullaza on behalf of the king of Egypt ; 
 Abd-Ashratum's chief was called Pahanati (Brit. Mus. 
 Nos. 29,816 and 29,817 ; B. 97). 
 
 23. Letter from the People of Tunip, near 
 Aleppo, referring to the help which Thothmes III. gave 
 their city during his reign, and saying that they feel 
 they are being given over to the enemy; they have 
 
 1 A district in Aleppo. 
 
 8 Mauakhbirya = OH gj I, Men-kheper-Ra. 
 
AZIRU AND THE KING OF EGYPT 
 
 207 
 
 asked each year for twenty years, but in vain, that 
 Iadi-Addu [their old governor] might be restored to 
 them. The rebel Aziru has already robbed a caravan 
 of the king of Egypt, and if help be not sent soon 
 Tunip will fall, as the city Ni has already done, into 
 the hands of Aziru, and if he succeeds in capturing 
 Sumur all will indeed be lost (Brit. Mus. No. 29,824). 
 
 24. Group of eight Letters from Aziru to the 
 King, assuring him of his fidelity and submission, and 
 promising to send tribute, and saying that he would 
 have obeyed the orders of Hai, the Egyptian general, 
 and come to court with Hatib if he had not been pre- 
 vented from doing so by the raid of the Hatti on 
 Nuhashshi ; he would have rebuilt Sumur but for the 
 same reason. He denies the accusations made against 
 him, and asks for troops to help him to protect the 
 land on behalf of the king. He describes his fidelity 
 in these words : " To my lord, the king, my god, my 
 "sun; Aziru thy servant. Seven times and seven 
 " times I prostrate myself at the feet of the king, my 
 "lord, my god, my sun" (B. 31, 33, 34, 34a, 36, 37, 
 38,40). 
 
 25. Letter from the King to Aziru, complaining 
 of his conduct in respect of Rib-Addu, his brother, the 
 king of Gebal (Byblos). Aziru seems to have declined 
 a bribe from his brother to bring him into his city, and 
 the king hearing of this asks him how he can write 
 to him declaring that he is a loyal servant of his whilst 
 he is committing such an act. Moreover, when Rib- 
 
208 
 
 AZIRU AND THE KING OF EGYPT 
 
 Add u was in Sidon, Aziru did not help him to go to 
 the king in Egypt, but placed him in the hands of the 
 local kings, well knowing how hostile they were ; 
 therefore the king thinks that Aziru's words are not 
 true, and in future he will feel compelled to put no 
 faith in any statement he may make. But besides this, 
 it has come to the ears of the king that Aziru has been 
 on terms of friendship with the prince of Kadesh, the 
 enemy of the king, and that he has been supplying him 
 with meat and drink, and the king knows that the 
 report which he has heard is true. It is clear that 
 Aziru cannot in such a case be loyal both to the prince 
 of Kadesh and to the king his lord, and cannot even be 
 studying his own interests by behaving in such a way. 
 At the present time " those whom thou didst try to 
 " burn are consuming thee, and they will destroy both 
 " thee and those whom thou lovest," says the king ; 
 " if thou wast loyal to thy lord the king there is 
 " nothing which he could not do for thee." Next the 
 king warns him that unless he becomes loyal to him, 
 and abstains from all foolish hostility he and his family 
 shall surely die, but if he does as the king wishes he 
 shall live, for the king has no desire to waste the 
 country of Kinahhi. Finally the king says words to 
 this effect : You have excused yourself from coming 
 into my presence in Egypt, and have promised to come 
 next year, and you say you have no son with you ; very 
 well, I excuse you this year, but if your son comes 
 back send him to see me, by whom all the world liveth. 
 
AZIRU AND THE KING OF EGYPT 200, 
 
 You wrote to me saying that you wanted me to send 
 my ambassador Hanni a second time to you, promising 
 that if I did so you would send me the rebels by his 
 hands. Behold, my ambassador is coming according 
 to your wish, therefore send the rebels to me and let 
 not one of them escape, and that you may the more 
 easily do this, I send you a list of their names, which 
 are as follows : Sharru and his sons, Tuia, Liia and his 
 sons, Yishiari and his sons, the son-in-law of Malia 
 and his sons and his wives. I am very well, I the sun 
 in the heavens, and my chariots and soldiers are 
 exceedingly numerous, and from Upper Egypt even 
 unto Lower Egypt, and from the place where the sun 
 riseth even unto the place where he setteth, the whole 
 country is in good case and content (B. 92). 
 
 26. Letter from Aziru to the King in answer 
 to the above. He declares that his enemies have 
 slandered him to the king, and that he is, and always 
 has been, the king's most loyal servant. With refer- 
 ence to the matter of the envoy Hani, Aziru was in 
 Tunip when he arrived, and as soon as he heard of his 
 arrival he set out to go to him, but could not overtake 
 him. Aziru's brother, however, gave him cattle, sheep, 
 goats, and meat and drink, and also provided him with 
 horses and asses for his journey. In answer to the 
 king's accusation that he tried to get out of Hani's 
 way, Aziru appeals to the sun and to the other gods of 
 Egypt to confirm his statement that he was in Tunip. 
 Aziru says : The king ordered me to build Simyra, but 
 
 VOL. iv. p 
 
210 RIB-ADDA AND THE KING OF EGYPT 
 
 as the kings of Nuhashshi are hostile to me, and led 
 by Hatib the foe are taking my cities, how can I build 
 it ? I will, however, make haste to build it, only the 
 king must know that half of the materials which the 
 king gave me, and all the gold and silver, Hatib hath 
 carried off. Of course I did receive the envoy of Hatti 
 with due honour, and if the king will only send his 
 envoy I will give to him everything I promised to give. 
 Meanwhile let the king send ships, and chariots, and 
 arms, etc. (Brit. Mus. No. 29,818). 
 
 27. Letters from Eib-Adda, king of Gebal, to 
 the King, in which he reports the following facts 
 concerning the revolt in Palestine and Syria, and 
 says: 1. Abd-Ashratum the "dog" has taken posses- 
 sion of Simyra, and the king must send an Egyptian 
 officer to turn him out, and also a number of officials 
 to carry on the business of the king in the city, other- 
 wise he will seize the property of the gods of Egypt. 
 Gebal and Hikubta belong to the king. Send back 
 my servant Abd-Ninib, whom I sent with Buhiya 
 (B. 73). The city of Gebal is, and always has been 
 loyal, but now the Habiri are very powerful. We 
 have had to give up everything to Yarimuta that we 
 might have food to eat; my fields yield no harvest 
 because we cannot sow corn ; and all my cities, both 
 those in the mountains and those on the shores, have 
 fallen into the hands of the Habiri. Abd-Ashratum 
 has seized Shigata, and persuaded the people of 
 Ammiva to kill their lord ; and they have done so. 
 
Letter from Rib-Adda to the king of Egypt, reporting the progress of the 
 rebellion under Aziru. British Museum, No. 29,801. 
 
RIB-ADDA AND THE KING OF EGYPT 213 
 
 He has now written to Bit-Ninib and told the people 
 thereof to do the same. As for me, I am shut up like 
 a bird in a cage, and I fear that there is none to deliver 
 me. I wrote to the palace of the king, but no attention 
 was paid to my letter ; why will you not attend to the 
 affairs of your land ? Amanappa the Egyptian official 
 is with you, question him therefore, for he knows how 
 great is the trouble which has come upon me (Brit. 
 Mus. No. 29,795). Abd-Ashratum is trying to take 
 the last two of my cities, and that "dog," having 
 collected a number of the Habiri, has taken Shigata 
 and Ambi, and I have nowhere to flee; Simyra also is 
 in their hands. Send soldiers under an able officer, 
 and regain your former hold upon the land. I beg the 
 king not to neglect this matter (B. 74). Abd-Ashratum 
 has heard that I have reported his dealings to the 
 king, but it has had no effect upon him (B. 50). Since 
 Amanappa' s arrival all the Habiri have been against 
 me; the "dog" Abd-Ashratum is still trying to 
 capture my two cities, and the king must send troops 
 here to me, for I am shut up in Gebal like a bird in a 
 cage with nothing to eat. If you cannot send soldiers, 
 then the "dog" will gain possession of your lands 
 (B. 75). Why has not an answer been sent to my 
 application for men and horses? If I were to make 
 friends with Abd-Ashratum, as Yapa-Adda and Zimrida 
 did, I should be delivered. Yankhamu ought to send 
 me food, and you should tell him that you will hold 
 him responsible for my safety. If you will not do this 
 
214 RIB-ADDA AND THE KING OF EGYPT 
 
 I must try to escape from the city with the friends 
 whom I have left to me (Brit. Mus. No. 29,797). I am 
 in Berut ; send me help as fast as you can (B. 84). 
 All the cities except Berut have fallen into the hands 
 of the Habiri, but even now, if you send troops, all 
 will be well (B. 86). Abd-Ashratum is deceiving the 
 people, and the Shirdana and the Suti, saying that he 
 is their lord. I am still shut up in the city, no answers 
 come to my letters, and in two months' time Abd- 
 Ashratum will be master of the whole country (B. 89). 
 I have written to the king and told him several times 
 that the enemy are closing in round the city of Gebal, 
 and the " dog " Abd-Ashratum has captured the city 
 of Berut, and is coming against me. Behold, the city 
 of Shuarbi is the gate of Gebal, and as soon as you 
 march out he will depart therefrom ; at present I 
 cannot move outside my city. I beg you to hearken 
 to me and send chariots as quickly as possible, and I 
 will endeavour to hold this city until they come. If 
 you will not hearken Gebal must fall, and the whole 
 country as far as Egypt will be in the possession of 
 the Habiri ; I am not strong enough to hold this city 
 without help. Although Gebal has always been loyal 
 the envoy of the king of Accho was more honourably 
 received than was mine, and horses were given to him 
 (Brit. Mus. 29,800). I have already told the king 
 that for two years we have had no harvest, and now 
 we have no grain to eat. I beg you to send me grain 
 in ships to keep me and my city alive, and send me 
 
RIB-ADDA AND THE KING OF EGYPT 215 
 
 400 men and 30 pairs of horses ; let the grain which 
 used to be sent to Simyra be sent to me. The king of 
 Tana went against Simyra and intended to come 
 against Gebal, but he had no water for his troops and 
 therefore had to turn back. If only one king would 
 join me I could drive Abd-Ashratum out of Amurri. 
 Since the time when your father [i.e., Amen-hetep III.] 
 left Sidon, the lands have fallen into the hands of the 
 Habiri (B. 48). Behold, Tyre is in a state of rebellion, 
 and if you doubt my words ask my brother Yamilki. 
 I sent my possessions to Tyre for safety, but now the 
 Tyrians have slain their general and also my sister and 
 her sons. I sent my sister's daughters to Tyre fearing 
 Abd-Ashirta (B. 49). My messenger has returned 
 from Egypt and brought no soldiers with him, and 
 now my brother, seeing this, will turn against me. I 
 cannot come to Egypt, for I am old, and I am sick, 
 very sick. The gods of Gebal are wroth with me, for 
 I have sinned against them. I have sent a message to 
 you by my son, do hearken unto him and send me 
 soldiers ; for on the very day on which soldiers came to 
 Gebal the city would return to him. I am doing my 
 utmost to hold the city, but my brother is stirring up 
 the people to deliver it into the hands of the sons of 
 Abd-Ashratum. Do not, do not forsake the city, for in 
 it there are much gold and silver, and the temples are 
 full of possessions, all of which will be theirs if they 
 take the city. But do as you please in respect of me, 
 only give me Buruzilim to live in ; if Gebal falls then 
 
2l6 RIB-ADDA AND THE KING OF EGYPT 
 
 I shall go to Arnmunira. Since the sons of Abd- 
 Ashratum are gaining the mastery over me, and no 
 word (literally, breath) comes to me from the month of 
 the king, I declare unto my lord that, indeed, Gebal 
 will be their city. In ancient days when the king- 
 neglected this city our fathers did not pay tribute to 
 him ; do not you neglect it (B. 71). You say, "defend 
 yourself," but how can I do it ? You have sent me 
 neither foot nor horse-soldiers ; what will become of 
 me ? I will defend your city with my life, and do not 
 hearken unto those who slander me ; even if there be 
 none to testify to my loyalty you know that it exists 
 all the same (B. 44). The forces of Abd-Ashratum are 
 joining the Habiri and are going to attack me ; send 
 troops (B. 59). If you send men and horses from Egypt 
 and Miluha at once and with all speed I may live to serve 
 the king again ; I have no money to buy horses. If 
 your heart has any care for the city and for my life, 
 send soldiers. Yon wish that Haia should be taken to 
 Simyra, and I say that he arrived there with his letter 
 in the night time, and I gave 13 manehs of silver, etc., 
 to the Habiri as a gift ; I have nothing more to give 
 (B. 57). I sent two messengers to Egypt, but they did 
 not return ; they carried a letter from me to you. You 
 complain that I write evil tidings, but if you had paid 
 heed to my words Aziru would have been captured. 
 If I receive no help the Habiri will take the country, 
 and if you will not send me soldiers then instruct 
 Yankhamu and Bihura to go forth and they can occupy 
 
RIB-ADDA AND THE KING OF EGYPT 2IJ 
 
 the country ot Amurru in one day. I have a dispute 
 with Yapa-Adda and Hatib ; send someone to judge 
 between us, and whatsoever shall be taken from them 
 shall be the property of the king. Send soldiers 
 and men from Miluha, for I have no means (B. 45). 
 How and with what am I to defend myself and the 
 city ? Once there were soldiers here, and Yarimuta 
 sent grain to feed them ; now I have neither cattle 
 nor provisions, because Aziru by his raids has carried 
 off everything. Meanwhile the sons of Abd-Ashratum 
 are "dogs," and they do whatsoever they like, and 
 burn the king's cities with fire (Brit. Mus. No. 29,802). 
 Bihura has committed a shameful deed, the like of 
 which has never been heard of: he hath sent the 
 Suti who have killed the Shirdanu. Send me Abd- 
 irama, Nathan-Adda, and Abd-milki, whom Bihura 
 sent to Egypt, that they may protect me ; the sons 
 of Abd-Ashratum have seized the land (Brit. Mus. 
 No. 29,803). I am in Simyra, send me help as 
 soon as possible, for the people are disaffected and 
 will run away if you do not send me soldiers ; Irkata 
 and Simyra are the only two places left to you in 
 the land, for the sons of Abd-Ashratum have invaded 
 Amurri (B. 77). I have sold my sons, and my 
 daughters, and the wood from my houses for food 
 to Yarimuta, and I have nothing left. The Habiri 
 have killed Aduna, king of Irkata ; the Hatti have 
 taken all the huti lands : and the kings of Mitanni 
 and Nahrina are hostile (B. 79). I repeat what I 
 
2l8 RIB-ADDA AND THE KING OF EGYPT 
 
 have already said, listen to what I say ; let Buribita 
 remain in Simyra and keep Haib with you, and 
 make him your inspector. Aziru, the son of Abd- 
 Ashratum, is before Gebal, send therefore soldiers 
 to capture him, for otherwise Simyra cannot hold 
 out (B. 41). Aziru has captured twelve of my men, 
 and demands as ransom 50 manehs of silver ; he has 
 captured in the city of Yibuliya the men I sent to 
 Simyra ; I am besieged by a fleet of ships from Simyra, 
 Berut, and Sidon, and Yapa-Adda and Aziru have 
 captured some of my ships, and they have put to 
 sea to take others. If you cannot help me seud me 
 word so that I may know what to do ; your enemies 
 are very strong. I beg you to tell Yarimuta to send 
 me food ; indeed I am your loyal servant, take heed 
 to me, for I love my lord the king (Brit. Mus. No. 
 29,796). You tell me to occupy Simyra, but I am 
 not strong enough ; and Ambi has now rebelled against 
 me, and the governors of that city and its elders are 
 in league with Abd-Ashratum's sons (Brit. Mus. 29,806). 
 The sons of Abd-Ashratum have seized your horses 
 and chariots. Although people write lies to you about 
 me I am your loyal servant, and what I hear I will 
 write to you. These men are " dogs " and do not 
 fear your soldiers. The messages of other kings are 
 attended to, but mine are not ; send me 20 men from 
 Egypt and 20 from Miluha (B. 42). Simyra is 
 caught like a bird in a trap. Abd-Ashratum has 
 seized Ullaza (B. 51). Simyra has fallen,, and I 
 
RIB-ADDA AND THE KING OF EGYPT 2ig 
 
 could not prevent it, because for five years past the 
 people have been hostile to me (B. 43). Buniabula, 
 the son of Abd-Ashratum, hath forced his way into 
 Ullaza, and the cities of Ardata, Yihliya, Ambi, and 
 Shigata are his ; he and his brothers are in league 
 with the kiug of Mitanni and the king of Kash. 
 In old times you did not hesitate to act if enemies 
 threatened to attack your cities, and now that they 
 have expelled your viceroy and taken his cities why 
 do you remain inactive? (B. 60). Abd-Ashratum's 
 sons are the servants of the kings of Mitanni, and 
 Kash, and Hatti (B. 61). We have received some 
 provisions from Yarimuta through the intervention 
 of Pahamnata, the king's officer; the foe is mighty, 
 do not neglect this city (B. 80). I am not in 
 Berut, and if you order me to leave Gebal it will 
 fall into Aziru's hands. I sent my son to you, but 
 for three months he was not allowed to enter your 
 presence. When I am dead my sons will write to 
 you and ask you to bring them back into their city ; 
 why do you neglect me ? (B. 58). Sidon and Berut 
 are not loyal to you, therefore send an officer to 
 occupy them ; if the present inhabitants leave the 
 city the Habiri will walk into it (B. 54). You do 
 not attend to what I write ; if you neglect your cities 
 the Habiri will take them, for all the governors of 
 cities are favourable to Abd-Ashratum (B. 53). Abd- 
 Ashratum has been troubling me for a long time past, 
 and I wrote to your father [Amen-hetep III.] asking 
 
220 RIB-ADDA AND THE KING OF EGYPT 
 
 for troops. Haib has handed over Simyra, and you 
 must not be unmindful of the killing of your viceroy. 
 If you delay in taking action Bihura cannot remain 
 in Kumidi, and all your chiefs will be killed (Brit. 
 Mus. No. 29,801). My family urge me to join the 
 son of Abd-Ashratum, but I heed them not; I have 
 often written to you, but you do not answer my 
 letters. I went to consult with Ammunira, but the 
 house was closed to me. I await the arrival of your 
 soldiers, and if you do not alter your mind I shall 
 be a dead man. Two men and two women have 
 been given to the rebel (Brit. Mus. No. 29,799). 
 Simyra has fallen, and the people of Gebal who were 
 in it have been killed; send now soldiers and 
 chariots to protect the city, but if these do not arrive 
 during the summer the enemy will take the city and 
 slay me. Biuri, the king's officer, has been killed, 
 and the Egyptian official Pahamnata will not listen 
 to me. If it be said there is no food here for troops, 
 know that this is the case with every city (Brit. 
 Mus. No. 29,807). Though the king announced the 
 arrival of Iribayashshi, he has not come. If you 
 want to save the city send troops, for when I am 
 dead who will defend the city? (B. 46). I cannot 
 defend the city because you do not keep a garrison 
 here as your fathers did. Pahura has sent men of 
 the Shuti who have slain the Shirdani — a most 
 shameful act; he also sent three men to Egypt, and 
 since that time the city has been in revolt against 
 
RIB-ADDA AND THE KING OF EGYPT 221 
 
 me (B. 47). Formerly the kings of Canaan fled at 
 the sight of the king of Egypt, but now they do not 
 do so, and the sons of Abd-Ashratum are in possession 
 of the country. I am unable to take your envoy into 
 Simyra, for all my cities are in the hands of the enemy, 
 and their princes are my foes (B. 52). You must get 
 what you want from the country of Zaluhhi and from 
 the city of Ugariti, for I cannot send my ships there ; 
 formerly troops and money were sent here from Egypt, 
 but now nothing comes. Aziru makes war on me, and 
 the other princes help him ; their ships sail wherever 
 they please and they obtain everything they want. 
 The men of the Hatti are plundering the people of 
 G-ebal (B. 76). I have no one to defend me, send ships 
 to bring me and my gods to you (B. 87). Why cannot 
 I send letters to you as other kings do ? They are in 
 possession of their cities, and enjoy rest. What have I 
 done to deserve the treatment which Yapa-Adda has 
 meted out to me ; two of my ships have been seized, 
 and my possessions carried off, and I ask you to send 
 an officer to get them back for me (B. 63). The city 
 Gebal, your handmaiden, and I your servant, are loyal 
 to you. All the cities are going over to the sons of 
 Abd-Ashratum, and they have revolted against me. 
 Haib is with you, question him, and if it is your good 
 pleasure send soldiers to protect your cities as speedily 
 as you can. I have already written to you in these 
 terms, but have received no answer from you (B. 66). 
 " I have sent my son to my lord the king, my god, my 
 
222 RABIMUR, THE IRKATIANS, ETC. 
 
 " sun, let my lord the king, my god, my sun, send 
 " chariots with my son to defend the cities of my lord 
 " the king, my god, my sun. Let my lord the king, my 
 "god, my sun, send chariots to bring me to my lord the 
 " king, my god, my sun, that I may go into the presence 
 "of my lord the king, my god, my sun, and tell him 
 " what I have done. Behold, I am the faithful servant 
 "of my lord the king, my god, [my sun], and behold, I 
 " have sent a messenger into the presence of my lord 
 " the king, my god, my sun " (B. 198). 
 
 28. Letters from Rib-Adda to Amanappa, ask- 
 ing him to use his influence at the Egyptian court to 
 secure the despatch of soldiers, and to send him help 
 which would enable him to regain possession of Berut, 
 which had fallen into the hands of Abd-Ashratum 
 since Bib-Adda had sent his envoy to Egypt (Brit. 
 Mus. Nos. 29,798, 29,804, 29,806, etc.). 
 
 29. Letters from Rabimur to the King. 
 Rabimur was the brother of Rib- Adda, and seized the 
 city during his brother's absence in Berut. He reports 
 that Aziru has killed Aduna, king of Irkata, and the 
 king of Ammiya, and has occupied Amki, and is, no 
 doubt, a member of the hostile confederacy which 
 includes the king of Hatti and the king of Narima, i.e., 
 Mesopotamia. The king must not believe the accusa- 
 tions which have been made against him, for they are 
 absolutely false, as the Egyptian officials themselves 
 can testify (Brit. Mus. No. 29,828 ; B. 91). 
 
 30. Letter from the people of Irkata to the 
 
AMMUNIRA AND AKIZZI 
 
 223 
 
 King, stating that the report made by the Egyptian 
 official who had been sent to their city is false, and 
 that they are loyal subjects of the king of Egypt. 
 They had, it is true, fortified their city, but that was 
 against Shanku, and they were waiting for help from 
 Egypt (Brit. Mus. No. 29,825). 
 
 31. Letters from Ammunira, Governor of 
 Berut, to the King. He promises to do all that 
 the king wishes, expresses his loyalty, and says that 
 he will guard his city on the king's behalf, and will 
 receive Kib-Adda when he comes, and will send 
 forward the king's ships as soon as they arrive at 
 Berut (Brit. Mus. 29,809, 29,810; B. 211). 
 
 32. Letters from Akizzi, Governor of Katna, 
 to Amenophis III. (1) Akizzi says that ever since his 
 fathers became the vassals of the king of Egypt his 
 land has been that of the king of Egypt, and that 
 when the Egyptian troops came thereto they were 
 supplied with meat, and drink, and cattle, and sheep, 
 and oil, and honey ; but since Katna belongs to Egypt 
 it must be protected by Egyptian troops and chariots, 
 and unless they be sent soon Aziru and the Hatti will 
 take the whole district of Nuhashshi. As it is, Aziru 
 has carried off some of his people, and, worse than that, 
 the king of Hatti has carried off the statue of the 
 Sun-god, whose worship the Egyptians had imposed 
 upon the country, on which the Egyptian king had 
 inscribed his name. The people of Akizzi now ask the 
 king of Egypt to send money enough to ransom the 
 
224 
 
 NAMYAWIZA OF KUMIDI 
 
 people who have been carried off, and to get back the 
 statue of the Sun-god, in which case they ask the king- 
 to inscribe his name upon it, even as did his father 
 (Brit, Mus. No. 29,819). (2) Akizzi reports that he 
 is still alive, and declares that if he receives any letters 
 from the king of Hatti he will send them on to Egypt ; 
 he goes on to say that Aidagamma is hostile to him, 
 and that Tiuwatti of Lapana and Arzauni of Euhizi 
 are in league with him, and that they are wasting the 
 land with fire. On the other hand, the kings of 
 Nuhashshi, and Zinsar, and Ni, and Kinanat are, like 
 himself, loyal to the king. The king of Egypt can, of 
 course, do as he pleases, but if he will not come 
 himself then let him send troops, and whatsoever gifts 
 he needs from the people they will give him. If Katna 
 is thought anything at all of in the king's mind let 
 him send troops and let them march [at once]. When 
 once Arzauni and Tiuwatti are in the land of Ubi, and 
 Dasha is in the land of Amma, then let the king 
 understand that Ubi no longer belongs to him ; these 
 men send daily to Aidagamma and say to him, " Go, 
 conquer all the land of Ubi." As Damascus in the 
 land of Ubi stretcheth out her hand to the feet of the 
 king, even so doth Katna stretch out her hand (Brit. 
 Mus. Nos. 29,812, 29,820). 
 
 33. Letter from Namyawiza, Governor of 
 Kumidi, to the King of Egypt. Namyawiza reports 
 that he is holding Kumidi for the king, and declares 
 that it is not himself but Biridashwi who has seized 
 
ITAKAMA OF KADESH 
 
 225 
 
 the cities of Innuamma and Ashtarti and has delivered 
 them over to the Habiri ; moreover, the king of 
 Busruna and the king of Halunni are in league with 
 him. Arsawaya has occupied Gizza and Shaddu, and 
 he has, moreover, joined in a conspiracy against the 
 king with Aziru and Itakama, and he is also in league 
 with Biridashwi to attack the country of Abitu. In 
 another letter Namyawiza reports to the king concern- 
 ing the raids which Biridashwi and Bawanamash have 
 made into the royal territory (Brit. Mus. No. 92,826, 
 B. 96,159). 
 
 34. Letter from Itakama, Governor of Kadesh, 
 to the King. Itakama reports that Namyawiza has 
 seized certain lands and wasted them with fire, and 
 declares that he is a loyal subject, a fact to which 
 Puhari will bear testimony ; Namyawiza has delivered 
 all the cities belonging to Egypt in the lands of 
 Kadesh and Ubi into the hands of the Habiri, but 
 Itakama is determined to collect all his troops and 
 chariots, and he will march against him and destroy 
 him utterly, and he concludes with the words, "I am a 
 servant of my lord the king for ever" (B. 142). 
 
 35. Letter from Zimrida of Sidon to the King. 
 He reports that Sidon is prosperous and that he is ever 
 ready to perform his lord's wishes ; but the king must 
 know that all the cities over which he had • been 
 appointed have fallen into the hands of the Habiri, and 
 he must have help from the Egyptian general before he 
 can regain possession of them. He wishes the general 
 
 VOL. IV. Q 
 
226 
 
 ABI-MILKI, KING OF TYRE 
 
 to give back the cities to him so that he may be able to 
 serve his lord the king even as his fathers did in 
 former times (B. 90,182). 
 
 36. Group of Letters from Abi-milki of Tyre to 
 the King. (1) He says that he is " the dust beneath 
 " the sandals of his lord the king, who is the sun which 
 " riseth over the lands each day." After some remarks 
 as to the joy which he felt on the receipt of the king's 
 words he expresses his devoted loyalty, and says that he 
 is guarding Tyre for the king, and will continue to do so 
 until the Egyptian troops come and give him water to 
 drink and wood to burn to keep him warm. But the 
 king must know that Aziru, the son of Abd-Ashratum, 
 is in league with Zimrida of Sidon. (2) Abi-milki asks 
 for troops to defend Tyre, and then he will go and see 
 the face of the king. Aziru has been doing evil, and 
 certain rebels have betrayed Simyra into his hands, 
 and what is very serious, Zimrida of Sidon hath seized 
 Ulzu. It is known from one of the Sallier Papyri 1 
 that Tyre was supplied with water by means of boats, 
 and Ulzu was the name in the XVIIIth Dynasty of the 
 place from which it was brought ; this place was, no 
 doubt, on the mainland. Abi-milki's position was 
 desperate, for, as he says, he has neither wood, nor 
 water, nor the materials for performing the last offices 
 for the dead. Zimrida is in league with Aziru, and the 
 people of Arvad have collected their ships and have 
 gathered together their soldiers and chariots, meaning 
 
 1 See Tell el-Amarna Tablets in the British Museum^ p. lvii. 
 
ABI-MILKI, KING OF TYRE 
 
 227 
 
 to make an attack upon Tyre by sea and by land. Abi- 
 milki entreats the king to send him a letter so that be 
 may go and see the king, and be states tbat be is 
 obliged to send this tablet to the king by the hand 
 of a common soldier. (3) Abi-milki entreats the king- 
 to send twenty men to protect Tyre, and begs for wood 
 and water, for all his communications with the main- 
 land have been cut off, and since the enemy has 
 blockaded him he has not been able to obtain either 
 wood or water. In answer to the king's demand for 
 information, he reports that the king of Danuna is 
 dead, that his brother has succeeded him, and that the 
 country is peaceful. Half of the city of Ugarit has 
 been burnt with fire, Itakama has captured the city 
 of Kadesh, Aziru has joined Namyawiza, and Zimrida 
 has collected a number of ships ; Abi-milki begs 
 earnestly for help. (4) After salutations to the "ever- 
 lasting Sun-god," i.e., the king, Abi-milki refers to the 
 royal command which ordered him to provide Shalmayati 
 with corn and water, and reports that this has not been 
 done, and suggests that the king must make his own 
 arrangements for doing this. The king must know that 
 in Tyre there is neither wood, nor water, nor anything 
 which can be eaten. Abi-milki begs the king to defend 
 " Shalmayati's city," and he reports the arrival of the 
 king of Sidon in a ship, and declares that he (Abi-milki) 
 will depart with his ships from Tyre. (5) Abi-milki 
 reports that he has sent a gift to the king, and asks 
 him to cause the city of Usu, whence he obtained his 
 
228 
 
 SURATA AND ZATANA 
 
 water supply, to be restored to him, and to send him 
 food for himself, and ten companies (?) of soldiers to 
 defend the city. The Egyptian general does not seem 
 to be behaving loyally to Abi-milki, for he does not 
 allow him to obtain supplies from the city of Usu on 
 the mainland. The kings of Sidon and Hasor have 
 joined themselves to the Habiri, and the king should 
 take back from them the land which they now hold ; he 
 can inquire on this matter of his officer who is in 
 Kinahhi. (G) Abi-milki reports that now the Egyptian 
 troops have left Tyre Zimrida will not allow him to go 
 to the mainland for wood and water ; he has already 
 slain some of Abi-milki's forces, and the king is 
 entreated earnestly to protect his servant (Brit. Mus. 
 Nos. 28-31, B. 98, 99, 162, 231). 
 
 37. Letters from Surata of Accho to the King, 
 reporting his fidelity, and describing himself as " the 
 " servant of the king, the dust of his feet, and the earth 
 " on which he walketh ; " he says, " At the feet of my 
 " lord the king, who is the sun in heaven, seven times 
 "and seven times with belly and back I prostrate 
 " myself." And in a verbose fashion he asks, " When 
 " the sun in the heavens speaketh, what king would not 
 " hearken and obey?" (B. 93). 
 
 38. Letters from Zatana, king of Accho, to the 
 King, saying that Shuta, an Egyptian official, has 
 ordered him to give up Zirdaiashda, who has taken 
 refuge with him from before the anger of Namyawiza, 
 but since Accho is like Migdol in Egypt, i.e., since 
 
ARTAMANYA, LAPAYA, SHUARDATA 
 
 229 
 
 Accho being an Egyptian city is like one of the 
 fortresses on the frontier of Egypt, he thinks that 
 Zirdaiashda must not be given up to his foes (B. 32, 
 94, 95). 
 
 39. Letter from Artamanya, king of Zir- 
 Bashan, to the King, reporting loyalty (B. 132). 
 
 40. Letters from Lapaya to the King, explaining 
 how the city was captured by the enemy, and denying 
 the charge of rebellion which has been made against 
 him ; he says, " Indeed I am a loyal servant of the 
 "king, I have neither sinned against him nor made 
 "rebellion against him, and I am ready to pay the 
 " taxes which I am bound to pay, and to perform the 
 "commands of my chief. Indeed they have told false- 
 " hoods about me, but let not the king think that I 
 " have been rebellious." It is true that I did go into 
 the city of G-ezer, but that was in order to obtain 
 soldiers; and the king may take everything which I 
 have if only he will examine into the reports against 
 me made by Milkili and decide concerning them. I do 
 not know what has happened to Dummuya, or whether 
 he has joined the Habiri or not. Moreover, if the king- 
 were to write to me for my wife I would not refuse to 
 send her, and if he were to order me to stab myself with 
 a bronze dagger and die I would certainly do so 
 (B. 112). 
 
 41. Letters from Shuardata to the King. (1) 
 Shuardata has taken the city of Kilti, apparently 
 against the wish of the king ; Abdi-khiba tried to bribe 
 
230 
 
 LETTERS FROM MILKILI 
 
 the people of Kilti, but failed. On the other hand 
 Abdi-khiba has taken the city of Shu ar data, whilst he, 
 i.e., Shuardata, has not taken an ox, or an ass, or a 
 man from him or his city. Lapaya who was in league 
 with Abdi-khiba, and plundered our cities with him, is 
 dead. (2) Shuardata is unable to go to Egypt, ap- 
 parently because he has no money, moreover, as 
 Yankhamu, the Egyptian official, is in Egypt he can tell 
 the king whether Shuardata has any troops in his city 
 or not. Thirty towns are in league against Shuardata, 
 and his enemies are mighty, and he himself is only one ; 
 the king must help him. (3) The city of Kilti has 
 fallen ; let the king send troops and then he will be 
 able to besiege the victors and to drive them out from 
 the city (B. 100, 101, 107). 
 
 42. Letters from Milkili to the King. (1) 
 Milkili reports the safety of his city, and the despatch 
 of slaves, men and women. The enemy are exceedingly 
 hostile, and he begs the king to rescue the country 
 from the Habiri ; the king can verify his statements by 
 appealing to Yankhamu. Milkili went to Egypt to see 
 the king, and probably as a result of the remarks which 
 he made to him concerning Yankhamu this official went 
 to Milkili's city, and carried off a large amount of 
 money from his brother, and demanded that his wife 
 and children should be produced that he might slay 
 them. Milkili prays that the king will send chariots 
 to take him and the oppressor to the presence of the 
 king without delay. In another letter Milkili begs 
 
ABDI-KHIBA, GOVERNOR OF JERUSALEM 23I 
 
 that troops may be sent, and wishes the king to send 
 him some object as a gift (Brit. Mus. Nos. 29,845, 
 29,846, B. 107-110). 
 
 43. Letter from a Koyal Lady to the King, 
 reporting that strife has broken out in the land, and 
 that the king's territory has passed into the hands of 
 the Habiri who have plundered Ayaluna (Ajalon) and 
 Sarha; the two sons of Milkili are mentioned. The 
 lady in her second letter reports that the city of Sapuna 
 has been taken by the Habiri (?) (B. 138). 
 
 44. Letters from Abdi-khiba, governor of 
 Jerusalem, to the King. The first of these letters 
 opens with a question in which the writer says, "What 
 " [offence] have I committed against my lord the king ? " 
 He continues, " Someone has lied concerning me in 
 " saying, ' Abdi-khiba has rebelled against his lord the 
 " king.' Behold, it was not my father and.it was not 
 " my mother who stablished me in this position, but it 
 " was the mighty arm of the king himself who made 
 " me master of the lands and possessions of my father. 
 " Why then should I make rebellion against my lord 
 "the king? As the king liveth, they are all lying 
 " concerning me to the king because I said unto my 
 " lord the king's general (i.e., Yankhamu), 1 Why dost 
 "thou show favour to the Habiri (i.e., the king's 
 " enemies), and treat with roughness the heads of 
 " tribes of the country?' And because I say also that 
 " [if this policy be followed] the territories of my lord 
 " the king will be laid waste, they speak against me to 
 
232 ABDI-KHIBA, GOVERNOR OF JERUSALEM 
 
 "the king. Let iny lord the king know that the king 
 " my lord had established an outpost [in this city], but 
 " Yankhamu has removed it." .... The king must 
 take heed to his land if he wishes to keep it. The 
 cities of the king of Egypt which were under the rule 
 of Ilu-milki have rebelled, and if this sort of thing 
 continues the whole of the king's possessions in the 
 country will be lost. Abdi-khiba is very anxious to go 
 to Egypt that he may look upon the face of the king, 
 but he cannot leave Jerusalem because his enemies are 
 too mighty for him ; if the king will send a company of 
 men to guard the city then he will go to Egypt and 
 look upon the face of the king. He swears by the life 
 of the king that he never ceases to warn every official 
 that the territory of the king is slipping out of his 
 hands, and if the king will not take heed to the warn- 
 ing which he is now sending to him he will soon have 
 no vassal princes left in the land. The king should 
 take heed to his vassal princes, and he should send 
 troops ; indeed, already the Habiri have laid waste 
 all the king's lands, and he has nothing left. If the 
 king will only send soldiers in the course of the present 
 year his hold on the land may be maintained, but if he 
 will not do so, then all his possessions will be lost. 
 The last two lines contain this exhortation to the 
 scribe who shall read this letter to the king of Egypt : 
 " Speak clearly, and make the king my lord to under- 
 stand the following words, f All the lands of my lord 
 " the king are being destroyed utterly.' " 
 
ABDI-KHIBA, GOVERNOR OF JERUSALEM 233 
 
 In his second letter Abdi-khiba begins by reporting 
 some occurrence, but what, the mutilated state of the 
 text prevents us from knowing exactly, and goes on to 
 say that all the kings round about are conspiring 
 against him, and that the king must look after his own 
 land, and the people of Gezer, Ascalon, and Lachish 
 have undertaken to provide their troops with meat and 
 oil, and everything which they may require. All these 
 things are happening through Milkili and the sons of 
 Lapaya, who are bent on handing over the country of 
 the king into the hands of the Habiri. If the king 
 will only send troops this year the princes will remain 
 loyal to Egypt, and the king will keep what is his 
 own ; but if they come not there will remain neither 
 loyal princes nor lands to the king. Abdi-khiba 
 repeats, " Behold this country of Jerusalem ! Neither 
 " my father nor my mother gave it unto me, but it was 
 " the mighty arm of the king himself who gave it unto 
 "me." Abdi-khiba explains his reasons for treating 
 the Kashi as he did, but if the king has any doubt 
 about the propriety of his acts let him inquire of the 
 Egyptian officials concerning the matter. Adaya 
 revolted, but as soon as the Egyptian officer Paura 
 went up to Jerusalem Adaya made peace with him. 
 Abdi-khiba is unable to ensure a safe conduct for the 
 transport, because the last convoy was robbed on the 
 plain of Ajalon; nevertheless the king has set his name 
 upon the city of Jerusalem for ever, and he cannot 
 therefore leave the country round about it to its fate. 
 
234 ABDI-KHIBA, GOVERNOR OF JERUSALEM 
 
 The last two paragraphs are addressed to the royal 
 scribe in Egypt ; in the first Abdi-khiba begs him to 
 " speak clearly and make the king my lord to under- 
 " stand these words, 'lama man in authority under 
 " the king,' " and in the second he appears to beg for 
 the scribe's support in the affair of the Kashi. In his 
 third letter Abdi-khiba says : Behold, the king hath 
 stablished his name from the rising up of the sun even 
 unto the going down of the same. They have told lie 
 upon lie about me. Indeed (or lo !), I am no personage 
 of rank, nay, I am but a humble servant of my lord the 
 king ; I am a man in authority under the king, and I 
 bring tribute unto him. It was neither my father nor 
 my mother who stablished me over the lands of my 
 father, but it was the mighty arm of the king my lord 
 himself. When Shiita and the other Egyptian officer 
 came to me I gave each of them slaves and other 
 things as gifts for the king. The kings of all the land 
 between Shiri and Ginti-kirmil have rebelled, and they 
 treat me as a foe. Whilst the king had ships upon the 
 sea the mighty hand of the king was in possession of 
 Nahrima and Kash, but now the Habiri hold these 
 places, and the king has not one loyal prince left. 
 Turbasa was slain at the gate of Zilu, and yet the king- 
 does nothing ! The servants of Zimrida are doing 
 their utmost to capture and kill him, and still the king- 
 does nothing ! Yapti-Addu has also been slain at the 
 gate of Zilu, and still the king does nothing. The 
 king must take heed to his land, and send troops, but 
 
ABDI-KHIBA, GOVERNOR OF JERUSALEM 235 
 
 if he will not do this he must send one of his officials 
 to rescue Abdi-khiba and his brethren, so that they 
 may die with the king. Finally, the scribe of the king 
 of Egypt is begged to speak clearly these words to the 
 king. In his fourth letter Abdi-khiba reports that 
 Milkili has revolted, and has joined himself to the sons 
 of Lapaya and the sons of Arzawaya, and asks why the 
 king of Egypt has not punished him for so doing. 
 Milkili and his father-in-law Tagi have taken the city 
 of Rubutu, and none of the king's troops are left there. 
 The official Puru is in Gaza, and the king should give 
 him a company of soldiers ; Abdi-khiba asks that 
 Yankhamu be sent to look after the king's possessions. 
 In his fifth letter Abdi-khiba reports that Milkili and 
 Shuardata have gathered together the soldiers of 
 Gazri, and Gimti, and Kilti, and have seized the 
 district of Rubutu, which has thereby fallen into the 
 hands of the Habiri, and is thus lost to the king of 
 Egypt. Moreover, a city called Bit-Ninib, which is 
 actually in the country belonging to Jerusalem, has 
 been taken by the Kilti. Let the king hearken to 
 his servant Abdi-khiba and send him troops that he 
 may regain possession of the lands of the king, for 
 unless he does so the whole country will fall into 
 the hands of the Habiri. The other letters of Abdi- 
 khiba contain frequent and earnest requests for help, 
 and report the rebellious acts of Milkili, Tabi, the 
 sons of Lapaya, etc. (B. Nos. 102-106, 149, 174, 
 199). 
 
236 ADDU-MIHIR, TAGI, BIRIDIYA 
 
 45. Letters from Addu-Mihir, assuring the king 
 of his loyalty and fidelity (B. 167, 168). 
 
 46. Letters from Tagi, the father-in-law of 
 Milkili. He reports that he is unable to send his 
 letters and gifts to the king because he is now, unfor- 
 tunately, sick ; this fact the king can verify by con- 
 sulting the Egyptian inspector of the district. He 
 says, " Behold, our eyes are upon thee, for whether we 
 " go up into the heights of heaven, or descend into the 
 " depths of earth our head is still in thy hand." He 
 is very anxious to send the gifts which are due to the 
 king, and he will do his best to do so by the hands of a 
 friend, who is also in the king's service. In his second 
 letter Tagi says, "I look hither and I look thither, 
 " and there is no light whatsoever, but when I look 
 " upon the face of my lord the king there is light." He 
 sends with his protestations of fidelity a gift. In his 
 third letter he reports that someone has plundered his 
 land and carried off men, silver, and sheep, and that 
 now he no longer has any authority over the cities 
 which the king entrusted to him. Tagi sends this 
 letter through Pahura, and begs that a company of 
 soldiers with horses may be sent (B. Nos. 156, 169 ; 
 Brit. Mus. No. 29,853). 
 
 47. Letters from Biridiya of Megiddo. (1) Ke- 
 porting that the two sons of Lapaya are giving help to 
 the Habiri, and asking the king to take heed to his 
 possessions. (2) Reporting that he is guarding the 
 city of Makida both by day and by night on behalf of 
 
WYASHDATA, SHUARDATA 
 
 237 
 
 the king, and that the Habiri are obtaining great 
 power in the country. (3) Keporting some gift made 
 to the king, and complaining of harsh treatment at the 
 hands of the king's enemies. (4) Reporting that as 
 soon as the Egyptian soldiers left the city Lapaya cut 
 off the food supplies and would not allow him (i.e., 
 Biridiya) to go outside the gate. Lapaya is doing his 
 utmost to take the city, and Biridiya entreats the king- 
 to send two companies of soldiers to occupy and save it, 
 for if Makida falls Lapaya will certainly cause him to 
 die a horrible death (B. Nos. Ill, 113-115). 
 
 48. Letter from Wyashdata, reporting that all 
 the possessions which had been entrusted to him by the 
 king have been seized by the people of Tada, and that 
 a raid has been made upon his cattle and many of them 
 were driven off ; he also announces that he has made a 
 league with Biridiya, who appears to have been the 
 governor of Megiddo (Brit. Mus. No. 29,842). 
 
 49. Letters from Shuardata, the governor of the 
 city. (1) Reporting that all his troops have fled, and 
 that he is left alone ; he makes the usual appeal for 
 help, and accompanies it with a gift. (2) Reporting 
 that he has been left alone, and begging for the 
 despatch of a large body of troops to help him out of 
 his difficulties. (3) Reporting that he will perform 
 the command which "my lord the king, the sun-god in 
 heaven," hath sent him. He abases himself seven 
 times in homage to the king, and declares that he is 
 the dust of his feet. (4) Reporting the continued 
 
2 3 8 
 
 ABDI-TIRSHI, YAPAKHI 
 
 hostility of the governors round about him, and 
 begging the king to send a body of troops to protect 
 him and his city (Brit. Mus. Nos. 29,850, 29,851, 
 29,852 ; B. No. 190). 
 
 50. Letters from Abdi - Tirshi of Khasur 
 (Hazor). (1) Reporting that he will guard the city 
 of Hazor until the arrival of the king's soldiers, and 
 assuring the king that when his despatch reached him 
 it was just as if the sun had risen upon him; the news 
 that the king is about to come has filled him with joy. 
 (2) Reporting that he is still guarding the city on 
 behalf of the king, whose faithful servant he is, as well 
 as all the towns which are round about; he trusts that 
 the king will keep in remembrance what hath befallen 
 the faithful and loyal city, and also himself, and what 
 he has endured in keeping it (Brit. Mus. Nos. 29,830, 
 29,831). 
 
 51. Letters from Yapakhi, Governor of Gezer. 
 (1) Acknowledging the receipt of the king's instruc- 
 tions, which he well understands, and reporting his 
 loyalty and fidelity to the interests of the king. His 
 brother has made a league with the Habiri, and has 
 rebelled against him, and he and they are taking 
 offensive measures against him. (2) Acknowledging 
 the receipt of a further despatch, and saying that his 
 condition has become extremely serious because of the 
 attacks of the Suti people ; but if only he could hear a 
 bit of good news from the king his heart would be 
 satisfied (Brit. Mus. Nos. 29,832, 29,833). 
 
WIDIYA, YABITIRI 
 
 239 
 
 52. Letters from Widya, Governor of Askelon. 
 
 (1) He reports to the king that he is defending the 
 city on his behalf, and that he has provided cattle, 
 sheep, honey, oil, and drink for the troops ; he 
 expresses his readiness to pay the accustomed tribute. 
 
 (2) He again reports that he is defending the city 
 according to the instructions which he has received 
 from the " sun in the heavens." The king ordered him 
 to pay as tribute a number of precious stones, and he 
 sends part of them, for he cannot send all as his " lord 
 " the king, the sun in the heavens, the son of the sun, 
 " whom the sun loveth, commanded." 1 (3-6) Further 
 reports, saying that he has furnished supplies to the 
 king's troops, and that he is guarding his city on the 
 king's behalf. (7) Keport expressing his loyalty, but 
 saying that he cannot protect the city any longer 
 without help, and begging the king to send the 
 Egyptian officer Kianapa to him (Brit. Mus. No. 29,835, 
 29,836, 29,837 ; B. Nos. 118, 119, 121, 122). 
 
 53. Letter from Yabitiri, Governor of Gaza 
 and Joppa, expressing his loyalty, and saying that 
 there is no light anywhere for him but with the king, 
 and that though the tile in the pavement may become 
 loose and move away from its place he will never move 
 from his position under the feet of the king. If the 
 
 1 Widya here cleverly applies to the king the titles to which he 
 is accustomed in Egypt, i.e., Sa-Ra, , "son of the Sun," and 
 
 Ra-meri, O *^ 0 O , " lover of the Sun," or " loved of the Sun." 
 
240 DAGAN-TAKALA, ZIMRIDA, YABNI-ILU 
 
 king has any doubt about this fact let him ask 
 Yankhamu, who took him to Egypt as a young man, and 
 who knows how faithfully he discharged his duties as 
 governor of Gaza and Joppa. He is ready to march 
 with the royal troops wherever they may go, and he 
 says, " The yoke of the king my lord is upon my neck, 
 and I will bear it " (Brit. Mus. No. 29,840). 
 
 54. Letters from Dagan-Takala to the King, 
 reporting his loyalty, and saying that even as his 
 father and grandfather were loyal to the king of Egypt 
 so will he be ; he begs that he may be rescued from the 
 Habiri and the Suti, who have gained great power in 
 the land (Brit. Mus. No. 29,857; B. No. 129). 
 
 55. Letter from Zimrida of Lachish, reporting 
 his loyalty, and saying that he will perform the 
 commands of the king which have been duly brought 
 to him by the Egyptian messenger (B. No. 123). 
 
 56. Letter from Yabni-ilu of Lachish, reporting 
 his loyalty, and saying that he will perform the 
 commands of the king which have been duly brought 
 to him by the envoy Maia (B. No. 124). 
 
 57. Letter said to have been found at Tell al-Hesi, 
 the supposed site of Lachish, reporting an alliance 
 between Shipti-Addu 1 and Zimrida of Lachish ; it is 
 thought to have been captured by the servants of 
 Zimrida of Lachish (Constantinople). 
 
 1 See Scheil, Recueil de Travaux, torn, xiii., 1891, pp. 73, 74; 
 Revue des Religions, March, 1891 ; Journal Asiatique, 8 me serie, 
 torn. xvii. pp. 347-349. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
 
 24I 
 
 58. Among the other writers of letters to Amen- 
 hetep IV. and his officials may be mentioned : Shamu- 
 Adda of Shamhuna (B. 131), Shubandi (Brit. Mus. 
 Nos. 29,821-29,823, B. 116, 117, 120), Bayaya, 
 Shutarna of Mushihuna, Pu-adda of Urza, Mut-Adda, 
 Yama, Addu-dayan, Shipti-Addu, Dashrn, Zitriyara, 
 Shatiya, the governor of Gubbu, the governor of Kami, 
 Abi-milki of Shashimi, Amayashi, Yik-tasu, Baduza, 
 Mutzu, Surashar, Hiziri, Kusmana, the prince of 
 Taruna, Zishamini, the prince of Nazuna, Diyati, Tagi, 
 Yahzibaya, Yamyuta, the prince of Gadashuna, 
 Subayadi, Inbaruta, etc. 
 
 END OF VOL. IV. 
 
 VOL. IV. 
 
 B 
 
LONDON 
 
 GILBERT AND RIVISSTON, LIMITED 
 
 8T. John's house, clerkenwkll, e.c.