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TEMPLE OF LUXOR.

Page 109.

ANCIENT HISTORY

FROM THE MONUMENTS.

EGYPT

FROM THE

EARLIEST TIMES TO B. C. 300

BY

S. BIRCH, LL.D., ETC.

it .

PUBLISHED UNDEE THE BISECTION OP

THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITEEATUEE AND EDUCATION,

APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOE PROMOTING

CHEISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.

SEVENTH THOUSAND.

LONDON:

for ^r0mxrlm0 Cjmsiijm

NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS;

4, ROYAL EXCHANGE ; 48, PICCADILLY.

NEW YORK: POTT, YOUNG, & CO.
1879.

AKD SOUTS, PKINTEES,
GEE AT QUBEJT STBBBT, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.
LONDON, W.C.

1435604

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION Page vii

CHAPTER I.

Old Empire, from the first to the close of the sixth dynasty. From
about 3000 B.C. to 2000 B.C. First dynasty Menes Athothis
Ousaphais. Second dynasty Boethos Sent Pyramid of
Meydoum. Third dynasty Monuments at Sakkarah. Fourth dy-
nasty Cheops Kephren Mencheres Pyramids of Gizeh
Civilisation Manners. Fifth dynasty Sahura Mines of the
Wady Magarah Papyrus of Ptahhetp. Sixth dynasty Pepi
Exploits of Una Negroes Page 23

CHAPTER II.

Middle Empire, from the seventh to the eighteenth dynasty. From
about 2000 B.C. to 1 600 B.C. Eleventh dynasty Antef
Tombs at the El-Assasif Mentuhetp valley of El Hammamat.
Twelfth dynasty War of Usertesen I Famine in Egypt
Ethiopian wars Supposed arrival of Hebrews Amenemha III
Lake Moeris Temple of the Sarabit-el-Khadim Amenemha
IV Labyrinth, lake and pyramids. Thirteenth dynasty In-
vasion of the Hykshos or Shepherd rulers , Page 57-

VI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER III.

New Empire from the eighteenth to the twentieth dynasty. From
1600 B.C. to mo B.C. Expulsion of Shepherds Exploits of
Aahmes I Thothmes I The Qneen Hasheps Arabian tributes
and queen Wars of Thothmes III Battle of Megiddo Tributes

Exploits of Amenemheb Amenophis III Heretical worship
of the sun's disk Restoration of the worship of Amen Seti I
and his wars Rameses II Great war with the Khita and treaty

Period of the Exodus Meneptah, supposed Pharaoh New
hypothesis of route Invasion of Egypt by Libyans, Greeks, and
Italians Rameses III War with Libyans, and Pelasgi His
riches and luxury Rameses XII Mission of the ark of the
god Khons to Bakhtan Fall of the Ramessids Page 78

CHAPTER IV.

From the twenty-first dynasty to the conquest. From about noo
B.C. to 332 B.C. Family of Shisak Conquest of Jerusalem
Death of an Apis Invasion of Piankhi the Ethiopian Sub-
mission of Nimrod Exploits of Piankhi Bokchoris Sabaco

Tirhakah Conquest of Egypt by Esarhaddon Invasion of
Egypt by Tirhakah Re-conquest by Assur-bani-pal Rutamen

Nutmiamen Psammetichus I Gyges Greek mercenaries

Tombs of the Apis Apries Amasis Conquest of Egypt
by Cambyses Darius Revolt of Egypt Xerxes Arta-
xerxes Nechterebes Teos Conquest of Egypt by Alex-
ander Page 154

INTRODUCTION.

ANCIENT Egypt is one of the two great countries
of the world which has performed so important a part
in the religious history of the East, that its annals, as
derived from the monuments, are of the greatest im-
portance to understanding the development of human
civilisation and the tendency of religious thought. It
was in it that the Hebrews passed their first captivity,
entering it as a nomad race with their flocks and herds,
and leaving the house of bondage with the knowledge
and arts of its early civilisation. The land itself, called
in the hieroglyphics Kam or the Black, from the colour of
the alluvial mud of the Nile, bore several other names in
the Egyptian language. To the Hebrews it was known
as Mitsraim or the Two Mitsrs, an appellation found
also in the Assyrian as Musr, and the Persian as Mud-
raya, but the Greeks called it Aiguptos, a word of un-
certain derivation retained at the present day as Egypt,
by which it is universally known. No country could
have been better fitted for the cradle of the human race :
blessed with a rainless sky, a fertile soil, an incessant
supply of water, and protected by its conformation from
the disaster of early conquest, it possessed all that was
necessary for the happiness and safety of its population.
It was the bed of the river Nile, which in a course of
miles received no tributary stream into its bosom, but,
supplied by the outpour of the great lakes of Central
Africa, annually spread its waters over a barren desert,

Vlll INTRODUCTION.

which it fertilized ; retiring again to a narrower bed, it
left behind it a long and narrow strip of cultivatable
land not exceeding the breadth of a few miles till it
reached the modern Fayoum or ancient Delta, where
the waters of the river, mostly repelled by the Mediter-
ranean, threw down in the shape of a fan the mud they
carried in their course, as the choked watercourses
gradually silted up. Two ranges of low and barren
hills, granite at Syene, sandstone a little beyond, and
limestone till they reach the Fayoum, skirt the Valley of
the Nile, beyond which lies the arid and lifeless desert.
It was in this valley, teeming with vegetable and animal
life, that the ancient Egyptians flourished and erected
those vast edifices, the admiration of all ages.

It is a peculiarity of this country that the absence of
rain, the great destroyer of works of art, has enabled even
the most fragile materials, such as rapidly perish else-
where, to survive the slow process of destroying time, for
all above the level of the inundation was safe from the
usual elements of decay. The inundation took place at
the 28th July or about the summer solstice, and almost
to a day ; the river as it rose changing rapidly in colour,
especially in Upper Egypt, from a slimy green to a
turbid red colour. And when it attained a height of
sixteen cubits it revived the drooping vegetation of the
cultivated lands, which no drop of rain from heaven ever
watered except at long and distant intervals of time.

The race of men by whom the Valley of the Nile was
tenanted, was considered in their legends to have been
created by the gods out of clay; a legend closely re-
sembling the Mosaic account of the creation of man.
Modern researches have, however, not as yet finally de-
termined if advancing from Western Asia they entered
the alluvial land bringing with them an already developed
civilisation; or if ascending from Ethiopia they fol-
lowed the course of the river to its mouth ; or if they
were Aborigines, the date of whose appearance is beyond

INTRODUCTION. IX

the knowledge of man and the scan of science. On the
earliest monuments they appear as a red or dusky race,
with features neither entirely Caucasian nor Nigritic;
more resembling at the earliest age the European, at
the middle period of the Empire the Nigritic races or
the offspring of a mixed population, and at the most
flourishing period of their Empire the sallow tint and
refined type of the Semitic families of mankind. Placed
in the Mosaic accounts as descendants of the family of
Ham, or the Black raceSj it has been usual to style them
Hamitic, or an African people. At all periods of history
the development, both physical and intellectual, of the
Egyptians was of a high order ; offering a marked con-
trast with the Nigritic nations, whom nothing but the
pressure of conquest or subjection can elevate to a
higher standard, owing to the early arrest of physical
and intellectual growth. It is not to be supposed that
Egypt was alone inhabited at the time of its earliest
monuments. It had soon come in conflict with adja-
cent countries already partly populated. South of
Syene lay the numerous black tribes, the so-called Nahsi
or Negroes, inferior in civilisation but turbulent and im-
patient of subjection. The skirts of the Eastern desert
were held by wandering tribes called Satu, not yet sub-
jected to the arms and discipline of Egypt. The
Western frontier was menaced by the Tahennu or
Libyans, but the waters of the Mediterranean had not as
yet been infested as at a later period by the Phoenicians
and Greeks, who exercised the arts of piracy and com-
merce. Beyond the North-eastern desert, in which
resided the Herusha or Inhabitants of the Waste, were
the Menat, perhaps also a Shepherd race, the dwellers
of Northern Asia ; and hazily in the distance were seen
the nascent forms of the Empires of Babylon and As-
syria, and the slowly rising power of the Phoenician
states and Syrian kingdoms.

The religious notions of the Egyptians were chiefly

X INTRODUCTION.

connected with the worship of the Sun, with whom at a
later period all the principal deities were connected. As
Har or Harmachis he represented the youthful or rising
Sun, as Ra the mid-day, and as Turn the setting Sun.
According to Egyptian notions, that god floated in a
boat through the sky or celestial ether, and descended
to the dark regions of night or Hades. Many deities
attended on his passage or were connected with his
worship, and the gods Amen and Kheper, who repre-
sented the invisible and the self-produced god, were
identified with the Sun. The soul was supposed to have
emanated from the deity, and after death passed to the
great judgment in the Hall of Truth, where it was judged
by Osiris, the Egyptian Pluto, and the forty-two daimons
or judges of the dead. Hence according to its merits it
went into the boat of the Sun, the Elysian fields, the
pools of peace, and other abodes of bliss ; or else passing
through the house of Truth, transmigrated or reappeared
on earth in some animal or human form suitable to its
demerits. The idea of a single self- existent deity was
indeed stated in the hymns and prayers addressed to
certain gods, who are said to have animated or produ-
ced all beings, or to have been the universal and anim-
ating principle of nature. In the different sects Ptah was
thought to have produced the Sun and Moon, or celes-
tial bodies, Khnum mankind, and Turn or the setting
Sun existences and beings. At a later period the eight
great gods were considered different in the colleges of
Thebes and Memphis. According to the later traditions
the gods had reigned over Egypt prior to the native kings,
and in the Memphite registers the first of the series was
Ptah or Vulcan, the lord of the cubit, the demiurgos of
the Kosmos or Universe. He was succeeded by Ra,
the meridian or midday Sun, Ra by Shu, another form
of the same luminary allied with his sister Tef. These
were followed by Seb or Saturn, the prince of the gods,
and apparently the stellar universe allied to Nut or the

INTRODUCTION. XI

Ether, like the Greek Rhea, from whom sprung the ter-
restrial gods. Osiris, the universal god of Egypt, with
his wife Isis succeeded. Then came Set or Typhon,
the brother and rival of Osiris, and the evil principle
of Egyptian mythology. Lastly came Horus, the con-
queror of Set, the avenger of his father, and the im-
mediate predecessor of the demigods. These deities
were supposed to have reigned 13,900 years, and to
have been succeeded by the followers of Horus, who
ruled for 4000 years more. The succession at Thebes
followed nearly the same order, but Amon Ra, the The-
ban Jupiter was placed at the head of the list, although
the evidence of the monuments proves that his appear-
ance in the mythology was later than that of Ptah. The
god Mentu, another form of the Sun, and who gave his
name to the Theban Hermonthis,was substituted for Ra,
but the after succession followed the same order, and
was closed by the reign of Har or Horus and his wife
Hathor or Athor, 'the abode of Horus/ the Egyptian Ve-
nus and the local goddess of Dendera or Tentyris, Athri-
bis, and Aphroditopolis. Besides the gods of the first or-
der, twelve were reckoned in the second order, amongst
whom were Tahuti or Thoth, the god of wisdom and
knowledge, inventor of speech and writing and the arts
and sciences, and the patron of scribes and authors; and
Anup or Anubis, son of Osiris, and the director of the
funereal rites and embalmer of the dead. There was a
third order, but its members are not known, although it
comprised some of the numerous deities seen on the
monuments, the attendants, ministers, or companions
of the principal gods. In the local worship of the great
gods, a kind of triad or three principal persons of the
family appeared. At Memphis they were Ptah, his wife
Merenphtah, and his son Nefer-Atum. A second fe-
male goddess Bast, lion-headed like Merenphtah and
probably her sister, was also occasionally seen. At
Heliopolis the triad consisted of Turn or Harmachis,

Xll INTRODUCTION.

Nebhetp, and Horus. At Abydos of Osiris, Isis his
wife, and Horus, to whom Nephthys was sometimes ad-
ded ; while at Elephantine Khnum or Chnoumis and the
goddess Anuka or Anoucis and their son Hak, formed
the local triad. Besides these were various other local
triads in all the chief cities of the country. The gods
were represented with human or animal heads, by
which last and the head attire they were distinguished
thus from each other. Of the human-headed deities,
Amen-Ra wore two plumes of hawks feathers, a disk,
and red cap; Osiris, a conical cap placed on horns
and flanked by ostrich feathers; Anhor, Onouris or
Mars, four feathers ; Ra and the gods of the Sun had
hawk's heads ; Khnum, that of a ram ; Sebak, a croco-
dile's head ; Thoth, the head of an ibis ; and Anubis,
that of a jackal. The uraeus or cobra de capello
snake often appeared on their heads, and they held
in their hands emblems of life* and sceptres terminat-
ing in the head of a mystic animal ; goddesses some-
times carried sceptres in shape of the stem of a
papyrus

Attached to the worship were the sacred animals,
which were supposed to be incarnations of the efflatus
or spirit of the gods. The most remarkable of these
were the bull, Hapi or Apis, emblems of the moon
and the sacred life of the god Ptah, worshipped at
Memphis; Mnevis, another bull sacred to the Sun at
Heliopolis : another sacred bull, Pacis, at Hermonthis ;
and the white cow of Athor at Athribis. These animals
dwelt in the adyta of the temples; and all the prin-
cipal animals of the country had representatives of the
gods, as apes or cynocephali sacred to the moon in
his type of Khons at Thebes, the fish latus at
Eileithyia, and the crocodile in the Arsinoite nome.
Some of these animals were selected from the rest by
particular marks, and all had honours paid them
during life, and were carefully embalmed after death.

INTRODUCTION. Xlll

The Egyptians possessed an extensive literature,
the invention of the art of writing being due to them.
By means of the hieroglyphs or direct repre-
sentation of celestial, terrestrial and other objects,
they expressed sounds or ideas, and by the union of
the two their language. For the ordinary purposes
of life a cursive or writing-hand, called the hieratic,
consisting of an abridged form of the hieroglyphs was
adopted, and by means of this their books were written,
in black and red characters, on a thin paper called
papyrus, formed out of slices of a reed with a prismatic
stem, known as the cyperus. Their books were not
divided into pages and bound like modern volumes,
but written on long rolls of paper in short pages, by
means of a frayed reed. The principal works in the
literature were religious, as the Book of the Dead or
Ritual, in which are the principal prayers, directions
for amulets, descriptions of the Elysium, Hades or
hell, and esoterical explanations of the meaning of
the ancient symbolism ; the Book of the Lamen-
tations or sighs of Isis ; hymns to different gods ;
ethical treaties on morals, and others on rhetoric.
In medicine, chiefly of an empirical nature, and much
mixed up with charms and adjurations, several treatises
ascribed to the oldest dynasties are known; others
of geometry, mensuration, and arithmetic, are also
extant, while the political and social conditions of
Egypt are illustrated by the reports and indictments
drawn up by scribes, registers of the donations made
to temples, or of things received by the crown or
individuals. Nor were works of imagination wanting
to while away the leisure or heavier hours of the reading
class, and some of them as remote as the twelfth
dynasty. History is only represented by one or two
lists of kings, and details of public events, but is amply
illustrated by the basreliefs and hieroglyphical inscrip-
tions of the principal monuments of the country, in

XIV INTRODUCTION.

which conquests and other, great public events, are
described in heroic strains 1 .

In their moral law the Egyptians followed the same
precepts as the decalogue, and crimes were punished
according to their enormity ; the bastennado was ad-
ministered to obtain confessions, as a punishment for
minor offences, while serious crimes were visited with
excision of the nose and ears, or death by decapitation.
Treason, murder, adultery, theft, and the practice of
magic were crimes of the deepest dye, and punished
accordingly. In domestic life the Egyptian was at-
tached to his wife and children, and the equality of
the female sex with the male most marked; the
Egyptian woman appearing always as the equal and
companion of her father, brethren, and husband. She
was never secluded in a harem like the Asiatic lady,
but appeared in private company or public rites, par-
ticipated in equal rights before the law, served in
the priesthood, and even mounted the throne. She
was thought to have a soul the same as man, unlike
the conceptions of Islam. Her name is mentioned in
the genealogies of families. Unfortunately, the women
known in Egyptian history or depicted by romance,
do not bear a good character, nor is it probable
that their education was sedulously conducted, as no
literary compositions or other writings of women
are known. They form, in this respect, a striking
contrast with the remarkable women mentioned in the
Scriptures. They, however, were accomplished in
music, and some of the other arts and sciences. Both
sexes sat at table on chairs or on the ground ; and
the Egyptian never reclined like the luxurious As-
syrian or Greek while his wife sat respectfully on a
chair at the foot of the couch. In eating the hands
only were used, and the only appliances on the table
were the bowls and mats which held the viands.
Children under the age of puberty went undressed,

INTRODUCTION. XV

princesses not excepted, an African custom; but on
attaining that age they wore a peculiar lock of hair
at the left side, while youths and men were dressed ;
men always with a short fluted garment round the
loins called shenti or sindon. Persons of high rank
wore garments of fine linen reaching to the ankles,
and with full sleeves. Females seldom had more than
a single garment from the breast to the ancles, relieved
by straps across the shoulders. Sandals were not
worn till the fifth dynasty, and then not always, and
at the time of the twentieth they had long recurved
toes. They were made of leather, papyrus, and palm
fibres. The priests wore only papyrus. Shoes were
unknown. Linen only was used ; cotton was unknown.
Even armour was of linen ; but leather seems to have
been employed for some parts of the dress. The
hair and beard was often shaved, especially of priests
and persons of high class, and the barber in full ac-
tivity went from street to street. Fashions, however,
varied, and the front portion .of the beard was left
and made into a square shape, or recurved, perhaps,
with the addition of ribbons. Both sexes blackened
the brows and lids of the eyes with kohl or stibium ;
cosmetics for the skin, and pastilles for the breath
were used, the nails were died with henna, and crowns
of flowers wound round the hair to augment female
beauty. The ornaments worn by both sexes were
nearly the same, collars of rows of beads and chains
of gold round the neck, armlets and bracelets of
gold, inlaid with lapis-lazuli and turquoise round the
arms, and anklets of the same round the ankles. Fe-
males only wore earrings, but both sexes loaded their
fingers with rings, some of which were used as seals
or signets. Men of rank and authority often bore
a cylindrical stick, sometimes terminating in shape of
a papyrus, and on many of these are affectionate ad-
dresses to that stay and support of their old age. In

XVI INTRODUCTION.

ceremonies, peculiar sceptres or batons were used.
Mirrors such as the Hebrew women melted to make
the tabernacle, razors, tweezers and hair pins were also
in use for the toilet.

The Egyptian sat either on a chair or else on the
ground, often on the knees, sometimes with the legs
crossed. In prayer he knelt or stood, but always raised
both hands with the palms outwards before him.
Slaves and inferiors sat to hear the words of their
superiors, or even prostrated themselves on the belly
before them, and the sandals were taken off when ap-
proaching the royal presence. The head was either
shorn, covered with a wig or else a close-fitting cap
according to the caste and sex. Great politeness was
observed, a spirit of hospitality prevailed, and the scribes
often inveighed against the abuse of wine and beer, freely
indulged in by youth. For amusements, jugglers, acro-
bats, and pantomimic dances helped to shorten the weary
hours, with the game of draughts or robbers, that of the
vase played with many pieces, and morra. Women sported
at ball, danced, spun, and sewed. The youthful aristo-
cracy indulged in the pleasures of the chase, harpooned
the crocodile or hippopotamus, shot, with arrows, gazelles
and other game or animals, trapped the hyaena, netted
fish or water fowl, and angled in the pond or stream. At
an early age the military caste went to barracks and were
drilled to Egyptian arms, the bow and arrow, the dagger,
lance, mace, and shield, or were instructed in the man-
agement of the horse and chariot, although it was usually
driven by a groom or coachman. The art of writing
was early taught, and the education extended to the
circle of Egyptian literature. Elegant furniture adorned
the house ; chairs and foot-stools, couches and head-
rests, or pillows in shape of a lune upon a stand, with
cushions and pillows of feathers of the waterfowl. The
public architecture was on the grandest scale, and dwarfs
the Greek on comparison. Gigantic columns with lotus

INTRODUCTION. XV11

or papyrus capitals, towered to a height of sixty feet.
Others, the models of the Greek Doric, appear at the
early period of the twelfth dynasty, while, at a later
time, the lotus capital suggested the Ionic volute. A
blaze of colours adorned the architecture and charmed
the eye, and picture was its pleasure. In sculpture the
hardest materials, the rose granite, the green basalt, as
well as the soft limestone were carved into required
shapes, adjusted to a rigid canon. The walls swarmed
with coloured patterns, devices, and hieroglyphs, minia-
ture portraits of things in heaven, on earth, and under
the water. Architecture, sculpture, and painting de-
scended as mourners to the grave. In the dark se-
pulchral passages where no sunlight enters, the torch
reveals careful though unshaded painting, and brilliant
colours laid in tempera on the walls by the artist, who
must have worked to the gloomy flicker of the lamp.
In chambers of the pierced and tunnelled hills, lay the
mummies of the illustrious dead. For, from the earliest
age the corpse was an object of solicitude ; it was ex-
pected to have a revival of the vital spark. No sooner
had the wail of anguish passed the lips of those that
loved it, than the grim ministers of embalmment took it
into their keeping. The paraschistes or dissector opened
the side with an Ethiopian stone, the viscera and softer
parts were removed ; the body was soaked in various
salts steeped in liquid resins, and even boiled in wax or
bitumen. No pains were spared to make it retain the
outward appearance of its living form. Bandages of
linen were then carefully wound around it, and hun-
dreds of yards packed it with pledgets into a sym-
metrical shape. It was then consigned to its coffin or
sarcophagus, gaily painted or elaborately sculptured
with appropriate mortuary scenes and funereal prayers,
accompanied with the paraphernalia of the tomb, the
boxes, jars, and other objects deposited for its use. The
service of the dead was then performed. Hired mourners

c

XV111 INTRODUCTION.

chanted dirges, or simulated the tears, the groans, and
cries of grief, tore their hair or beat their breasts, in
pantomimic woe. Transported to the barge, the
Egyptian hearse, it floated down the Nile to the site of
some favourite cemetery to the Pyramid fields of
Memphis the sepulchre of Osiris at Abydos or the
rocks of Gournah in the Theban quarter. Even the
litanies or masses continued to be said at intervals as
long as families could pay, or the local priesthood pray;
and the tombstone invited the passer-by to recite a
brief formula for the dead that he might enjoy all the
good things of this life in the future state, pass in and
out of Hades, and the soul transmigrate as it wished.

The political constitution of Egypt appears to have
consisted in a territorial aristocracy of nobles, at the
head of which was the monarch, and a powerful priest-
hood, with richly endowed temples, in possession of
the literature and learning of the race. The king was
considered a kind of Sun on earth, and was supposed
to be descended from the gods themselves. At his
coronation he was anointed ; and his birth, purification,
or baptism, and death, were thought to be presided
over by the gods. His power was absolute or nearly
so, but in the civil administration he was assisted by
princes, royal scribes or secretaries of state, intimates or
counsellors, and privy counsellors, who had right of
access to the royal presence. One of the highest
officers of state, was the bearer of the flabellum at
the right hand, who possessed a judicial authority.
For the administration of criminal law in cases
of high treason and other crimes, commissions
were appointed comprising the high officers of state,
and there appears to have been a kind of council
or ministry of thirty, who accompanied the monarch
in his military expeditions. The monarch was head
of the army, and the princes held high commands;
besides them were generals called haut, colonels or

INTRODUCTION. XIX

mer, lieutenants ten, captains menh, and other officers.
The drill of the forces was very regular, and the service
severe. The army was divided into corps or brigades,
which bore the names of different deities. It had
standards, music, cars or chariots for transport, and all
the necessary appliances for provisions, as well as
catapults, battering rams, and scaling ladders for sieges,
but all these were not in use at first; encampments
were also constructed. At all times auxiliaries or
mercenaries were in the service ; Negroes at first and
even later, Libyans, Sardinians, and Greeks, composed
a considerable portion of the forces. The Egyptian
fleet consisted of transports for the conveyance of
troops, and when at a later period it came in conflict
with the Phoenician and Greek it showed no great
capacity for maritime war. It consisted of galleys with
a single bank of oars : each had at least two officers,
and during war military officers embarked on them
and took the command. Besides war the military
acted as police, and special divisions for the purpose
were attached to the palaces and the temples. The
civil government was confided to special officers, who
were sometimes hereditary. There was a duke or lord
ha, of each nome or district, and under him a prefect
mer, of each principal city, besides a magistrate to,
who heard civil plaints. "Auditors of pleas in the
Tribunal of Truth/' or judges, are also mentioned, as
also the scribes or clerks, and the superintendents of
servants of the same tribunal. In the time of the
Ptolemies, and perhaps earlier, these judges made the
circuit. Attached to the administration were scribes or
clerks, who kept registers of the public property
and drew up official reports, and superintendents of
the different subdivisions of the royal stores and other
property, as the magazines of corn, arsenals, ward-
robes, horses, cattle, treasury, palaces. Egypt swarmed
with a bureaucracy, the mark of a highly civilized

c 2

XX INTRODUCTION.

community and centralized government. The taxes ap-
pear to have been paid in kind and had accordingly to be
received by the scribes and other officers of the Pharaoh.
The palace had several officers attached to it, and one
of the chief functionaries was the superintendent of the
inner portion, perhaps the harem. The butler and
baker of the palace are found on the monuments.

The priesthood was all powerful, and divided into
several grades. At Thebes the high priest of Amen
was second only to the king, and, as mentioned, ulti-
mately ascended the throne. He was called the chief
prophet, and four at least of the order were attached
to the worship of Amen. Other deities and deceased
monarchs appear to have had prophets only. Besides
the prophets, was a lower order called divine fathers,
and priests, ab. Inferior officers such as servants
and slaves were assigned to the temples, while sacred
scribes kept the accounts and performed the necessary
duties of clerks. Although the Egyptians had not,
strictly speaking, castes, yet the son often succeeded to
the office of the father, while he could also become a
scribe or military officer. All three titles are often
found attached to the same person, showing that there
was no strict limitation of hereditary succession. The
offices held by women were necessarily few and chiefly
in connection with the priesthood. Queens were
styled officially wives or handmaids of the god Amen,
and some females of high rank were prophetesses,
singing women, and sistrum players of the gods.

As festivals occupied a great portion of the second
calendar, they had some occupation in the perform-
ance of the rites. The year consisted of twelve months
of thirty days, making 360, to which were added five
additional to raise it to 365 days ; but it was then one
quarter of a day too short, and lost one day every four
years, returning to its normal condition after 1460 years
had passed. All attempts to rectify it were either

INTRODUCTION. XXI

forbidden or else failed, although the change of the
seasons, which were three Spring, Summer, and
Winter, showed the error of the vague or wandering
year. Each day in this year was deemed lucky or
unfortunate, and consecrated or devoted to some
particular god. Attempts to introduce a fixed year,
although often made, quite failed till the time of the
Romans, when the Alexandrian year, beginning on the
20th of August was substituted for the vague year.
At the expiration of the Sothic cycle, the first of the
month Thoth or New Year's Day, began on the 28th
of July, coinciding with the first appearance of the
rising of the Dog-star in the morning before the sun,
and the commencement of the Inundation. In the
festivals, the arks of the gods were carried in proces-
sion, sacrificial offerings were placed on the altars, and
songs and prayers were sung or recited in honour of
the gods. All religious rites were celebrated with great
pomp, and supplies of food were consumed or given
away on the occasions. The priests and their families
drew rations from the temples, and the priests of the
monarchs were supported at the charge of all the
temples. The prophets were divided into four orders,
and were promoted from one to the other, according to
their ability or influence, and in the highest posts were
elected by the chapters or synods. They were shaved,
wore linen dresses, and papyrus sandals. Besides
them there were many inferior servants and others
attached to the service of the temples, and a kind of
monks, who lived in the precincts. On matters re-
lating to the temples, the contributions to the king
and other affairs, occasional synods were held at
different places. All things connected with the
temples and worship were in the hands of the priests.
The embalmers appear also to have belonged to the
order of priests, although of inferior rank : they
attended to the preparation of the mummies, sepulture

XX11 INTRODUCTION.

of the dead, and recital of litanies. The bodies were
not prepared in the houses of the deceased, but
removed to public establishments of choachytai, as the
embalmers were called. A certain custom prevailed
of chasing the embalmer who cut the side of the
corpse for the removal of the internal parts of the
body. Hired female mourners assisted also at the last
rites, when the mummy was deposited in the sepulchre,
and mutes or priests with standards swelled the funereal
cortege.

The Egyptian was in mind, acute, subtle, dogmatic,
and egotistic. Fond of literature, the arts and sciences,
he was obstinate to excess for gain, and prone to
luxury. Neither devoid of courage, nor incapable of
heroic effort, he was not equal in these qualities to his
northern neighbours. His loyalty was slavish, his
submission to his superiors servile, his piety tinctured
with base superstition. His perception of moral
truths and social duties was high; his inventive
powers considerable; his conceptions of art stupen-
dous. He influenced the thought of the neighbouring
nations. Moses was learned in his wisdom; the
Hebrew dwelt with him ; the infant Christ was carried
to him; and the great doctrines of Christian faith
were established by him when he had assumed the
garb of Christianity, and thrown off the slough of
Paganism.

HISTORY OF EGYPT.

CHAPTER I.

OLD EMPIRE.

FROM THE FIRST TO THE CLOSE OF THE SIXTH

DYNASTY.

From about 3000 B.C. to 2000 B.C.

THE first monarch of the country was Mena, or as
he is called in Greek, Menes, and his name, the same
as that of the bull Mnevis, of Heliopolis, appears to
mean the firm or stable. He is supposed to have
attributed his laws to Thoth. Later writers ascribed
to him the introduction of luxury, and the corrup-
tion of manners if not morals; for Mena was sup-
posed to have introduced a more refined civilization
than the austere and simple mode of life which had
preceded his reign. One of his successors, probably
the most parsimonious of the royal line, ordered a
malediction of Menes to be engraved on a tablet and
placed in the temple of Amon-Ra at Thebes. The
first laws of the country and the earliest rites of public

24 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

worship were attributed to Menes, but above all he
founded Men-nefer or Memphis, the oldest if not the
most celebrated city of the empire. The dyke of
Cocheiche, his great work, which still exists in the
neighbourhood of Cairo, rising to more than three
feet above the level of the stream, was constructed by
him to turn aside the current to the East, and protect
from inundation the capital of the old monarchy. On
the land thus obtained from the ancient bed of the
river, Menes built the town, the fortifications, and
the temple of Ptah, the eponymous deity of Memphis,
which was called the Men-nefer or "Good Port,"
softened by Greek euphony into Memphis, and by
the Copts to Memfi, a name still retained by the
ruins of Tel-Monf. Two Arab villages, Mitrahenny
and Bedrestein, are all that now attest the site of this
ancient and vast city, a considerable portion of which
still remained in the Middle Ages, until its ruins
were used as materials for the construction of the
neighbouring town of Cairo. All that remains of the
temple of Ptah, and that chiefly of the period of the
nineteenth dynasty, lies deep under the alluvial deposit
of the Nile. But the time of Menes was also one of
that eternal war which never ceases in the history of
mankind. He undertook military expeditions against
the Libyans, but perished, devoured by a crocodile;
these great saurians at that time descending the river
to the very shores of the sea. No contemporary
monument is known of his age, or inscribed with his
name. This indeed is found placed at the head of
the royal lists of dynasties at Sakkarah, Thebes, and
in the papyrus of Turin ; but nothing known to have

OLD EMPIRE. 25

been made at the time of Menes remains, and he
must be ranked amongst those founders of monarchies
whose personal existence a severe and enlightened
criticism doubts or denies. Menes was supposed to
have been succeeded by his son Atahuti or Athothis,
of whom nothing is known beyond the recorded fact
that he built the royal palace at Memphis, and had
written works on anatomy. Some of the oldest works
on the healing art which have come down to the
present day inscribed in the hieratic character on
papyri, are attributed to the kings of the Old Empire.
To that period must be referred the commencement of
the art of embalming the dead, which required an
empirical knowledge at least of the different parts of
the human frame. The king Athothis was succeeded
by another of the same name, and that monarch in his
turn by a king named Ouenephes, in the Greek lists.
During his reign Egypt was said to have been
afflicted with a famine, and he built the pyramids at
Kochome, or the town of the "Black Bull/' This
pyramid exists at Sakkarah, and is the oldest Egyptian
monument hitherto found. It appears to have had a
base of nearly 394 feet square, and rose to the height
of 196 feet, with a slope or angle of 73 30'. It was
constructed of calcareous stone and granite, and had
seven steps like the Babylonian towers, but had not the
minute care and finish of the pyramids of the later
dynasties. The pyramid was a royal sepulchre, a
geometric mound erected to preserve the royal mummy,
and a sarcophagus and some other remains were dis-
covered in it when opened. Ouenephes reigned
according to the canon only twenty-three years, and

26 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

was succeeded by Hesep or Ousaphais, of whom little
is known except that some religious and medical
works are referred to the period of his reign, which
lasted only twenty years. Probably one of the pyra-
mids of Lower Egypt was his sepulchre, but modern
researches have not discovered which of these
numerous constructions were dedicated to the sepul-
chre of the royal mummy. After the death of
Ousaphais, Miebies, called by the Egyptians Merba,
mounted the throne. He reigned twenty years, and
nothing of importance has been recorded of the events
of his reign, nor any other monument than his name
remains. Semempses, his successor, whose name is
found both in the Egyptian and Greek lists, reigned
for eighteen years, but the only recorded fact of his
rule is the prevalence of a great plague. Bieneches
succeeded him with a reign of twenty-six years, and
with him closes the first dynasty of the eight Thinite
monarchs who succeeded one another in the direct line,
each the son of his father, for the space of 253 years,
according to the summation, or 263 years according
to the total of the years of their reigns.

The second dynasty was also of Thinite monarchs,
but as little is known of the events of their reigns as that
of their predecessors. They appear, however, both in
Egyptian and Greek lists, but with some difference of
transcriptions, showing that some uncertainty about
their appellations prevailed even amongst the Egyptians
themselves. The first king Butau, or the Greek Boefhos,
is stated to have reigned thirty-eight years, the most re-
markable event of the period being a fissure of the earth,
probably the result of an earthquake, which carried off

OLD EMPIRE. 27

many people at the town of Bubastus. His successor
Kakau, or Khaiechos, instituted the worship of animals,
which prevailed so extensively at a later period. To
him is referred the introduction of the Apis bull wor-
shipped at Memphis, and the bull Mnevis at Heliopolis,
as also of the goat Baentattu at Mendes. These
animals were supposed to be gods, or rather a second
emanation or terrestrial manifestation of the deities
Ptah Socharis, Osiris, a cosmic demiurgos, Turn or
Tomos, the setting sun, and Chnoumis, the spirit of
waters. Kakau reigned thirty-eight years, and was
succeeded by Baienneter or Binothris. Another
political change marked his rule ; the law that females
might succeed to the crown, which was clearly not
the case in the hereditary male succession of the first
dynasty, and his predecessors of the second. Binoth-
ris probably had no male heir, and thus endeavoured
to secure the crown to his daughter, who in all proba-
bility, if she did not die before him, succeeded to his
power. He reigned forty-seven years. His successor,
Utnas or Tlas, reigned seventeen years, and was
followed by the King Sent or Sethenes, who is said to
have reigned forty-one years. A monument, part of
the architrave of the" door of the tomb of a prophet
attached to the worship of this monarch, exists in the
Ashmolean Library at Oxford. In style, character, and
treatment, it closely resembles similar sculptures of the
period of the fourth dynasty, from which it does not
differ in any essential particular ; but it is remarkable
as exhibiting at so early a date the introduction of the
personal adoration of the monarch, supposed, accord-
ing to Egyptian notions, to be the direct and lineal

28

HISTORY OF EGYPT.

descendant of the gods, and of the same substance or
flesh with them. This worship of mortals was ex-
tensively introduced into the religious system ; and its
priest or flamen, as the Romans called such officers,
continued till the subjection of Egypt to the arms of
Rome, and probably even later. Utnas was succeeded
by a monarch named in the Greek lists Chaires,
whose reign did not extend beyond seventeen years,

Pyramid -of Senefru at Meydoum.

and the Greek glosses mention the rule of these three
monarchs as quite inglorious. Their successor was
Neferka-ra or Nephercheres, who reigned forty-eight
years, and in whose time the Nile is said to have flowed
with milk and honey. His name occurs in the lists
and on some scarabaei and other objects ; but as there
were several kings who bore the same appellation it is
difficult to tell to which they ought to be assigned.

OLD EMPIRE. 29

The monuments of this period are excessively rare,
and almost limited to the tombs in the cemeteries of
Gizeh and Sakkarah, and the pyramid of Meydoum.
The first appearance of the word Ra or the Sun, occurs
in these two last names, all the previous kings having
been called by a simple or significant name. After this
period the word Ra constantly appears in the royal titles
or appellatives. Neferka-Sekar or Sesochris, was his
successor, and reigned forty-eight years, or eight and a
quarter only according to the papyrus of Turin. The
Greek glosses state that he was five cubits or about ten
feet high, and three palms or twenty-eight inches broad.
Two or three different Egyptian names are recorded as
those of his successors, but Manetho gives only
Cheneres, an inglorious monarch with a reign of
thirty years. About 300 years are assigned as the
duration of the entire dynasty.

The two Thinite were succeeded by a Mem-
phite dynasty of nine kings, the first of whom,
Neb-ka, was the Necherophes of the Greek lists. He is
said to have reigned twenty-eight years, but the state-
ment that the Libyans revolted in his reign, shows that
at a prior period they had been subjected to the arms
of Egypt. A sudden increase of the moon's size,
apparently a lunar eclipse which occurred at moon-
rise, so terrified the Libyans that they submitted again
to the rule of Egypt. Neb-ka was succeeded by Ser
or Serbes, the Greek Tosorthros, called the Egyptian
Aesculapius, who appears at a later period to be the
god Aiemapt or Imouthos, the son of Ptah. He
obtained this appellation on account of his knowledge
or patronage of the medical art, and is stated to have

30 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

invented the art of building with polished stones, and
also to have given attention to the making of inscrip-
tions or writings. Probably his age marked a higher
development of these arts ; but all these arts had been
exercised under his predecessors. A long succession
of inglorious monarchs, Tota or Tureis, with a reign
of seven years, Mesochris with one of seventeen,
Souphis with that of sixteen, Tosertosis of nineteen,
Aches of forty- two, Sephouris of thirty years, and
Kerpheres of twenty-six years, close the dynasty. Some
of the kings had the Egyptian names of Neb-ka-ra and
Huni, but with the exception of the last, who was
apparently the Kerpheres of the Greeks, the names
cannot be satisfactorily identified. The duration of
the dynasty is given as 214 years. Besides the step-
shaped pyramid of Sakkarah some other monuments
are known of these dynasties. The tomb of Tothept
in the cemetery of Sakkarah, three statues of the
family of a person named Sepa discovered near the
pyramids, two others with an European cast of features
and attributed to the second dynasty, found at Mey-
doum, and at present in the Louvre at Paris, and
the tomb and statue of Amten, an officer of the reign
of Sephouris, are the principal monuments of the
period. As the civilization of Egypt did not differ
except in a slight degree from that which prevailed
under the subsequent dynasties, the state of literature
and the arts will be considered at the end of the
chapter.

It is with the fourth Memphite dynasty that the his-
tory of Egypt begins to assume greater importance, the
events recorded are no longer dependent for their

OLD EMPIRE.

remembrances on the glosses or curt notices of Greek
epitomists, but the monuments of the country contain
exact and contemporary accounts of the events which
took place. The first monarch of the line was Sene-
fru or the Greek Soris, if indeed that name does
not represent another monarch. The most remarkable
event of his reign was the discovery of the mine of
mafka, supposed to be the turquoise at Wady Magarah,
in the Peninsula of Sinai in Arabia, not far from the
spot of the wanderings of the Israelites in that locality.

Pyramids of Gizeh. From the Nile.

A tablet at the mouth of the cave or ancient mine repre-
sents Senefru conquering one of the people named
Mena nu sat or " Shepherds of the East," probably the
nomadic tribes of the neighbourhood, called at the
period the Abt or Eastern land of Senefru. It is the
first monumental record of Egyptian conquest. The
name of diiferent members of the family of Senefru are
found in the sepulchres at Gizeh, and one of an offi-
cer named Amten, throws some light on the political
state of the country. It records that some of his lands
came to him by hereditary descent, while others were
the gift of the monarch. Dates of reigns are rarely
found on the monuments of the period, but Soris the

32 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

first monarch of the dynasty is said to have reigned
nineteen years. The successor of Senefru was Khufu
or Cheops, probably the king best known in the annals of
Egypt, on account of the great pyramid at Gizeh which
was erected by him. This greatest of the world's sepul-
chres, on a base of 746 feet, rose to the height of
450 feet, more elevated than the Cathedral of St. Paul's,
on an area, about that of Lincoln's Inn Fields ; its former
inclined height of the sides, which slope at an angle
of about 51 50', was 611 feet, and it had two sepul-
chral chambers with suitable passages. The pyramids
appear to have been called mer, or aimer; the origin
of the word pyramis or "pyramid" being probably, like
the other well-known word oleliskos or " obelisk/' de-
rived by the Greeks from words in their own language.
The principle of their construction appears to have
been the following : Very early in the life of a king
the surface of the limestone work was levelled for
the base, a shaft more or less inclined was sunk lead-
ing to a rectangular sepulchral chamber in the rock
itself. The distance from the entrance of the shaft
or gallery to the chamber was calculated at the
distance the square base of the pyramid would
cover so as to exceed and not be overlapped by it.
If the king died during the year the work was
finished at once, but should he have lived another
year a second layer of masonry was placed on the
substructure of .the same square shape as the base,
but smaller, with the sides parallel to those of the base.
The process went on year after year, each layer
being smaller than the previous. When the king died
the work was at once stopped, and the casing or outer

OLD EMPIRE. 33

surface of the pyramid finished. This was effected
by filling up the masonry with smaller stones of rect-
angular shape, so that the pyramid still presented a
step-shaped appearance. The casing of each triangular
face was then smoothed from the top or apex, the
masons standing on the steps and hewing away the
edges of each row of stones as they descended to
the base. When finished the faces were perfectly
smooth and the top inaccessible. Each of the casing
stones capped the other so as to leave no vertical
joint. The principle of the pyramid combined the
power of increase in size without alteration in form
and its sloping side carried off the occasional rainfall
without allowing the water to penetrate the building.
Simple in shape it was eternal in duration, and ex-
hibited a perfect mathematical knowledge of the square
and the triangle. All pyramids were not constructed
exactly alike; the older one of Meydoum, already
mentioned, is constructed with rubble and slanting
walls, but the idea of shape and the mode of finish
are really the same. The size of the pyramid depended
in a great degree on the length of the king's reign ;
but it is evident that those monarchs who desired
to excel their predecessors in the magnificence of their
sepultures could carry on the work on a large scale
and more rapid manner, by the expenditure of greater
riches or by the oppression of corvees or forced labour,
which has prevailed at all times in Egypt. The ma-
terial of which they were constructed varied; the
nummulite limestone of the neighbouring Arabian
chain of hills was employed for the great mass of
the work, but the granite of the distant quarry of Syene,

D

34 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

principally the red, was used for casing the pas-
sages and some constructions of the great pyramid.
It is by far the most remarkable of all the pyramids, for
several changes appear to have taken place during
its construction. The first or subterranean chamber
appears to have been abandoned in consequence of
the prolongation of the passage extending beyond
the base, the pyramid having continued to be built
for a longer time than originally contemplated; a
second chamber, called the queen's, with a pointed
roof was then made in the masonry of the pyramid
sixty-seven feet above the level of the base, and had a
horizontal passage for no feet in the masonry com-
municating with the original passage, by a passage
sloping at an angle with it. Finally the king's cham-
ber or main one, the last made, with flat roof and
four chambers of construction placed above, the last,
triangular to lighten the weight of the masonry, was
approached by the same passage as the queen's
chamber, much enlarged and cased with red Syenitic
granite, terminating in a horizontal passage with granite
portcullises which were also to defend the entrance.
The chamber was ventilated by air-shafts, and had
in the centre the plain but royal sarcophagus of the
builder of the pyramid. The stones of the chambers
of construction had still scrawled in red ochre upon
the name of Khnum-Khufu or Cheops, accompanied
by other marks which the masons had scrawled
upon them in the quarries. The ostensible use of
the pyramid was for the sepulchre of the monarch.
The causeway for the stone was built by a corvee
of 100,000 men, relieved every three months for ten

OLD EMPIRE. 35

years, or in all 4,000,000 of men, and twenty more
years at the rate of 360,000, giving 7.000,000 more
men, were employed in the pyramid itself. So much
exhausted were the resources of the monarch that
ridiculous stories were told about it, and the monarch
on account of the hatred the work produced was
obliged to be buried in a subterranean chamber en-
circled by the waters of the Nile.

But not only in ancient but modern times have
the pyramids been an enigma. They are alluded
to in the book of Job as the desolate places,
haraboth, which kings and counsellors of the earth
built for themselves and occult reasons have
been given for their construction. It has been
supposed that they were built to record an arc of
the meridian, the earth's diameter, the revealed unit
of measure, the exact rise of the old polar star
a Draconis, and other points of cosmic or mathematical
knowledge. These ideas do not appear to have
entered into the minds of the constructors of the
pyramids, who employed measure for their symme-
trical construction ; while there is no reason to believe
from the monuments that the Egyptians knew the figure
of the earth or more than the simplest astronomical facts
of observation, the points of the compass and other
elementary points of terrestrial or sidereal knowledge.
Even the heliacal risings of Sirius or the Dog-star are
not found recorded at this early period. The actual
rule of Khufu did not extend beyond the peninsula of
Sinai in Arabia ; and a tablet at the mouth of the mine
of the Wady Magarah records that Cheops continued
the search for mafka carried on in that locality. The

D 2

36 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

titles only of Khufu are found on the tablet there
erected; but Khmim-Khufu appears striking down one
of the prostrate enemies of Egypt, the Pet or An
foreigners, in the presence of the ibis-headed god Ta-
huti or Thoth, a sufficient refutation of the statements
about the impiety of Cheops, and the assertion that he
did not worship the polytheism of the country. The
tombs around the great pyramid are those of the prin-
ces and other members of the family or time of Khufu.
Amongst them are those of a prince named Khufu-
Shaf, and in their inscriptions is mentioned the wife of
Khufu, whose name unfortunately has not been found.
The most remarkable notice of his reign is on a tablet
coming from Gizeh and now in the Museum of Boulaq.
It states that Khufu found the Temple of Isis, ruler
of the pyramid near the Temple of the Sphinx, on
the north-west of the Temple of Osiris, Lord of Rusta,
and that his pyramid was either built near the Temple
of Isis, by himself, or that his daughter, the Princess
Hentsen, built the pyramid at that spot. Khufu, it
states, dedicated it to Isis and Athor, placed the in-
scription on the tablet and provided it with sacred
food, built the temple of stone and replaced in it
the figures of the gods. The Temple of the Sphinx
lay, it appears from other inscriptions, to the south
of the Temple of Athor, and north of that of Osiris.
This Temple of the Sphinx was subsequently found
by Marietta, and had been partly touched by Caviglia. If
this inscription was contemporaneous with Khufu it
would prove that the Sphinx was anterior to the fourth
dynasty, but it does not appear to be so, and it is
consequently doubtful if this marvel of Egyptian monu-

OLD EMPIRE. 37

ments is not to be referred to a later age. Amongst
the remarkable monuments of the age of Khufu are
the granite sarcophagus of Khufuankh, a priest of
Apis, of the white bull and a sacred heifer. These
animals were probably the bull Mnevis at Heliopolis,
and the cow of Athor at Athribis. Of the other works
of Khufu little is known : the court was evidently
at Memphis, and most of the works carried on there.
It appears however from an inscription found at the
temple of Denderah that the plan of the Temple
of Athor or Venus on the site of the old Tentyris
was due to this monarch. A hieroglyphic inscription
states that the great foundation and restoration of
the monuments was made according to the plan found
on decayed writings of the king Khufu. Another
account of the same plan places it in the mythical
ages of the followers of the god Horus, a parch-
ment or leather roll of that date having been found
in a brick wall -of the southern temple, built by the
King Pepi or Phiops of the sixth dynasty 1 . A
medical papyrus of the British Museum 2 also states
that a recipe for the cure of wounds was found in the
night, in the principal hall in the Temple of Tebmut, in
the days of Khufu, in one of the secret or holy places
of the goddess by a minister of the temple. It was dis-
covered in the moonlight, and brought as a valuable
discovery to the king. Khufu or Cheops, according to
the Greek epitomists, wrote a work called " The Sacred
Book," much esteemed by posterity, although Cheops
himself was accused of impiety, and supposed to have

1 Duemichen, die Bauerkunde, Dendera, s. 15-19.

2 Zeitschrift, fur iigyptische Sprache, 1871, p. 62.

38 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

endeavoured to suppress the worship of the gods.
Priests indeed were attached to his worship, but these
flamens appear in the reigns of still earlier monarchs,
and there is no reason to believe that Cheops substi-
tuted his own personal worship for that of the deities
of Egypt. The most lasting monument of his fame is
the great pyramid. In the days of Cheops, sculpture
had attained great excellence, and one inscription re-
cords the offerings of images of stone, gold, bronze,
ivory, and ebony presented by Khufu to the gods.
The pyramid of Khufu was called the " Splendour of
Pyramids."

The successor of Khufu, according to the lists, was
the monarch Ratatef or Ratoises, placed in Manetho
after Mencheres, but monumental evidence gives Shafra
or Kephren, the second Suphis or Chabryes. It
was this monarch who built the small temple behind
the great Sphinx. The temple itself was made of
alabaster, or arragonite and syenite, or red granite.
Shafra decorated the temple with statues of himself,
in green basalt, remarkable for their admirable por-
traiture and execution. The second pyramid was the
work of Shafra ; it was not so large as the first, but of
.admirable execution, and revetted at the base with
granite derived from the quarries of Syene. Shafra
calls it the "Greatest of the Pyramids." It would
appear that Shafra was married to a queen named
Merisankh ; their son, the prince Nebemakhut, was a
hierogrammateus or sacred scribe, and secretary of
state or privy counsellor of his father. Amongst other
offices held by his mother was that of priestess or
prophetess of the god Thoth, for at this time females

OLD EMPIRE. 39

were admitted to participate in the honours of the
priesthood, which at a later period were denied to
them. It seems possible that Merisankh was the
daughter of Khufu, and that some other persons,
whose tombs lie around the pyramid, were sons or re-
lations of these Pharaohs ; but it is difficult to assign
their exact degree of consanguinity, and nothing is
known of the events of the reign of Shafra, which was
probably tranquil, and politically insignificant; the
energies of Egypt being directed to the construc-
tion of one of these vast, but scarcely useful edifices,
an immense sepulchre, by forced labour, and accord-
ing to the legends, the closing of the temples of the gods.
The successor of Shafra was Menkaura or Mencheres,
the builder of the third largest pyramid at Gizeh, dis-
tinguished from the others by its granite base. Each
side measures 384! feet, and its perpendicular height is
218 feet; and like the preceding, Menkaura must have
expended much time and labour in building it. Some
account of the operations for doing so are found on
a hieroglyphic inscription of an officer named Tebu-
hen, who lived in the reign of the monarch, but the text
is unfortunately too mutilated to make out its contents.
According to the legends, Menkaura was a pious
monarch, who reopened the temples, and restored the
worship of the gods, repealing the acts of his prede-
cessors. Some colour to this statement is given by the
record of the inspection of the temples of the country
made in his reign by the prince Hartataf, who found in
the course of his tours, in one of the sacred edifices at
Hermopolis a brick on which was inscribed one of
the chapters of the ritual written by the fingers of

40 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

the god Thoth himself. During the reign of his
predecessor Khufu, however, medical treatises had
been found in the temples by the priests, as already
previously mentioned, so that the services must have
been continued by prior monarchs, and probably
revived by Menkaura or Mencheres. The researches
of modern times broke open the pyramid of this
monarch, and discovered his coffin and remains.
These had been already rifled in times long past,
having been carried to the upper chamber of the
pyramid, the body deprived of its bandages and orna-
ments, and its torn fragments scattered about the
chamber. The outer sarcophagus or coffin of the
king, was a plain one of whinstone, ornamented with
the usual architectural devices of the period of the
fourth dynasty. The inner coffin was of cedar wood,
in form of a mummy standing on a pedestal. It had
no paintings, but was of great simplicity, and had
down it two lines of hieroglyphs, a prayer or address
to Menkaura, taken out of a ritual or set formu-
lary. It reads thus : " Oh, Osiris, king of Upper and
Lower Egypt, Menkaura, ever living, born of NUJ
(the goddess of the celestial waters), substance of
Seb (the Chronos or Saturn of Egypt), thy mother
Nut is spread over thee; she renders thee divine by
annihilating thy enemies. Oh, king Menkaura, living
for ever ! " This inscription is remarkable, as showing
that the worship of Osiris had assumed greater impor-
tance in the reign of Menkaura ; for not only does the
deceased king bear the name of that god, but the
whole prayer refers to the myth of Osiris, his parents
and his triumph over his enemies or accusers. Before

OLD EMPIRE. 41

the time of Menkaura, the god Anubis is mentioned in the
tomb as the special deity of the dead, to the exclusion of
the name of Osiris ; but the coffin of Menkaura marks
a new religious development in the annals of Egypt.
The reign of Menkaura is given as sixty-three years,
and he was succeeded by the king Shepeskaf or Aseskaf.
A personage of the court buried at Sakkarah, in his
sepulchre has recorded that he was brought up along
with the royal infants, in the palace of Menkaura, and
that the king Aseskaf continued to let him be educated
in the palace amongst the princes. Subsequently
Aseskaf gave his daughter, the princess Matsha, in
marriage to Ptahases. The praises and honours
rendered by the monarch to his son-in-law were con-
siderable. He was invested with the post of secretary
of the board of works, and the king allowed him to
go into the royal palace without prostrating himself
in the presence of the monarch. Besides which he
had the privilege of entering the sacred barge of the
gods, apparently a royal honour. The numerous
offices that he held show that pluralities were of a very
early date, unless it is to be conjectured that he held
them in succession. But the kings of Egypt ac-
cumulated the different posts of the priesthood on
the members of their family, or the personal adherents
of their court. These posts entitled them to draw largely
on the royal and sacerdotal revenues, while the great
variety of functions exercised by the select few show
a highly artificial state of society, already enslaved by
an all pervading bureaucracy. The sense of public
order appears highly refined at this early period, of
public liberty there is no evidence. Civilization, in its

42 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

sense of material prosperity, had no doubt attained, as
will subsequently be detailed, to a considerable point.
Under his reign the posthumous worship of his pre-
decessor Khufu was continued, and a person named
Shepeskaf, living at the period, was prophet or flamen
of that monarch. The name of this monarch has been
compared to that of Asychis of Herodotus, the successor
of Mencheres or Mykerinos. There is some probability
that this conjecture is correct. He reigned twenty-
five years.

At the time of the fourth dynasty Egypt had at-
tained a high degree of civilization; architecture as
represented by the pyramids had become an advanced
science, and reflected the. geometric and theoretical
knowledge of mathematics which their form and struc-
ture described for all future ages. The technical
masonry was unrivalled, the finish admirable and un-
surpassed by any later efforts of the Egyptian architect.
The hardest materials, such as the granite of Syene,
was hewn into the requisite form of the truest propor-
tions, while the softer but more beautiful alabaster had
been discovered and worked. In sculpture a canon of
proportion had been discovered, and laid down for the
human figure, and granite, durite and other hard stones
conquered and moulded into shape by the efforts of
the chisel. The statue of Kephren is equal if not
superior to the subsequent efforts of Egyptian sculp-
ture, while in the features is clearly to be recognised
a portrait of the monarch, shewing that the power of
producing excellent representations of the living form
in all its details existed. The other sculptures of the
period exhibit even greater skill ; the statues and busts

OLD EMPIRE. 43

in calcareous stone show a freedom of treatment and
design which does not reappear in the more con-
ventional forms of the later dynasties. The seated
scribe in the Louvre, and the heads of some priests of
the period are excellent examples, and rival in their
portraiture the busts and statues of Rome itself. In
wood even greater excellence was attained, for in that
material the sculptor developed all his power. The
wooden statue of the Museum of Boulaq is an un-
rivalled work of ancient art. It represents a person of
high rank of an age after the meridian of life, with
a truth, grace, and fidelity which shows the hand of a
great master. The limbs are detached, the eyes in-
laid, and in its lifelike treatment the experienced eye
beholds the unchanging type of the inhabitant of the
valley of the Nile. The bas-reliefs of the tombs are
executed with a minute detail. The figures are severe
and with great regularity of pose, without much action
and always in profile ; the eyes full, limbs, especially the
hands and feet, large. Besides the ordinary flat bas-
relief, the cavo rilievo or usual Egyptian bas-relief ap-
pears, the figures sunk in bas-relief below the surface
which thus protected them from decay; a kind of
union of the cameo and intaglio. The use of mono-
chrome colours, principally red, black, blue and yellow,
prevails, and is the only painting known of the period.
The graphic system of writing was complete; the lan-
guage perfectly represented by the hieroglyphs, which
presented to the eye a lively picture on the painted
wall of tomb or sepulchre ; while the inscriptions show
that the religion of the country was already reduced
to a system, and the seasons marked by a regular

44 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

calendar of festivals. The political organization had
also attained a considerable degree of refinement.
The Court of Memphis swarmed with sacerdotal per-
sonages, prophets and prophetesses of the gods, and
priests attached to the personal worship of the monarch.
Scribes and secretaries were attached to the Pharaoh,
superintendents were set over every branch of the public
service. In private life the Egyptian lord led a charmed
life his estate was cultivated by slaves, his household
full of domestics; the barber, the waiting-maid, the
nurse appear as necessary adjuncts to his household,
as the steward who presided over the distribution and
the clerk who checked the expenses of his daily life.
Each priest or noble had in his establishment all the
trades necessary for his ease and comfort ; the glass-
blower, the gold-worker, the potter, the tailor, and
baker, and the butler. His leisure or ennui was
charmed by the acrobat and the dancer, the harpist
and the singer ; games of chance and skill were played
either by him or in his presence. The chief occupa-
tion of the period, or at all events that most often
represented in the tombs, was the inspection of the
farm. The noble of the fourth dynasty was a great
hereditary landed proprietor. He had - the pride of a
patriarch in his flocks and herds, his numerous slaves
or servants, his household of artizans and his boats
on the great river Nile. His domesticated animals
were not so numerous as at a subsequent period. He
had dogs, cats and apes, for his companions. For
riding he had only the ass, with the horse he was unac-
quainted, nor had the wheeled carriage as yet been
invented. The gazelle, the antelope, the ibex, the

OLD EMPIRE. 45

leucoryx, varieties of the gazelle family of ruminants
were known to him, as also was the ox, the short,
long-horned, and hornless varieties. An Egyptian lord
no more disdained the hyaena for food than a modern
epicure the semi-carnivorous bear, but he abhorred
that universal animal the pig, and neglected the sheep ;
veal and beef, not pork and mutton, were the principal
meats that appeared at his table. The different kinds
of venison already mentioned were much prized, and
the chase of these animals one of his most loved
occupations ; of the birds of the air and water fowls
he had a choice about as numerous; cranes and herons
he sometimes ate, but his principal poultry consisted
of different kinds of ducks and geese, the chenalopex
or vulpanser amongst them. The domestic fowl was
unknown to him, it had not been brought by the hands
of tributaries to the valley of the Nile, where it never
appears in Pharaonic times. The dove and the pigeon
however passed into the fleshpots of Egypt. The
insipid fish of the Nile were not unknown to him. His
bread was made of barley, but conserves of dates and
various kinds of biscuits or pastry diversified his diet;
and of fruits he had grapes, figs, dates ; of vegetables
the papyrus and onion and other greens. Wine and
beer were both drunk at the period in addition to milk
and water. His dress was simple, consisting of pure
white linen, but gold collars, bracelets and anclets were
in use. As yet he wore no sandals, but he carried a
wand or walking-stick as a sign of dignity or authority.
Simple but elegant furniture ministered to his require-
ments. Stools, chairs, footstools, couches and head-
rests or wooden pillows the use of these rests is still

46 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

retained in Africa appear in the furniture of his
elegantly-built house. The principal flower was the
lotus nymphaea, for there were no roses in those days
in Egypt. The lotus was held as a nosegay in the hand,
and twined as a garland round the head, or wreathed the
wine and the water vase. He enjoyed all the pleasures
of existence, and delighted more in the arts of peace
than war. In his religious belief the idea of a future
state, and probably of the transmigration of souls, was
ever present to his mind, while and his long life was
one preparation for death to be devoted or pious to the
gods, obedient to the wishes of his sovereign, affection-
ate towards his wife and children were the maxims
inculcated for his domestic or inner life. Beyond that
circle his duties to mankind were comprised in giving
bread to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to
the naked, oil to the wounded and burial to the dead.
On the exercise of good works he rested his hopes of
passing the ordeal of the future and great judgment,
and reaching the Aahlu or Elysian fields and Pools of
Peace of the Egyptian paradise. Such was the ideal
of a good Egyptian, and the favourable side of the
picture ; the other is not detailed, but may be imagined.
To what it led will appear in describing the later
dynasties. It is sufficient to show here, from the posi-
tive information the monuments afford, the point to
which at this remote period the intellectual and ma-
terial civilization of Egypt had advanced.

The transition from the fourth, to the fifth dynasty
took place from causes which have not been detailed.
The dynasty was called Elephantine, probably from
its founder having been a chief of the modern site

OLD EMPIRE. 47

of Geziret-Assouan. He was named Userkaf or
Ousercheres. Little is known of his reign, and the
most important personage of it, was Khmimhotep, who
was priest of the goddess Athor, and of the pyramid of
the king ; but it is not known in which of these
edifices he was buried, after an inglorious reign of
twenty-eight years. He was succeeded by Sahura, or
Sephres of the lists, who renewed the conquest of the
Wady Magarah, and is there represented on a rock
tablet striking down the Mentu foreigners, perhaps
some of the tribes of the neighbourhood of the great
mine. Some of the tombs of Sakkarah record persons
who existed under his reign, and his name, traced in
red on one of the blocks of the pyramid to the north
of Abusir, shows that he was interred in that monu-
ment called the Sha ba or "Rising Soul" pyramid.
Priests attached to his personal worship are found as
late as the Ptolemies, and his reign of thirteen years
was more distinguished than that of his predecessor.
Placing aside the monarch Kaka, who is only known
from some lists, the successor of Sahura was Nefer-
arkara, the Nephercheres of Manetho. Little is known
of the events of his reign, except that several function-
aries of his reign were buried in the cemetery of Gizeh ;
they were principally scribes and other function-
aries attached to the finances and public works. Like
his predecessors, he was interred in another pyramid
after a reign of twenty years. The successor of this
monarch was Ra-en-user, surnamed An, the Rathoures
of the Greek lists. Under this monarch the mining
operations at the Wady Magarah were continued,
and a rock tablet on the spot records his name and

48 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

titles. From the inscriptions in red ochre on the
blocks of the middle pyramid at Abusir, that monu-
ment it appears was the sepulchre of his royal mummy.
The tombs of this period in the cemeteries of Memphis
are remarkably fine and numerous, and indicate a long
reign. The lists give forty-four years as its duration.
After the king An came Menkauhor or Mencheres II.
Like his predecessors he continued the explorations at
the Wady Magarah, and, as appears from the inscription,
made an expedition in that region. In excavating the
Serapeum at Memphis a slab was found with a represen-
tation of this monarch. He appears to have been youth-
ful, with a good profile and rather a full face. The hie-
ratic papyrus of Turin containing a list of all the kings
before the twentieth dynasty, gives him a reign of eight
years, and his legends shew that he was another of the
pyramid builders, although that in which he was buried
is not known. His successor Tatkara or Tancheres
also continued the mines at Wady Magarah. His
surname was Assa. He sent commissions to examine
the state of the locality and excavations in his fourth
year. It appears that a god, apparently Thoth, had
caused the precious mafka> the supposed name of the
turquoise, which ran in their strata, through the
serpentine rocks of that spot, to be discovered by a
tablet which the god himself had written. The mine
however, it has been previously shewn, had been found
in the days of Senefru, and is always described in the
inscriptions on the spot as belonging to that monarch,
so that this account must refer either to the original
discovery or another special indication of the lost vein,
recovered in the days of Assa. Many and magnificent

OLD EMPIRE. 49

tombs of the period are found in the vicinity of
Memphis, but the important monument of his reign is
the papyrus called the Prisse, after its possessor. It is
written in the hieratic characters, and the oldest extant
document in this frail material. The author of the
composition, Ptahhetp or Phthaophis, was the son of a
king; but was already overcome by old age at the mo-
ment when he reduced to writing his moral precepts or
book of Egyptian wisdom. It was written, according
to the author, " to teach the ignorant the principle of
good words, for the good of those who listen, to
shake the confidence of those who wish to infringe."
It is supposed to be addressed to his son, and in
language which calls to mind the wisdom of Solomon,
Ptahhetp says, " With the courage that knowledge gives,
discuss with the ignorant as with the learned; if
the barriers of art are not carried, no artist is yet
endowed of all his perfections. Good words shine
more than the emerald which the hand of the slave
finds on the pebbles." The duty of filial piety is
strictly inculcated. "The obedience of a docile son is a
blessing ; the obedient walks in his obedience. He is
ready to listen to all which can produce affection ; it
is the greatest of benefits. The son who accepts the
words of his father will grow old on account of it.
So obedience is of God, disobedience is hateful to
God. The heart is the master of man in obedience
and disobedience, but man gives life to his heart by
obedience." The idea of filial obedience is repeated
in many forms. " The rebel who obeys not," it says,
" does really nothing ; he sees knowledge in ignorance,
virtue in vices ; he commits daily and boldly all sorts

E

5O HISTORY OF EGYPT.

of crimes, and lives as if he were dead. What sages
know to be death is his daily life ; he goes his way
loaded with a heap of curses. Let thy heart," it
adds, " wash away the impurity of thy mouth. Fulfil
the word of thy master ; good for a man is the dis-
cipline of his father, of him from whom he has sprung.
It is a great satisfaction to conform to his words, for
a good son is the gift of God." The dissertation ends:
" It is thus I obtain for thee health of body and the
favour of the king, and that you pass through your
years of life without falsehood. I am become one of
the ancients of the earth. I have passed no years of
life by the gift of the king, and the approbation of my
seniors, fulfilling my duty to the king in the place of
his favour." These extracts show the wisdom of the
Egyptians in which Moses was said to be versed, and
which were an ancient code of morals in his time.
They recall to mind ideas found in the sacred writings,
as the age of the writer does that attained by Joseph
in the land of bondage, who lived no years, a period
often alluded to in Egyptian inscriptions of a later
time, as the extreme limit of human life; long life
being esteemed one of the blessings vouchsafed to
obedience and those favoured of the gods. Unas or
Onnos closes the list of the monarchs of the fifth
dynasty, and little is known of the events of his reign.
It has been supposed that he gave his name to the
city of Unas in Middle Egypt, and his son-in-law,
Snatemhat, has left behind him a magnificent tomb at
Gizeh. The name of Unas is not found at the Wady
Magarah; but several small objects inscribed with it,
probably derived from the tombs at Gizeh, are in the

OLD EMPIRE. 51

different museums of Europe. He reigned thirty-
three years, and was buried in the long building con-
structed of enormous blocks of limestone, anciently
inlaid with hard stones at Sakkarah, and known at the
present day by the name of the Mastabat-el-Faraoun
or "Pharaoh's board." His name has been found upon
a stone near the entrance. With Unas the fifth dynasty
closes; and it appears from the papyrus at Turin,
which marks a total in the rubric before his name,
that his reign was one of those fixed points from
which the ancient Egyptians computed the chronology
of the old monarchy.

The sixth dynasty which succeeded has been termed
Memphite, but some have considered that it was
probably Elephantine. There was some connection
with the local worship of that site in the time of the
fourth, as the name of Khnum, the local god of Ele-
phantine, appears attached to that of Cheops. The
monuments of the sixth dynasty are found extending
farther south into Middle Egypt than those of its pre-
decessors. Its first monarch, Teta or Othoes, was said
to have been killed by his guards, although the reason
is unknown. He is said to have reigned thirty years.
Abeba, an officer of his reign, whose tomb has been
found at Sakkarah, mentions that he accompanied the
king in his voyages to the edifice of the South, and
had access to the inner palace or person of the
monarch, and that the king, who esteemed Abeba more
than any of his other courtiers, supplied him with
food on his journeys. The monuments of the dynasty
now begin to appear at El Kab or Eileithyias, Ham-
mamat, and Abydos, which last became one of the

E 2

52 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

burial places of the contemporaries of these monarchs.
The successor of Teta was Pepi or Phzops, also called
Mira or Merira, whose reign the epitomists have
placed at 100 years, but this is proved by the monu-
ments to be too long and inexact. A tablet at the
Wady Magarah, dated the fourth of the Egyptian month
Meson, the last of the year, and the eighteenth year of
his reign, records the examination of the mines by a
commission. Pepi had to reconquer the Mentu, who
inhabited the peninsula, in his second year. Con-
siderable light is thrown upon the events of his reign
by the inscription of a priest and officer of the court
named Una, found at San or Tanis. This officer was
crown bearer, while a youth, to the king Teta, who
had made him superintendent of the storehouses,
while under Merira or Pepa he became chief of the
coffer, and the prophet or priest attached to the pyra-
mid or sepulchre of the monarch. His first mission was
to the land of Ruau, in the South, whither he was
accompanied by an officer and company of soldiers to
transport thence the royal sarcophagus, and the jambs
and lintels of the door of the royal pyramid. Com-
panion of the king, privy counsellor, secretary of state,
he subsequently rose to be a general, and carried on a
campaign against the Aa or Aamu, some of the Asiatic
neighbours of Egypt and the Herusha " those in the
sands " or desert, supposed by some to be the Arabs.
For that purpose he levied an army of Nahsi or negroes,
from the Ethiopian lands of Aruret, Aman Uauat,
Kaau and Tatam. These negroes, then first mentioned
in history, were officered by Egyptians, some of whom
were priests. Una prepared the commissariat and the

OLD EMPIRE. 53

sandals, and made several incursions on the Herusha.
He burnt the strong places, cut down the vines and
fig trees, slaughtered many of the enemy, and led back
several prisoners as the result of his victories. The
subjection of the foe was evidently incomplete ; the
enemy concentrated again at the land of Takheba, and
Una, re-embarking his forces, again marched against
the Herusha, giving them a signal defeat in the north
of their territory. This has been supposed to be some
part of Eastern Egypt or Arabia, for the exact country
of Herusha has not been determined. It is possible
that Una sailed to it by sea, although that term is not
mentioned, and Una may have only embarked on
the waters of the Nile. In reward for his distinguished
services Una had the privilege of wearing his sandals
when he entered in the palace, the rewards and decora-
tions of a later age not having at this time been
adopted. The pyramid of Pepi was called Mennefer,
the name of Memphis; probably it was one of the
group at Gizeh. He was married to a queen named
Rameri Ankhnas, and succeeded by their son Merienra.
The reign of Merienra, successor of Pepa, appears not
to have been very long, but not the less distinguished.
The king had ascended the Nile, as far as the cataracts,
and an inscription on the roads of Assouan records
his safe passage and return.

The officer Una, whose inscription has been already
mentioned, lived in this reign. He was appointed chief
and governor of the South from Elephantine to the
second nome, and sent by the king to get the sarcopha-
gus and part of the original sepulchre or pyramid from
the land of Abeha, and the granite door from Elephan-

54 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

tine. He went for the purpose with six transports, six
other boats and a vessel of war, and reached a point
where no Egyptian had arrived before. He also re-
moved from the quarries of Hatnub or Ombos a large
sepulchral altar of alabaster, in the short space of
seventeen days, and excavated four basins or ports in
the land of Uaua to hold his transports. The negro
chiefs of the lands of Arurat, the Uaua, the Am, as
tributaries of Egypt, supplied the wood necessary for
this work, which occupied the space of one year. At
the time of the inundation he loaded his vessels with
granite for the royal pyramid, and he built chapels in
honour of the spirits or protecting genii of the king,
in each of the four ports. It is clear that there -was
some difference in the state of the Nile at that period.
Neferkara, or Nephercheres I, successor of Merienra
and his brother, continued the works at the Wady
Magarah. A commission in the second year of his reign
has recorded its arrival on the spot. They consisted of
twelve persons, at the head of which was the chancellor
Hapi. The captain of the boat who appears in the for-
mer commissions, is not mentioned, and the party may
have come by land instead of crossing the Red Sea.
He is the last king recorded on the spot. The papy-
rus of Turin places Nitakar or Nitocris, the celebrated
queen with "rosy cheeks," before Neferkara. According
to the Greek legends, to revenge the assassination of
her brother, she invited the conspirators against his life
to a feast in a chamber lower than the level of the Nile,
and then turned the water of the river upon them. After
her death she was said to be buried in the third pyr-
amid. Some insignificant names follow Nitocris, whose

OLD EMPIRE. 55

absence from the monuments proves that her reign was
not of length or importance. The difficulty of re-
conciling the monumental and traditional information
and dates has given rise to several chronological
schemes. It is sufficient to state that the dynasty
flourished about 200 years.

With the sixth dynasty closes the period of the
grandeur of the old monarchy, and the mode of life
and civilization described at the close of the fourth
apply equally to the sixth dynasty. No temples of the
period remain. The monuments are all sepulchral,
and the tombs are all constructed on the same plan ;
they consist of massive and square chapels, where the
relations of the dead and priests assembled and per-
formed the liturgies on the appointed festivals. From
the chapel a well descended vertically into the soil, and
at the bottom of the well was the vault or tomb, in
which the mummy lay deposited in a granite sarcopha-
gus or wooden coffin. The process of embalming
was a mere pickling or salting, and the body but
slightly bandaged. The adornment of these chapels
was also uniform ; there were more figures than inscrip-
tions, and the subjects were derived from private life.
No gods are seen on the walls, although their names
were known and their forms sculptured on the historical
or political tablets. The name of Osiris begins to ap-
pear. Sculpture is admirably shown in the statues of
the period, the arts and sciences had visibly advanced
since the fourth dynasty. At this time the neighbour-
ing countries were plunged in a comparative state of
barbarism, and held by wandering tribes, not more, re-
latively, advanced in arts and sciences than the Bedouin

56 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

of to-day. There may have been the commencement
of a parallel civilization in the valleys of the Tigris and
Euphrates, and the germs of a more spiritual religion
in the wandering families who drove their flocks and
herds on the skirts of these regions. But as yet the
patriarch Abraham, the believer in the One and true
God, had not appeared on the scene, and there was
no link which connected the Egyptian with the He-
brew. After the sixth dynasty a monumental gap,
which as yet can neither be filled up nor bridged over,
occurs till the eleventh dynasty.

CHAPTER II.

MIDDLE EMPIRE.

FROM THE SEVENTH TO THE EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY.
From about 2000 B.C. to 1600 B.C.

THE official lists of 'the kings inscribed on the
walls of the temple of Osiris at Abydos and at Karnak,
in the tombs of Gournah and Sakkara, and the papyrus
of Turin record many monarcns that belong to this
obscure period. A few amulets and other objects
offer also isolated names, but no monument of import-
ance attests their sway. It has been supposed that
such may hereafter be found at Meydoum, Lisht,
Ahmes-el-Medineh, or the zone of land which bars
the entrance of the Fayoum. It is difficult to believe
that for a period of 436 years, given by the epitomists
as the interval of time that separates the sixth from
the eleventh dynasty, Egypt should have been ruled
by a foreign race, invaded by an unknown people,
or offer no proof of national existence. The seventh or
eighth Memphite dynasty are supposed indeed to have
been contemporary with the ninth and tenth Heracleo-
polite. This reduces the period to 285 years, but does

58 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

not solve the difficulty. The eleventh dynasty comprised
eight kings, who bore the names of Antef or Enantef,
and Mentuhetp or Mandouophis, and appear to have
been established only in the Thebaid. No monu-
ments of importance dated in their reigns are known,
and the sepulchres of the family are in the valley of
Assasif or the western valley at Thebes, built of
unburnt brick, and ornamented with their tablets and
inscriptions. From their names being alternately
Antef and Mentuhetp, it is probable that they continued
in a direct unbroken succession. The coffins of two
of the Antefs, made of single trees, and their mummies,
enveloped in the pasteboard envelopes called car-
tonages have been found. Antef I, the first of the
family, was embalmed by his brother Antefaa or
the " Greater Antef" as he is called. The tomb and
tablet of Antefaa have been discovered in the valley of
El-Assasif at Thebes. On it he is represented stand-
ing amidst four dogs, each of a different kind, and
wearing a collar, and accompanied by its name. The
king is followed by the master of his hounds. The
tablet is stated in the inscription to have been set up at
this pyramid or tomb in the fiftieth year of the reign of
Antefaa, and when at the time of the twentieth dynasty
the sepulchre had been attempted by plunderers and
violators of tombs, it was discovered and recognised
by this tablet. Antefaa was no doubt a mighty hunter,
as the dogs are hounds and used in the chase of
the gazelle and other animals. Mentuhetp II, the
fourth king of this Theban line, appears on the
sculptures of the rocks of the island of Konosso
near Philae as the conqueror of thirteen nations,,

MIDDLE EMPIRE. 59

probably of the South. He adores the god Ammon
Horus, who, under the name of Khem, was supposed
to be at the same time Ammon the chief of the
Theban gods, and Horus the son of Osiris, one of
the inferior deities of Abydos,the ancient Madfouneh-el-
Arabat; for the Egyptians in their polytheism often
united together two different deities or invested them
with each other's attributes. This type of Ammon
and Horus was the protector and the god of Coptos.
This town, named Kebta, and from which the Coptic
language derives its name, and even, according to
some writers, the name of Egypt itself was formed
or invented, was under the eleventh dynasty an im-
portant fortress commanding the entrance of the
valley of Hammamat ; and amongst the numerous in-
scriptions which cover the face of the rocks of that spot,
it is recorded that Coptos was the residence of Mentu-
hetp, and that the votive inscriptions were in honour
of the god Khem who dwelt in "the beautiful valley" of
Hammamat. One of the most remarkable is dated in
the second year of the reign of Mentuhetp III, the
sixth king of the eleventh dynasty. In it he states,
"My master the king, Mentuhetp III, the ever-living, sent
me as a commissioner, for I am of his sacred family,
to set up the monuments of this country. He selected
me from his capital city, and chose me out of the num-
ber of his counsellors. His Holiness ordered me to 0:0

o

to this beautiful mountain, with the soldiers and
principal persons of the whole country." Here it will
be observed that the monarch is spoken of in terms
more applicable to a god than a mortal, and is
invested with an official title of sanctity such as the

60 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

predecessors had affected, who had even priests at-
tached to their personal worship. It is such pompous
and vain epithets that hardened Pharaoh's heart and
made him consider himself a god, or at least equal
to one. The commissioner was not only accompanied
by troops, but also by masons, sculptors, and others
employed in making monuments to Khem the lord
of the quarries in the mountain. In the same year
another inscription of the same purport, announcing
that the king, Mentuhetp III, had ordered the same
to be engraved on the rock in honour of his father,
the god Khem, lord of the mountain districts of the
valley. The architect employed was also accompanied
by troops to protect or watch the masons and
labourers employed in the quarries. They continued
to work at the quarries of green breccia and dark
granite, which supplied the materials for the temples
and other Egyptian edifices of the period. A person
who lived in the reign of one of the Antefs was
buried in the reign of Usertesen I of the twelfth or
succeeding dynasty at Abydos, thus connecting the
two families and proving the succession of the twelfth
dynasty; and at a later period the tombs of the Antefs
are recorded in Egyptian monuments, especially one at
which was the sepulchral stele* or tombstone of the king
standing amidst his dogs, who had their names inscribed
above them. The civilization and the arts of this
period so closely resemble those of the subsequent
dynasty that they will be considered with them. The
first monarch of that line was Amenemha I, who
seems to have risen after some political disturbance to
the throne. He reigned nineteen years alone and

MTDDLE EMPIRE. 61

then associated in the government his successor User-
tesen I. A few monuments of his reign are in
the temple of Karnak, which he appears to have com-
menced, and in the quarries of Mokattam, near the
modern village of Toura, in the neighbourhood of
the ancient Memphis, and those of Hammamat, which
were still worked. A papyrus in the British Museum
records the instructions given in a dream by Ame-
nemha I to his son; as far as it can be made out
the life of the monarch was attacked possibly by his
son Usertesen I. Amenemha describes in it his good
deeds, how he had sent his commissioners and couriers
to Abu or Elephantine and Athu or Natho, hunted
the lion and crocodile, fought against the Uauat or
negroes, led captive the Magau, and built himself
a magnificent palace, probably at Heliopolis.

His successor, Usertesen I, appears to have been
principally occupied with the conquest of Kush or
Ethiopia, of which he has left a record on a tablet
inscribed with the account of his victories at the Wady
Haifa in Nubia. He conquered eight of the principal
tribes of the neighbourhood and his conquests assured
to Egypt a long rule over Ethiopia, which remained for
many years a dependency of Egypt. In a tomb at
Benihassan a person named Ameni, who died in the
forty-third year of the reign of Usertesen I, has left an
account of the exploits he performed and the service in
which he was engaged. Ameni it appears was an Egyp-
tian general and governor of Sah, as the sixth canton
or nome of Upper Egypt was named. At the head of
a picked body of troops, 400 in number, he had
marched to the gold mines of the South and accom-

62 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

panied the king in a campaign against the Ethiopians,
the limits, as he calls them in the inscription^ of the
world itself. The division of the army to which he
was attached was under the command of the prince
and heir apparent Ameni. He had escorted from the
gold mines the booty or produce to the fortress of
Coptos, and with such skill and success that he had
not lost a single man in the operation. On another
occasion he had marched at the head of 600 troops, the
elite of the district, for the same purpose. In addition
to the spoil or produce of precious metal which Ameni
had obtained from the South, he had also acquired
3000 head of cattle, probably from Rush or Ethiopia,
which abounded in herds, especially in those of the
zebu or humped kind; and according to his epitaph,
he had acted both as agent, steward, and adminis-
trator of the district. From the royal workshops he
had never, it states, abstracted anything. He worked
diligently, and the district was full of life and activity.
"Never/' it says, "was any little child ill-treated by me,
never was any widow afflicted by me. I never troubled
a fisherman, or hindered any shepherd. I never took
away the men belonging to a person who super-
intended a gang for my works. There was not any
famine in my days, and no hunger under my govern-
ment. For I worked all the fields of the district of
Sah to its frontiers on the South and North; I kept
the inhabitants alive by offering its products, so that
there was none starved in it. I gave equally to the
widow and the married woman, and did not show
preference to the great and not to the little ones in
what I gave. When the Nile made a great inundation

MIDDLE EMPIRE. 63

I did not cut the branches from the channel." This
remarkable inscription recalls to mind the famines
to which Egypt was occasionally subject owing to a de-
ficient Nile. Such a famine happened in the days of
Abraham amidst the neighbouring nations, and he then
went to Egypt, which then, as at a later period, was the
granary of the adjacent countries 1 . It also shows that
there had been about the period years of famine like
the seven years of which Pharaoh had dreamed 2 in
the vision of the seven lean kine, supposed by some
to be the same as the seven mystical cows of Athor,
the goddess of beauty; which, according to the inter-
pretation given by Joseph to the Egyptian monarch,
meant seven deficient years. It is also remarkable
that in the tombs of Abydos at this period were
buried several overseers of the account of the corn
placed in the royal granaries; the mention in the
hieroglyphic inscriptions of these officers, suggests that
years of famine had caused them to be appointed
for the purpose of providing against a future calamity.
In the advice given to Pharaoh, he was told to " ap-
point officers over the land, and take up the fifth part
of the land in the seven plenteous years, and to let
them gather all the food of those good years that
come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh,
and let them keep food in the cities 3 ." Besides
the superintendents of the royal granaries, scribes
or clerks were also appointed, who took charge of
the accounts of the corn. Some of these accounts
of a later period have been handed down, and

1 Gen. xii. i-io. 2 Gen. xli. 54.

3 Gen. xli. 34, 35,

64 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

from them it appears that the corn was threshed
about a month after it had been gathered into
the garner. It was piled up in heaps there, and
must have been often turned, but when trans-
ported was carried either in sacks or baskets. From
the cakes which have come down, the Egyptians
appear to have principally eaten barley bread. An-
other kind of barley, or "red corn," as it was called,
was employed for beer, which is made in Egypt till
the present day.

In the thirty-eighth year of his reign User-
tesen I associated his successor, Amenemha II,
in the government, and reigned four years longer.
Very little else is known of his reign except the
wars in the South against the negroes, the extraction
of gold from Nubia, and the fortification of the
fortress of Samneh, to curb the incursions of the
black races. An officer of the two kings during
their joint reign attended to the station of the
land of Uaua, one of the tribes on the Nile, close
to the Egyptian frontiers. On the North the king
had not advanced farther than the peninsula of Sinai,
where the mines still continued to be worked. At
this time Egypt was under a territorial aristocracy,
which received its titles and investiture from the
Egyptian king. In the tombs of Benihassan one
of these great lords or princes records the history of
his family, and his investiture with the government of
Menat-Khufu or Minieh. His name was Khnum-
hetp, the son of Nehara and a lady named Bakat.
The family of Khnumhetp claimed to be descended
from the gods of Memphis, - and Amenemha II had

MIDDLE EMPIRE. 65

appointed him governor of the Eastern districts. His
mother had been created a princess by her marriage
with Nehara, who held that rank and was a governor
of the country. In consequence of his station, Ame-
nemha II had raised the son Khnumhetp to the rank
of chief of the district of Menat-Khufu or the modern
Minieh, in the nineteenth year of his reign. He had
continued the dignity to the family; and from other
sources it appears that Khnumhetp had been em-
ployed in the mining operations at the Sarabit-el-
Khadim in the peninsula of Sinai and Magarah.
Although works were carried on at the Wady Magarah
till the forty-fourth year of the reign of Amenemha II,
the veins of turquoise and copper having become
exhausted at that spot, the explorations of the Sarabit-
el-Khadim were commenced in the twenty-fourth year
of the reign of Amenemha.

The most remarkable representation sculptured
on the walls of the tomb of Khnumhetp is one in
which certain Amu or Semitic foreigners are de-
picted arriving at his court and ushered into his
presence. So striking a resemblance does this scene
bear to the arrival of Jacob in Egypt that some have
seen in it a picture of that event. As the number
of persons mentioned is not the same as accompanied
the patriarch, and the names and conditions differ,
it can only be considered to represent a similar
scene. The men are represented draped in long
garments of various colours, and wearing sandals
unlike the Egyptian, more resembling open shoes
with many straps. Their arms are bows, arrows,
spears, and clubs. One plays on a seven-stringed

F

66 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

lyre by means of a plectrum. Four women, wear-
ing fillets round their hair, garments reaching below
the knee, and anclets, but without sandals, accom-
pany them. A boy armed with a spear walks at
the side of the women, and two children seated
in a kind of pannier placed on the back of an ass,
precede the women. Another ass, carrying spear,
shield, and pannier, precedes the man playing on the
lyre. The number of the foreigners is of course dif-
ferent from the sixty-six of the family of Jacob
which came down to Egypt; and other tribes and
nations, as the Midianite merchants to whom Joseph
was sold, and carried him to Egypt as a slave, came
to that country. But the picture strongly recalls to
mind the arrival of the family of Jacob in Egypt, and
such a scene as the entrance of the Hebrews into
Egypt presented at the time. Khnumhetp receives the
foreigners accompanied by one of his followers, who
carries his sandals and a staff, and is attended by
three dogs. A scribe, named Neferhetp, unrolls a
letter or papyrus, in which it is stated that thirty-
seven Amu have come to Khnumhetp. An inscription
over their heads records that the picture represents
the bringing of the mestmut, or kind of stibium by
thirty-seven Amu to the Egyptian governor. The
features of these strangers are like those of the Jews,
and their dress differs from the Egyptian. The men
wear each a single garment of divers colours such as
Joseph is said to have had; and the chief named
Abusha, has one richer than that . of his companions,
ornamented with a fringe and a meander border
round the neck. In his left hand he holds a short

MIDDLE EMPIRE. 67

stick or crook, and with his right he offers a he-
goat, seven others follow with their asses and their
children. The Amu, is however, the general appel-
lation of the Semitic races, and there is no indication
of the particular tribe of that great family.

Usertesen III constructed the fortress of Samneh
on the south of the Wady Haifa, close to the second
cataract, to curb the incursion of the negroes of Kush.
This town formed at the time the limit of Egypt on
the South, and a tablet of the eighth year of his reign
forbad any negro to pass it, except in the boats
conveying cattle, oxen, goats and asses, and things
belonging to them. These were either required for
the support of Egypt or permitted to return to the
frontier; but all other boats were forbidden to enter
the port on the Nile called Heh. The king also
set up his statue at the same spot. The pressing
affairs of his reign seem to have been the ne-
cessity to hold Ethiopia under his sway. Like his
predecessors, Usertesen still continued to work the
quarries of basalt at Ruhannu or Hammamat, to which
an architect had been dispatched in his fourteenth year,
while no notice occurs of those of the Sarabit-el-
Khadim. He reigned thirty -eight years, and was
subsequently deified by Thothmes III in the temple at
Samneh, and festivals appointed to be held in his
honour. His successor, Amenemha III, was not dis-
tinguished by any foreign conquests, but seems to
have undertaken the great construction of the Lake
Moeris, one of the most stupendous works of the Old
Empire. It would appear that in his reign some
disturbance had taken place in the annual inundation

F 2

68 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

of the Nile. It has been already shown from the
monuments of his predecessors, that Egypt had suffered
from the effects of famine, probably from the inundation
not having reached the height of the number of cubits
requisite to fertilize enough of the soil for the support of
its inhabitants. The prosperity, almost the life of the
country, depended on the regularity of the inundation.
Should the water of this greatest and most mysterious
of the rivers of the ancient world attain too great an out-
pour, instead of fertilizing with their unctuous deposit the
desert which girdled them, they destroyed the labours
of the husbandman and the hopes of the harvest. On
the other hand, if they became like the lean kine of
Pharaoh's dream, too little to form a broader strip of
land than the river's bank, a barren year of famine was
the necessary consequence to the teeming population
clustered on the banks of the father of the gods and
the hidden or mysterious water of Egypt. Impelled
by these considerations, Amenemha III began the con-
struction of a gigantic lake on the West of Egypt ; it
was fed by a canal from the Nile, diverted the super-
fluous waters of an excessive Nile, so as to regulate
its overflow, and hoarded those of a deficient Nile to
spend them as required on the neighbouring land.
Besides its use for irrigation it also contained an im-
mense quantity of fish, from which the Egyptian
government derived a large annual revenue.

In the second year of his reign the mines of the
Wady Magarah were still worked under the command
of an officer who occupied the spot with a garrison of
734 men. The place was occupied by troops and
miners till the forty-fourth year, or the close of the rule

MIDDLE EMPIRE. 69

of this monarch. But the operations at the Sarabit-el-
Khadim went on at the same time, where there was
erected a temple of the goddess Athor, who presided
equally over the copper and turquoise veins of the
neighbourhood. The commissioners and officials sent
to the district, recorded on the rocks their valuable
services; that they had pierced the hill and thrown
light in its hidden treasures. One states that he went
on foot through the secret valleys of the place, records
the arrival and submission of the foreigners of the
district, and the quantity of material he extracted from
the mines. More important than the mines of Mount
Sinai were the engineering operations connected with
the course of the Nile, which it had become necessary
to regulate by sluices and reservoirs. Anciently the
inundation of that great river, the father of waters, had
irrigated and enriched the soil of Ethiopia or the
modern Nubia, and indications of its old bed still
remain in the alluvial plains of that country, but in the
days of Amenemha III some great displacement or
change had occurred. The years of famine mentioned
in the previous reign had probably their origin in
deficient Niles or inundations. In the fourteenth year
of the reign of Amenemha, the condition of the Nile
attracted unusual attention on the part of the govern-
ment of the Pharaohs. Commissioners and other
officers were sent down to Samneh to examine, report,
and mark the height attained by the river. It was
nearly twenty-four feet higher than it reaches at the
present day. Some have indeed supposed that the
Nile broke a passage through at Silsilis at a sub-
sequent period, and that the bed was consequently

70 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

lowered. At all events the king found it necessary
to go on with the constructions of the celebrated
lake known to the ancients as the Lake Moeris, the
modern Birket-el-Faraoun, lying on the South-west
of the Fayoum. Availing themselves of a natural
depression of the land, and by damming up the
gorges by dams, the Egyptians formed an artificial
reservoir of water, which communicated with the Nile
by a canal called the Bahr-el-Jusef, open when the
Nile was at its height and subsequently closed as the
river retired to its bed. The water thus obtained was
secured in the reservoir by sluices, and retained during
the dry season when it was let out to irrigate the low-
lands of the neighbouring districts.

Besides finishing the Lake Moeris, the same monarch
also constructed a pyramid at the corner of the lake for
his sepulchre, continuing the mode of burial used by
the monarchs of the fourth dynasty. The base of that
pyramid has been discovered in recent times, and
blocks of stone inscribed with his name and that of a
queen his successor. But the greatest edifice which
.lie built was the Labyrinth, consisting of a number of
small chambers communicating with one another,
and of which this monarch appears to have built the
greater portion during his reign, leaving to his suc-
cessor the completion of the edifice. The object of
this singular edifice was stated to be for the reception
of the princes and other dignitaries of the country.
It preceded by centuries the celebrated one of Gnossus
in Crete, in which king Minos kept the monster called
the Minotaur, half man half bull. This Cretan work con-
sisted of a series of meandering passages, in which the

MIDDLE EMPIRE. 7 1

intruder, who had not the requisite clue, lost himself
and fell a victim to the monster who dwelt within.
Probably some reason of suspicion and security
caused the construction of this singular building, which,
with the pyramids and obelisks, was another marvel
of Old Egypt. In Egyptian the Labyrinth was called
Mera, and had the same name as the lake. The same
word was also applied to streets, which probably in
Egypt originally did not run in straight lines as at
present, but followed a tortuous or meandering course.
The pyramids, for there were two on the borders of
the lake, are supposed to have had colossal statues of
the kings at their summits; and the king for this
purpose as early as the ninth year of his reign, had
begun to draw materials for their construction from
the quarries of. El Hammamat. He also despatched
thither architects, - to obtain from the quarries the
stones of requisite size. In the time of Herodotus,
who visited Egypt in the reign of Darius, or about
B.C. 445, the Lake Moeris, its pyramids, and its Laby-
rinth, were still . existing, although they are now an
almost indistinguishable mass of ruins. The Labyrinth
greatly astonished this ancient Greek traveller. It had,
according to his description, twelve courts, all roofed
with stone, which was unusual in Egyptian buildings,
most of which had no ceilings, and were open to the
sky or hypaethral, as the Greeks called them. It had
twelve courts with gates exactly opposite one another,
six facing the north, and the same number the south,
and a great number of chambers, according to the
account of Herodotus, 1500, above and below. The
subterraneous chambers or crypts Herodotus did

72 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

not see, but he heard that they comprised the
tombs of the kings who built the Labyrinth, and
those of the sacred crocodiles which were attached
to the temple of Sebak the crocodile god, of Croco-
dilopolis or Crocodile Town. These great reptiles
were exceedingly tame and wore earrings, and the
Labyrinth seems to have been their sepulchre, although
the principal pits in which the mummies of the croco-
dile are found are at Manfalut. The courts of the
Labyrinth had colonnades and entrances into the
various chambers. The whole was surrounded by an
outer wall, and the walls covered with hieroglyphs ; but
little is known of the purport of the inscriptions, and
the mere fragments which have been found contain the
titles only of two kings. At one of the corners of the
Labyrinth stood a pyramid, forty-one fathoms or 246
feet high, which was entered by a subterraneous
passage. Two other pyramids stood in the centre of
the lake, 300 feet high above the surface of the water,
which was of the same depth at this spot. On the
apex of each of these pyramids was a seated colossal
figure. These three pyramids were the sepulchres of
the kings. The Greek account gives different names
to the king of the Labyrinth ; but the fragments of it
which have been found near the walls of the crypts or
subterraneous chambers, show that it was Ame-
nemha IV and his sister, whose mummies were per-
haps buried in the pyramids placed in the middle of
the lake, which, according to some, was so called from
the name of the king who made it ; and as his pre-
nomen or divine name was Maenra or Mara, it is of
course just possible, although the explanation given

MIDDLE EMPIRE. 73

before is considered preferable, that the lake derived
its name from the monarch. Nor is it impossible that
the lake itself was made to protect the pyramids, for
Cheops was said to be buried in a chamber surrounded
by the water of the Nile, and the whole mind of the
kings was directed to construct these gigantic monu-
ments of human vanity, more than to the improvement
of their people and public works of a greater utility.

In the reign of Amenemha IV the mines at the
Wady Magarah continued to be worked and new ones
opened. One of the king's officers states that he
arrived there with fifteen men and worked diligently,
and that the produce of his labour exceeded that
obtained in the days of king Senefru, while other
tablets set up on the spot record the quantity of
cattle and fowl, and the journeying of the troops there,
for the Peninsula was unsafe without military escort.
On another tablet, apparently about the same period,
an officer states "to the miners that if you fail, Athor,"
that is the goddess who presided over the district and
the mines, "will hold out her hands to help your work-
men in the work : look at me, how I waited there after
I left Egypt, my face sweated, my blood was heated."
The vein did not appear to yield at first, but after a time
a good quantity was extracted from it. All this took
place at the Wady Magarah and Sarabit-el-Khadim,
close to Mount Sinai, many centuries before the
Israelites crossed the desert and came to the adjacent
spot.

From some unknown reason after the twelfth
dynasty, Egypt had again declined, and another
monumental gap marks the interval between the

74 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

twelfth and eighteenth dynasties. The thirteenth is
said to have been Theban or Diospolitan, but the
fourteenth was from Xois or Sakha. It has been
conjectured that nearly a thousand years intervened
between the close of the twelfth dynasty and the
expulsion of the Shepherds ; but there is no temple or
monument of importance to mark the interval. The
extraordinary number of sixty kings attributed to the
thirteenth dynasty, and of seventy-six to the fourteenth,
is unparalleled in the annals of any country. The
monarchs that are known are called Sebekhetp and
Mentuhetp, and the repetition of names resembles the
system of the previous dynasties. Statues and tablets
of some of these monarchs have been found at San or
Tanis, Harabat-el-Madfouneh or Abydos. These
monarchs of the thirteenth dynasty held Egypt from
Nubia to the Mediterranean as sole monarchs. Sebak-
hetp IV, Hke the kings of the eleventh, recorded the
height of the Nile at Samneh, from the first to the
fourth year of his reign at the fort Khemu of
Usertesen III. Another king, Neferhetp, and his
family are registered on the rocks of the island of
Shel at Assouan and Konosso. A statue of Sebak-
hetp lies in the island of Argo, and at Thebes and
Hammamat other memorials of the dynasty appear.
Nothing certain is known of the fourteenth dynasty, and
it is probable that at the commencement of its sway
Egypt was invaded by the Hyk-shos or Shepherds, and
the native monarchs driven to the South. The Shepherd
kings are said to have easily subjected the country, burnt
the towns, devastated the temples, ill-treated the Egypt-
ians, and reduced their wives and children to slavery.

MIDDLE EMPIRE. 75

The name of Hyk-shos appears to mean " ruler," hyk, of
" Shepherds," or " Nomads," Sham; and the invaders
to have been some of the Arab or Semitic tribes, thrown
by movements in Central Asia on the borders of Egypt.
The first prince of the line, named Saites, is said to have
built the city called Avaris, on the east of the Bubastite
branch of the Nile. Some of the names of the
monarchs have been found in the lists and on the
monuments, that of Saites or Set on a tablet at
San, and several monuments of Apepi or Apappos on
the same spot : at Tel-el- Yahoudeh, and Mit-Fares in
the Fayoum. The Shepherds, it is stated, established
their court at Memphis, garrisoned and rendered
tributary the entire country. The course of time,
however, weakened their power, and the native princes
who had withdrawn were enabled to resume the
offensive against the foreigners and finally expel them
from the country. It is indeed apparent that the rule
of the Hyk-shos did not extend much beyond Memphis,
and that the Egyptian monarchs held Thebes, the
nascent capital of the country. The papyrus of the
British Museum, so often cited, details the circum-
stances of the quarrel. "The country of Egypt," it
states, " fell into the hands of the lepers, and no one
was king of the whole country. For the king Ra-
sekenen was only king of Upper Egypt. The lepers
were in Heliopolis, and their ruler Raapepi at Haouar
or Avaris, The whole country was tributary to him,
making complete service to him, for it brought him
all the good productions of Lower Egypt. The king
Raapepi chose the god Sutech as his lord, and was not
the follower of any other god in the whole country.

70 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

He built him a temple existing for ever." Subsequently
it is stated the Shepherd king sent a herald or
ambassador to demand workmen and materials of the
Egyptian prince, to build the temple of Sutech or Set.
The king assembled his council and refused. Here
the document prematurely ends. It does not appear
that Ra-sekenen was strong enough to expel the
Shepherds, for a naval captain named Aahmes states
that in his youth he dwelt in the fortress of Eileithya,
and that his father at the time was lieutenant of the
king Ra-sekenen. As he was afterwards in a subse-
quent reign present at the siege of Avaris, it is evident
operations had not commenced.

The arrival of Joseph in Egypt has been placed by
some in the reign of Apepi II, and some considera-
tions are very favourable to that conjecture. The name
Potiphar, from its composition, is evidently Heliopoli-
tan rather than Theban. Joseph married the daughter
of the high priest of Heliopolis, occupied by the
Shepherds during their occupation of the country.
No mention is made in the narrative of Memphis or
Thebes. The 430 years of the bondage of Israel in Egypt
correspond with the monumental date of 400 years
from the Shepherd ruler Set or Saites to Rameses II,
and the opinion generally entertained by Egyptologists
is that the Exodus took place in the reign of Meneptah,
son and successor of Rameses II. The elevation of a
foreigner to the high office held by Joseph, is also
more consonant with Egypt being at the time in the
hands of the Hyk-shos, while the Pharaohs of Heliopolis
must have known the patriarch, whose eventful story
would have been unknown to the native dynasty, which

MIDDLE EMPIRE. 77

expelled from the soil of Egypt the hated Hyk-shos,
their traditions and antecedents. This will be re-
considered when the period of the Exodus comes under
consideration. The tomb of the Ra-sekenen or Seken-
enra, whose name was Taakan, as it appears, was at the
Drah Abu-el-Neggah, in the Assasif or western valley at
Thebes, where, however, it has not yet been discovered
amongst those of the kings of the eleventh dynasty.
The names of individuals who lived at the period just
before and at the commencement of the eighteenth
dynasty, are repetitions of those which appear in the
eleventh and twelfth, proving that they belonged to the
same families, and were probably not separated by any
great interval of time.

CHAPTER III.

NEW EMPIRE.

FROM THE EIGHTEENTH TO THE TWENTIETH DYNASTY.
From about 1600 B.C. to uoo B.C.

THE fall of the Shepherds gave rise to the eighteenth
dynasty, and the war begun by Taakan ended by the
final expulsion of the foreigners, and the extension of
the Egyptian frontiers to the banks of the Euphrates
and the Tigris. Discarding the different lists muti-
lated or disguised by Greek transcription, the first
monarch of the dynasty was Aahmes or Amosz's, who
was raised to the throne of Upper Egypt, and who ap-
pears to have wrested ultimately Northern Egypt from
the hands of the invaders. The king Taakan held his
Court at Eileithya, but Aahmes evidently possessed
Thebes at the commencement of his reign. The
naval officer Aahmes, already mentioned, states that
in the reign of Aahmes he was lieutenant on board the
vessel called " The Calf," and that he served in the
Northern fleet, which was evidently engaged in trans-
porting the Egyptian troops to the seat of war. He

NEW EMPIRE. 79

marched on foot at the side of the war-chariot of the
king, and was present at the siege of Ha-uar or Avaris.
He then embarked on another ship called Shaemman-
nefer, and was present in some naval actions on the
waters of Ha-uar or Avaris, by which must be under-
stood the Tanitic branch of the Nile. Aahmes brought
thence the hand of a dead enemy, which, in accordance
with the usages of the period, he had cut off, as
a proof of his prowess, and the king presented him
with the decoration of a collar of gold. In a second
action he exhibited the same valour, and obtained the
same reward. In a third engagement, which took
place at the south of Avaris, he took one of the enemy
prisoner, dragging him through the water in the
direction of the fortress, and, embarking him on his
vessel, carried him off. For this deed of valour he
received the special recognition and thanks of his
sovereign. At the capture of Avaris he took prisoner
a man and two women, whom the king gave him for
slaves. From this it is clear that Aahmes completed
the recovery of Egypt Proper, and succeeded in re-
storing the national dynasty to its old superiority.

After the capture of Avaris, the king besieged the
town of Sharuhana or the later Sharuhen of the
tribe of Simeon 1 for six years, and took it. At
this siege Aahmes again distinguished himself, and
took two women as prisoners, and one hand which he
had cut off an enemy whom he had killed. The king
gave him the customary reward of a gold collar, and
the captives for slaves.

Subsequent to the defeat of the Shepherds, the

1 Joshua xix. 6.

Bo HISTORY OF EGYPT.

monarch turned his attention to Ethiopia, probably on
account of some revolt or incursion which the negroes
from time to time made on the Southern frontiers of
Egypt. He prepared an expedition against Khenthan-
nefer or "The Port of Good Return/' already mentioned
in the inscription of Una, and signally defeated the
Nubians. Present at that engagement Aahmes took two
prisoners, and cut three hands off enemies, whom he
had killed in a personal encounter. He received the
prisoners as slaves, and the collar of gold. Not only
does this inscription throw light upon the external po-
litics of Egypt, but also on the national character. The
Egyptians were not deficient in courage, while the
prisoners of the North and South, dragged into the
households or workshops of their masters, must have
given rise to a mixed race, that modified the national
type and character. The negro, mentioned at the
time of the sixth dynasty, does not appear in any of the
sculptures of the tombs as actually employed in the
service of the house or the labours of the field. At
the eighteenth dynasty the negress mounts the throne of
Egypt, and, as will be subsequently seen, intermarried
with the sovereigns, whose features, as beheld in the
sculptures, recall their mixed origin. After the ex-
pulsion of the Shepherds and defeat of the Nubians,
Aahmes devoted his attention to the restoration of the
temples, which had fallen into dilapidation, or been
destroyed. The twelfth dynasty had founded several
small temples at Thebes, the Wady Haifa, and else-
where. Aahmes, in the twenty-second year of his reign,
opened the limestone quarries at Mokattam, for the re-
pairs of the "Temple of Millions of Years," or the Palace

NEW EMPIRE. ' 8 1

of the Hephaisteum, dedicated to the god Ptah, at Mem-
phis, that of Amon-Ra at Thebes, and other monuments
which the king had dedicated to the gods. The blocks
of stone were placed in sledges, and so transported part
of the way. The monarch reigned twenty-five years.
His wife, called Aahmes-Nefertari, was a negress, and
apparently the daughter of an Ethiopian monarch.
The circumstances of his alliance are unknown, but in
this he probably had only followed the examples of
his predecessors ; who, forced by the Hyk-shos to the
South, had contracted marriages with the families of
Ethiopian rulers. Aahmes was buried in the western
valley of the Drah Abu-el-Neggah, in a tomb amongst
the monarchs of the twelfth dynasty. After his death
his widow appears to have held the reins of sovereignty
during the youth of his son Amenhetp I, who seems
to have been quite a boy when he succeeded to the
crown. The principal officer of his reign was pro-
bably Aahmes, already mentioned. He conducted the
vessel of the monarch to Ethiopia, to " extend the
frontiers of Egypt," showing that, secure on the
Northern frontiers, Amenhetp meditated the conquest of
the South. The king captured the chief of the hostile
Nubians, and Aahmes killed two of the enemy in the
action their hands he presented to the monarch. In
his pursuit of the cattle and men, the great attraction
for these facile invasions of the South, he took a
prisoner, but does not appear to have received him as
a present from his master. He sailed back with the
king to Egypt in two days, from a place he calls " The
Upper Well." The monarch gave him another collar
of gold. Aahmes also captured two female slaves,

82 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

besides those he had already brought to the king, who,
as a recompense for his services, created him warrior
of the king. Besides these exploits in the South,
Aahmes had fought in the North the Amou-Kahak, and
brought thence three hands of slaughtered enemies.
In this reign the horse ils first represented on the
monuments as forming part of the chariot of the king,
and the wheeled car is first seen. At the time of
the fourth and fifth dynasties, the ass only was employed
for transport, and the carriage consisted of a kind of
seat, on which the rider sat strapped between two asses.
At the later period of the twelfth, children were carried
in a kind of pannier on asses. The ass however was
not ridden ; but the horse, first mentioned in the reign
of Aahmes, and seen in that of Amenophis I, continued
to be used for chariots, riding and ploughing during
this and the following dynasties. Amenhetp reigned
thirteen years and was buried amongst the kings of the
eleventh dynasty. He was succeeded by Thothmes I,
who directed his arms towards Nubia, and advanced
on the land of Khenthannefer. His conquests of the
South are recorded on tablets, dated in his first year, on
the rocks of Assouan or Syene, and another in the
quarries of Kerman, opposite the isle of Tombos,
in the 19 of North latitude. Ivory, gold, slaves and
cattle, appear to have been the chief attractions which
invited the Egyptian arms to the South. The officer
Aahmes, whose exploits extended later than Thothmes
I, narrates that Thothmes came back to Thebes after
having attacked the Rutenor Syrians, who are mentioned
for the first time in Egyptian history. Thothmes also
approached Naharaina or Mesopotamia, slaughtered

NEW EMPIRE. 83

several of their troops in battle and brought back nu-
merous prisoners. In this expedition Aahmes, at the
head of the troops, manifested his usual valour, and
captured a chariot and its pair of horses. He received
for this exploit the recompense so often mentioned.
Thothmes continued the building of the Temple of
Karnak, repaired by Aahmes, and placed two obelisks
of red granite before the temple of the god Amon at
that site. Like Amenophis I, he was worshipped after
his death, and priests were attached to his worship.
He probably reigned a short time, although the lists of
Manetho assign to him a duration of thirteen years.
After his death Thothmes II ascended the throne, and
reigned conjointly with his sister Hasheps or Hatasu.
The events of the period are involved in mystery.
According to some, Thothmes was married to Hasheps,
or at all events under her tutelage. Hasheps as-
sumed male attire ; and probably one of those revolt-
ing conspiracies and family quarrels of the palace
is veiled behind the fact of the short and inglorious
reign of Thothmes II. After the death of her brother
she ruled alone, and the principal event of her reign
was the sending of a fleet to Taneter " The Holy
Land," or Arabia Felix, and Punt, either the Regio Bar-
barica or Somali. The expedition was of a peaceful na-
ture, to collect the marvellous productions of the country;
and the representation of it on the monuments recalls
to mind the voyages of the fleets of Solomon at a later
period. The galleys of thirty oars and sails traversed
the Uatur, or Red Sea, and returned laden with gums,
scents, incense trees, ebony, ivory, gold, emeralds,
stibium, cynocephali and baboons, panther skins, horns,

G 2

8 4

HISTORY OF EGYPT.

and workpeople. An old and fat queen of the
country is represented on foot, walking after her
husband, who receives the Egyptian leader. At the
return of the expedition the queen chose some of the
best scents, and prepared a cosmetic "which breathed a
divine odour, and made the skin like gold and ivory,
and bright as the stars/' Punt was one of the countries
supposed to be under the jurisdiction of Athor the
goddess of beauty, and the appropriate land of the
requisites of the female toilette. Its inhabitants were
however despised by the Egyptians, and termed, " ig-
norant " or " no men," probably from their unwarlike
nature. On the arrival of the convoy at Thebes the

Arabians were received
with honour, and the
queen rejoiced at her
successful enterprise and
the acquisition of the
precious gums and trees,
which were planted in
Egypt. It was the first
time the land of Punt
had been penetrated by
the envoys of Egypt.

In the Arabian queen
may be seen one of
the predecessors of the
queen of Sheba, whose
visit to Jerusalem plays

Arabian Queen in the reign of Hasheps. SO important a part in

the history of the power
and wealth of Solomon, when Sheba came with camels

NEW EMPIRE. 85

bearing spices, gold, and precious stones. At this
period indeed the camel does not appear amongst
the domesticated animals of Arabia, but only the ass,
and although the Egyptians mention the natives of
Punt in such depreciating terms, the handles and
tools in use show that they, had attained some de-
gree of civilization. As will be seen, they continue
to be mentioned amongst the tributaries to the
Pharaohs. The name of Hasheps is often repeated on
the monuments of Karnak, and she dedicated to the
god Amon-Ra two great obelisks of Syenitic granite in
honour of her father. They were placed at the door-
way of the second court. These triumphal columns
of Egypt were decorated with hieroglyphical inscriptions,
recording the praises, piety or exploits of the monarch
by whom they were erected. Besides the inscriptions
on the obelisks, the four sides of their pedestals also
had records of the same queen. They state that the
" queen, the pure gold of monarchs, had dedicated to
her father, Amen of Thebes, two obelisks of mahct
stone" or red granite, " taken from the quarries of the
South ; their upper part," or " caps, were ornamented
with pure gold taken from the chiefs of all nations."
The inscriptions state that one day seated in her
palace the idea had occurred to her of making two
gilded obelisks, so high that the pyramidal cap of each
should touch the heaven, and that she should place
them before the pylon of Thothmes I. " Her
Majesty," it states, "gave two gilded obelisks to her
father Amen, that her name should remain permanent,
always, and for ever in this temple. Each was made
of a single stone of red granite, without join or rivet.

86 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

Her Majesty began the work in the fifteenth year of her
reign, the first day of the month Mechir, and finished it
on the last day of the month Mesore, of the sixteenth
year, making seven months from its commencement
in the quarry," or mountain. This proves that at this
time the kings dated their regnal year from the day
of their accession to the throne, and that the com-
mencement of the queen's reign fell in the interval
of the seven months mentioned in the inscription.
Memorials of this queen exist at Medinat Habu, El
Assasif, and elsewhere, allied with that of Thothmes

II. At a later period she appears as co-regent with
his successor Thothmes III, and takes precedence of
him upon the monuments.

No document has preserved a record of the in-
trigues or discords of the palace which prevailed after
the death of Thothmes II ; but the disturbance in the
public monuments which reflected the passions of the
period, shows that some catastrophe like those which
sullied the throne of the Ptolemies happened at this
remote period. Hasheps at first, probably to con-
ciliate public opinion, associated Thothmes III, then
a youth, with herself upon the throne. The dedica-
tion of the statue of Anebni, a prince and military
officer of the period, states that it was made by the
orders of the queen Hasheps and her brother Thothmes

III, for the deceased noble. The mines of the Wady
Magarah, abandoned since the twelfth dynasty, were
re-opened in the sixteenth year of the joint reign of
Hasheps and Thothmes. A tablet in the Vatican,
unfortunately not dated, shows the brother and sister
invested with equal power. No later date is known of

NEW EMPIRE. 87

their joint sway, and the avenging chisel has obliterated
her name out of every accessible monument of the
country in which her title and authority were placed on
a par with that of Thothmes. After the fall of his sister,
Thothmes directed his attention to Asiatic campaigns ;
but how this bold ambitious woman fell does not appear,
and the statues which remain of the queen offer none
of those traits which announce great intellectual powers
or exalted ambition.

The reign of Thothmes III was the zenith of the
greatness of Egypt. It is clear that he must have been
a man of remarkable courage and capacity. Not only
did he repulse the nations of the North and subject
the tribes of the South, but he adorned Egypt and
Nubia with magnificent temples and noble works of
art. He appeared in person in the field of battle,
and no consideration of personal safety or exalted
grandeur retained him on the banks of the Nile
while ambition and glory led his footsteps to the
plains of Mesopotamia and the sources of the Tigris
and Euphrates. The records of the reign of
Thothmes are principally preserved at the- sandstone
wall which surrounds the granite sanctuary of Karnak,
built by this monarch. It is there that he has re-
corded his expeditions or campaigns. The first of
these he undertook in the twenty-second year of his
reign, and in the month Pharmouthi he marched
from Tanis, the Egyptian Tsaru or Taru, the
frontier town of North-eastern Egypt with his army.
On the month of Pashons of the next year of his
reign he arrived at Tsaha or Gaza; the date of
the month is not mentioned, but it was the day

88 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

of the anniversary of the festival of the coronation.
On the 5th of the same month he marched from the
town of Gaza to meet the enemy. On the i6th day
of the same month he arrived at the town of Jaham,
and marched thence towards Maketa or Megiddo, in
the plains of which the enemy had concentrated his
forces. Two roads were offered to his choice. The
first and most direct passed by Aaluna, supposed to
be Eglon, and Taunakas; the other passed by Tapheta
orTsafta, and led to the north of Megiddo. The con-
federated kings in alliance against Egypt were the
Ruten, the Kharu or Syrians and the prince of Katesh
or Kadytis; and on the ipth of the month Pashons of
the twenty-third year the camp of the Egyptians was
pitched at Aaluna. After a painful march Thothmes
arrived at seven in the morning at the south of Me-
giddo, on the bank of the river or Lake Kaina. ' On
the 22nd of the month Pashons, three days after, the
king engaged the enemy. " His majesty/' says the text,
"advanced in his gilded chariot, ornamented with wooden
decorations, like the god Harmachis, the entire lord, and
Mentu of the Thebaid. His father Amen kept guard
over the victorious exploits of his arms. The southern
horn or wing of the army of his majesty was on the
banks of the Kaina," the Lake Gennesareth, " and the
north wing on the North-west of the town of Megiddo.
His majesty was in the centre. Behold how his
majesty attacked them. They fell," it continues to say,
" prostrate in the neighbourhood of Maketa through
sheer terror ; they quitted their chariots adorned with
gold and silver, in which they were drawn, and fled
in their clothes to the town of Maketa or Megiddo.

NEW EMPIRE. 89

When they reached that spot they were drawn up by
their clothes into the fortress."

The Egyptian army it appears did not halt for the
spoil, but continued to slaughter the enemy, who lay in
ranks like fishes in a ditch. After the retreat of the con-
federated Syrian and Mesopotamian princes the troops
returned to take the spoil, entered into the fortress
of Megiddo, and appear to have either entrenched it
with a palisade, or made another palisaded camp of
wood in the neighbourhood. The chiefs of the
neighbouring country tendered their submission to
Thothmes ; they came bearing gold and precious
stones, and other valuables, and skins of wine, which
the king ordered them to convey to the fleet. Amongst
the captured spoil was the chariot of the king, and his
brass armour, 340 captives, 2041 horses, 1920 oxen,
22,500 goats, and nearly 3,000,000 bushels of corn.
Three fortresses were captured at the same time, named
Inunamu, Anaugas, and Hurankal, which belonged
to the Ruten or Syrians. The number of slaves,
prisoners of war, and other persons captured amounted
to 2503, besides, a considerable spoil of gold and
silver vases, rings of gold and silver, chains, statues
and other furniture, brazen vessels and garments. As
far as Egypt was concerned, the victory at Megiddo
opened to it the road to Central Asia. The annals of
Thothmes are by no means complete, notwithstanding
the accession to their details by inscriptions recently
discovered. The subsequent years are however men-
tioned at Karnak. In the twenty-third and twenty-
fourth year the Ruten or Syrians continued to bring
their tribute, and Thothmes also received the same

HISTORY OF EGYPT.

from Assur or Assyria. From this period there is a
gap to the twenty-ninth year of his reign, which was
the year of his fifth campaign. The king took some
place, the name of which is too mutilated to make out,
and the army congratulated the king upon it. From
Tunep he took the prince or chief, 329 warriors, 100
tens or pounds of gold, besides vases of bronze and
metal. The fleet of the king sailed to Egypt laden
with the spoil. On his path he attacked the land of
Areta, possibly Aradus, spoiled it of its grain, and cut
down its trees. The land of Tahai, or Northern Phoe-
nicia, also fell before his march. He "found the
magazines full of corn, and the wine in their presses
like waves." Their corn, it states, was in abundant
heaps, and the army was satiated with the quantity
of things it found there. The quantity of spoil in the
expedition amounted to fifty-one slaves, thirty-two
head of cattle, twelve silver cups, incense, balsam,
honey, iron, lead, different kinds of precious stones,
bread, barley, flour, and the soldiers had rations
served out to them the same in quantity as during the
festivals in Egypt. Although the inscription does not
state it, the fact appears to be that Thothmes returned
to Egypt. In his thirtieth year the king made a sixth
expedition to the land of the Ruten or Northern Syria,
one of the most civilized nations with whom the
ancient Egyptians came in contact. The king ap-
proached the town of Kadesh, apparently the capital of
the Ruten, and seated on the banks of the Arunata or
Orontes. Kadesh was spoiled, the magazines were
emptied of their grain to supply the Egyptian commis-
sariat From thence Thothmes marched to the towns

NEW EMPIRE. 91

Simyra and Arattu, and treated them in the same
manner. The princes of the Rutennu or Syrians gave
their sons and brethren to Egypt, and a particular
number appears to have been kept up as a pledge of
their submission, for the tablet states, if any of the
chiefs died, his majesty made another come in his
place. Their number is unfortunately wanting on the
tablet; but 181 slaves, 188 horses, and forty chariots
ornamented with gold and silver, were the spoil or
tribute of that country. In the same year another
place, named Hansatu, on the Lake Nesrana, was cap-
tured in an instant, and all the booty carried off. It
amounted to 490 persons, twenty horses, and thirteen
chariots with their harness. Hansatu must conse-
quently have been an. insignificant city or a small
garrisoned fort. Indeed the inscriptions do not dis-
close in any instance places with a large population in
this part of Asia. Besides the spoils obtained by
military expeditions, the annual tribute still continued.
The Rutennu or Syrian princes brought slaves, silver
vases to the weight of 762 pounds, 19 chariots, 276 head
of cattle, 4622 goats, which seem to have abounded
in that region, hundredweights of iron, lead, armour,
and rare plants, which were interesting to the Egyptian
monarch or introduced into Egypt. The stations ap-
parently of the route of the march of the Egyptian
army were supplied with wine, honey, figs, bread,
dates and other vegetable food. The quantity brought
was inscribed on a roll in the palace, too numerous
to detail on the inscription. On his return to Egypt
the king was met by the Kanebti 1 , probably some

1 Probably the "pillars" of the Egyptian state or principal officers.
Compare Judges xx. 2 ; I Samuel xiv. 38; Isaiah xix. 13.

92 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

of the neighbouring tribes or colonists of Northern
Egypt, for the tribute they brought was the gums and
spices of Arabia. In that year also the tributes or
embassies had been received from Kush or Ethiopia,
especially the Uauat, who were nearest to the confines
of Egypt : ten negroes for domestic servitude, 243 head
of cattle, and boats laden with tusks of ivory, logs of
ebony, panther skins, and the other products of the
country arrived. The Uauat amongst other things sent
ninety-two head of cattle, and the herds of this part of
the South, appear to have been offered as tribute to
Egypt. They were the long-horned variety of domestic
cattle, and the horns and tuft of hair on the head were,
by artificial plaiting and carving, made to represent the
fantastic device of the bust of a negro raising his arms as
if in supplication; or bowls of water containing live fish
were placed between their capacious horns. In his thirty-
third year, the eighth campaign of this warrior king
found him again in the land of Syria. His majesty
approached a spot, either in Syria or the vicinity, where
he placed one of those tablets which recorded the
advance of the Egyptian army. Thothmes found
already on the site a tablet of his father Thothmes I.
Supposing that Syria is intended by the name of the
Ruten, the place approached by Thothmes might be
supposed to be the Nahr-el-Kelb or Lycus, in the neigh-
bourhood of Beyrout, and some of the tablets on the
rock destroyed by the effect of time thought to be
that sculptured by Thothmes I ; but as Thothmes soon
afterwards passed into the land of Naharaina, or
Mesopotamia, it is hardly possible that the Nahr-el-
Kelb lay in the line of march. It is, however, the pass

NEW EMPIRE. 93

leading to Northern Syria, and the Egyptians, Assyrians,
Persians, and Romans, traversed it on their passage
between Egypt, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia. It
would appear that Thothmes III had a fleet on the
Euphrates, and in an action which took place with the
Assyrians, he defeated and chased the enemy for
the distance of an Egyptian atur, supposed to be equal
to the Greek skoinos, or single towing of a boat.
Eighty men, thirty women, 606 slaves, were captured
on the occasion, and the monarch, who had advanced
beyond Ninii or Nineveh, returned to that city. The
king set up a tablet on the occasion which recorded,
like a trophy, his victories, and at the same time
marked like a boundary stone the limits of his empire.
The tribute received consisted of 513 slaves, 260
horses, gold to the amount of forty-five pounds, and
gold vases, the work of the Tahai. These great
craters or goblets, often mentioned in Egyptian annals,
and seen on the monuments, were of large size, with
handles in shape of animals or the human figure,
and with flowers or tall stems running round the tops.
They were inlaid with cloisonne-work, not enamel, of
stone of lapis lazuli, glass, and other precious stones,
or their imitations. They were as celebrated at this
period as the vases of Sidon were at a later date ; and
the Tahai, as already mentioned, were situated to the
North of Palestine.

Besides the vases, chariots, which the Egyptians re-
quired for the purposes of war, 564 head of cattle and
5323 goats, incense, products and fruit came from the
same land to Egypt. It will be remarked that neither
the camel nor the sheep is enumerated among the

94 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

herds brought by the Egyptians. The zebu or the
humped buffalo, and the horse, are principally men-
tioned ; asses came but seldom, and there were rarer
animals, offered as curiosities to the Egyptian monarchs
to stock their parks. Some unimportant contributions
are mentioned from the land of Ermen or Armenia;
they are principally ducks, for domestic fowl had not
yet left the jungles of India. Besides the tribute of
Naharaina or Mesopotamia, the prince or king of
Senkara or Singara, brought in the same year lapis
lazuli, a substance much prized and often mentioned
in the Egyptian inscriptions. Some of this came from
Babalu or Babylon. An artificial imitation of blue colour
was often moulded into a small shape, and speci-
mens exactly alike as to material, have been found on
the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile. The chief
of Singara offered in that year the head of a ram of
that substance. It weighed fifteen Egyptian ounces or
2 1 oo grs. troy. The tribute of another country, supposed
to be the Khita, but possibly the Rutennu, came in the
same year to the king on his return from the cam-
paign in Mesopotamia. It consisted of 301 pounds
of silver in eight rings, a great block of some peculiar
stone, and the usual chariots. It has been already seen
how Hasheps, the sister of the king, had explored for
the first time the land of Arabia ; and in this same year
Punt or Arabia supplied 1685 quantities, called haks, of
spices; while Kush or Ethiopia sent 134 slaves and
419 head of cattle, beside boat loads of ivory, ebony,
panther skins, and other products. Uaua also con-
tributed a tribute of the like kind. In the thirty-fourth
year of his reign the king entered on his ninth expedi-

NEW EMPIRE. 95

tion, and attacked the land of Tahai. He took three
fortresses, one of which, Anaukasa, has been already
mentioned, besides prisoners, women, and children,
forty horses, chariots, above fifty pounds of gold in
rings and vases, and 153 pounds of silver, 326 head of
cattle, 130 goats, and seventy asses, besides various
kinds of wools, and the poles of a tent. Asses formed
part of the tribute of these people. The annual
tribute of the Rutennu or Syrians in the same year,
was thirty-four chariots, 704 slaves, also fifty-four pounds
of gold, all sorts of gems, copper or iron baa, lead,
various stones, felspar, 530 head of cattle, eighty-four
asses, quantities of dates, balsam, wine. Each of the
stations, or probably the garrisoned posts of the country,
was provided with all necessary things for its mainte-
nance, while boats or galleys from it traversed the sea,
bringing with them the logs of the different kinds of
wood so imperatively required for the treeless valley
of the Nile. In the same year the chief or prince, Asi,
also brought a tribute of copper, lead, lapis lazuli,
while Rush or Ethiopia, brought its cattle, 275 in
number, ivory and ebony, and the Uauat 254 pounds
of gold and ten slaves, for as a general rule the South
was richer than the North in gold. In the thirty-fifth
year of his reign the king began his tenth campaign.
Unfortunately the details are much mutilated on the
monuments, but it appears that a battle of considerable
importance was fought in Naharaina, where an army
had been concentrated to resist the progress of the
Egyptians. They are said to have been defeated and
cut in pieces, falling on one another in their flight, and
the land was spoiled again. Chariots, armour, and

9 6 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

bows were the principal things taken ; some of the
bows came from the Kharubu, possibly Aleppo ; for it
was thence at a later period that the Pharaohs obtained
the delicious wine of Syria. The battle took place at
a spot called Arana. In the same year came olhertribute
from Ethiopia. Fragments only remain of the tributes of
his thirty-seven years, when Kharu and Kush brought
their usual quota of slaves and cattle. In the next
year, the thirty-eighth, Thothmes began a new cam-
paign, the thirteenth of his expeditions : he sacked the
country of Anaukasa, which must have revolted from
his yoke. The tributes and spoils were of the same
nature as those previously detailed; captives, horses,
chariots and slaves, collar of gold, vases, some of the
class called by the Greeks rhyton, and which could not
be laid on the table till the contents were drank out.
These were in shape of the head of a lion or goat,
and weighed 2821 pounds of gold. Conserves or
balsams, cattle, forty-six asses and one deer, tables of
cedar and ivory, fragrant and other woods, were
contributed by the different cities, as also a galley, the
work of Remennu or Armenia, fruit of Tahai or
Northern Phoenicia, metals from the Asi, apparently
a country of mines and rich in the products of the
lower metals, are mentioned. From the land of
Ameresk or Elasi, the chief sent male and female
slaves, vases, thirty-five logs of cedar wood, showing
that it was seated in the highlands of Armenia. Punt
or Arabia contributed its gums and spices, obtained
by the negroes, and Kush sent in slaves, 306
head of cattle, while Uauat sent slaves, cattle, and
other products. Next year, the thirty-ninth, was the

NEW EMPIRE. 97

fourteenth campaign, and in this the king attacked the
Shasu, but it does not appear if successfully, and a
tribute was brought by the Rutennu or Syrians, the
most remarkable portion of which was 1497 pounds
of silver, and the usual plate or gold and silver vases
of the Tahai, which had also sent some tribute of corn
and wine in the same year. Possibly to the fortieth year
is to be referred contributions of the A si, which sent
ivory as well as metals. In the forty-first year the
king again attacked Aranta and Tunep, and received
the usual tribute from the lands of the Rutennu and
the Khita. The operations of this or the next year
were directed against the fort of Aranatu and the
fortresses of Kanana. He approached the land of
Tunep, destroyed the fort, took the corn, and laid
waste the groves. He also seems to have had another
expedition against Kadesh, and to have fought the
people of Naharaina, and in the battle which ensued a
great deal of spoil was taken. In the unfortunately
fragmentary texts which follow, the Tanai or Danai
are mentioned, as also vases of the Kefa or Phoenicia,
and the usual tributes of Kush or Ethiopia. The
victories of the monarch were supposed to be due to
the interposition, the gift, or the oracular responses of
the god Amen, and the monarch in gratitude offered
sacrifices to the god and offerings of various kinds.
He made workshops for the slaves of the temple, and
appointed negro doorkeepers, and gave four milch
cows, some from the land of Tahai, to fill the golden
milk-pails which supplied the services of the god.
The three fortresses of the Rutennu, named Anaukasa,
lunamaa, and Hurantalu, were charged with supplying

H

9 8 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

other food. The lake of the temple was provided with
geese, and two offered at sunset daily. The four
obelisks placed at the pylons or doors of the temple
had also a kind of sacrifice or offering appointed
to them, probably as types of the god Amen. Each
obelisk had twenty-five rations of bread, and one
draught or pint of beer.

The sacred statues placed at the threshold or jambs
of the door, had also offerings appointed to their
worship. To the images he also gave sacred vest-
ments. The meadow was renewed, and rich and
varied offerings given to the god, and processions of
the statues of the king and of the god were instituted.
The captives that were taken in these wars, reduced to
slavery, were employed on the public works like con-
victs of the present day. They are represented on the
walls of a tomb at Thebes in such a manner that it
depicts vividly to the eye the unjust and cruel slavery
to which the people of Israel had been reduced by the
Pharaoh who knew not Joseph. There are the brick
makers, the drawers of water, the bearers of the heavy
burdens, and the severe taskmasters of the land of
bondage, while their Asiatic countenances resemble
those of the Semitic, and especially the Hebrew race.

There are several monuments which supplement the
annals of the reign. The most remarkable is that of
Rekhmara, an officer of high rank of the reign. There
is the tribute of the Rutennu, who, besides the rich plate,
the gold and silver vases, jars of wine, bring chariots,
arms, snow-white steeds, and bay horses, the cinnamon
coloured bear known as the Ursus Syriacus, found in
the ranges of the Taurus, and a young Asiatic ele-

NEW EMPIRE.

99

phant, coloured red, besides tusks of the same animal.
As the elephant is not found nearer than India, and about
eight centuries later, although brought as tribute to Shal-
maneser, was not well known to the Assyrians, who re-
presented it with the ears of a horse, it is evident that the
Ruten extended their rule to the very confines of India.
The tribute of Kefa or Phoenicia, and its dependent colo-
nies " in the midst of the great basin or sea/' consisted
of gold and silver in rings, and vases of the shapes
already described ; but it is startling to find in the tri-
bute a gold vase in shape of the head of a cock;
an evident mistake of the modern artist for the eagle's
head with raised feathers, as seen on the monuments of
Assyria. Jewels, plates of gold, and ivory, are brought
by this highly civilized people, whose short tunic round
the loins, of many colours, resembles the Egyptians, but
whose pointed shoes on the feet are those of the
Etruscan larths or lords. Their hair is in front
twisted into a kind of Irutus or curl, and falls long-
down their backs behind. The races of the South
appear probably as the natives of the land Uauat
or distant countries, and of Kush or Ethiopia. The
tributes of those nearest to Egypt, probably the Uauat,
just beyond the boundaries of Assouan, are obelisks
of red syenite, gold, silver, and jewels, ivory, panther
skins, and the same animal, logs of ebony, the cynoce-
phalus, and another ape, the ibex, but of smaller size, the
eggs and feathers of the ostrich, and rare trees. The
other races of Kush or Ethiopia bring -the same, but
in addition, red jasper, hamka, and the amazon stone or
emerald, kasem. The animals are also of the same
species, larger and smaller apes, but there are also the

H 2

100 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

bloodhounds or the dogs that hunted men, mentioned
at a later period as sent by Queen Candace. Two
different kinds of long-horned oxen also appear in
droves; one variety has the horns turned down; of these
oxen some are white, and others red. The herds of
Ethiopia have been mentioned in the statistical tablet or
annals of Thothmes, and the tomb of Rekhmara is a
series of vignettes or pictorial comments on the events
there described. Other monuments record some of the
actions of Thothmes, the obelisk of the Atmeidan at
Constantinople the conquest of Mesopotamia.

There is however one monument which describes
in poetical language the exploits and extents of the
dominions of Thothmes. It speaks in the name of
Ammon, and declares that the god has let the king
extend his rule to the poles of heaven and limits
of the earth. Thothmes, it states, had navigated the
sea and the great rivers of Mesopotamia, had con-
quered the Aamu or Asiatics, and taken Kadesh
Taha or Northern Syria, Taneter or Northern Arabia
the seats of the Maten or Asia Minor, the Tahennu
or Libyans, the Isles of Tena or the Danai, in the
Mediterranean, probably those of the Archipelago,
Kenus or Nubia, Remen or Armenia, Kefa or Phoenicia,
the country of Asi, perhaps the original name of Asia,
the Isles of the Utena, and that already at the time
of the sixth dynasty. "I have let thee smite," it says,
" the land of Taha or Northern Syria ; I have let them
see thy majesty ; as the lord of sunbeams, thou shinest
in their faces like my image. I have let thee," it
adds in another passage, " smite the East ; thou hast
marched in the confines of the land of Taneter ; it sees

NEW EMPIRE. JO I

thy majesty like a comet, which warms by its fire
and throws forth its vapour." In similar strains the
great conqueror is compared to the bull, the lion, the
crocodile, and the hawk, all used in the hieroglyphs
to indicate the idea of a king and a hero. It will be
seen that the exploits of Thothmes correspond to those
of Sesostris, whose armies and victories are supposed
to embrace the world as known to the ancients, and
to have penetrated to the North of Greece, and almost
to Central Europe.

The last monument of this important reign is that
of Amenemheb, one of the generals of that day. He
had fought in the land of Kabu, and taken three
prisoners, and as many in Mesopotamia ; thirteen
others he had taken in the land of Van, which lay to
the West of Kharubu or Aleppo, besides seventy asses,
and other prisoners at the well-known site of Karakama-
sha or Carchemish. In his first campaign against Ka-
desh he had made two officers of the enemy prisoners,
and killed in combat an enemy in the land of Tachisi,
and captured three more prisoners. The king, who
appears to have liberally rewarded his great captain,
to whom the success of his arms was due, with a
munificence worthy of so great a sovereign, bestowed
upon Amenemheb collars, bracelets, and buckles of
gold, chains, and silver rings, besides the decorations
of flies and lions, which were, like the modern cross,
an honourable distinction to mark the person of the
monarch or the services of his officers. Amenemheb
had accompanied the king to the land of 'Nil, ap-
parently India or its confines, and was there present
at the hunt of 120 elephants, which the king chased

102 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

for their ivory. The largest or rogue elephant of the
herd rushed at the monarch, and the king was saved
by Amenemheb, who cut off its trunk and captured
the beast alive. Another of the actions of this officer
was crossing the waters at the spot known as the Two
Rocks, situated in Syria or Mesopotamia. He was
also present at a battle before Kadesh, so often at-
tacked by Egypt. The king of Kadesh started a wild
mare to run against the king, and she got amongst
the troops or division of Amenemheb ; but this valiant
officer followed her a foot, ripped her up, and cut
off the tail, which he presented to the king. Present
at the second siege of Kadesh, he breached the walls
and led the forlorn hope, taking two more prisoners
on the occasion. He appears to have afterwards been
captain of the royal barge at Thebes.

The empire extended in the South to the Karu or
Kalu, apparently the Gallas and Abyssinia ; and a series
of temples and monuments at Amada, Certe, Talmis,
Pselcis, Semneh, and Koumme, bear his name.
Ethiopia or the Soudan was governed by Nahi, a royal
son or "a prince of Kush," who ruled the country in the
name of the king, and to whom was no doubt due the
regular remission of the tribute. At Abu or Elephan-
tine, a temple to Khnum was constructed, and an
obelisk from it is at Sion House. At Ombos, Esneh
or Latopolis, Eileithyia, and Hermonthis, Thothmes
erected also temples, but all of them except a few
stones have disappeared. The capital of the dynasty,
however, " Thebes with its hundred gates," was most
favoured by the monarch. In the Karnak quarter he
.built a small temple to Ptah, and the so-called granite

NEW EMPIRE. 103

sanctuary. The tombs in Libyan range, behind
Gournah, and the El-Assasif are full of scenes of
the reign of Thothmes. Two great obelisks of 108
cubits high, with gilded tops, are recorded in these
sepulchres, also the vast sum of 36,692 pounds of gold
At Memphis and Heliopolis the name of Thothmes
shows that these cities had not been neglected. A tablet
of the forty-seventh year of his reign records that he
had surrounded the temple of the god Ra or the Sun,
at An, or the biblical On, as the city was called, with
a wall, while the magnificent obelisks of Alexandria
and Rome with his name seem to have come from
that city. At the Sarabit-el-Khadim, in the Arabian
peninsula, besides the tablet of the sixteenth year
of his reign with his sister, one of the twenty- fifth
year of his sole dominion, an officer records that
he had come at the head of his troops to convoy
that which was agreeable to the monarch, the products
of the lands of the gods of mafka, turquoise or
copper. A fragment of a papyrus in the British
Museum has the account of an historical incident
not elsewhere found. It records the betrayal of a
fortress of the luima or people of the sea by an
Egyptian officer in their confidence. The stratagem
by which the place was taken recalls to mind the
story of Ali Baba rather than a military event. Two
hundred men were put with cords and yokes into jars.
Thus introduced into the city, they bound the garri-
son with bonds, and handed the town over to
Thothmes. As all the other compositions on the
same papyrus are works of imagination, this may
after all not be an historical event. The Aperu, sup-

104 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

posed by some to be the Hebrews, are mentioned
amongst the other nations conquered by Thothmes.

On the 30th of the month Phamenoth, in the fifty-
fourth year of his reign, Thothmes died. From the
youthful age at which he had been placed upon the
throne it is not probable that his life exceeded sixty
years, enough for one so glorious and so active, and
who has left so indelible a streak in the history
of the world. His wife bore the same name as his
sister; she was probably of the family, but it is un-
certain if she was the mother of his successor.

Although some incline to the idea that the Exodus
took place about this reign, as the more prevalent
idea is that it happened at the close of the next
dynasty, it is merely necessary to point here to that
supposition, reserving its consideration to that part
of the narrative.

His successor, Amenhetp II, ascended his throne
surrounded by difficulties. It is always more difficult
to retain than to acquire foreign conquests. The
Asiatics threw off the yoke of Egypt, and Amenhetp
had to march like his predecessor to the plains of
Mesopotamia. There he made eighteen Asiatic
prisoners, and captured himself nineteen head of cattle.
Subsequently the monarch took the city of Nineveh,
the present Kouyunjik, and a city named Akerti or
Akourit. A tablet at the temple of Amada, dedi-
cated to the gods Harmachis and Amon, records
some of the exploits of Amenhetp. It states that
he had killed with his mace seven kings in the town of
Takhisa, and slung them before his war galley. Six of
these kings and their hands were hanged before the

NEW EMPIRE. 105

ramparts of Thebes. The other king or chief was
sent down the river to Nubia, and hanged on the walls
of Napata, as an example to the negroes, ever too ready
to revolt. At Thebes, amongst his prisoners, recur
the names of Nubia, the Shasu or Arabs, and Phoe-
nicians, whom he had to reconquer. His reign was
short, but its exact duration is uncertain. Tablets of
the fourth and seventh year of his reign are found at
the Sarabit-el-Khadim.

His successor, Thothmes IV, is chiefly known in
connexion with the great Sphinx at Gizeh, one of
the marvels of the old world. It is by no means
certain that he cut this monument out of the solid
rock, for it appears from the chapel in its neighbour-
hood, and an inscription already cited in the fourth
dynasty, to have been a work of a more remote anti-
quity. In his first year Thothmes set up a votive tablet
of fourteen feet high between the forepaws of this
colossal work, which measures more than 180 feet in
length. The tablet records the merits of the king in
embellishing Heliopolis and Memphis. The Sphinx
represented Harmachis or the Sun on the horizon, and
the king refers his ascension of the throne to the favour
of that god. It has been remarked that the great
devotion of Thothmes to the worship of Ra or the
Sun, shown here and elsewhere, foreshadowed the
religious revolution which took place at the close of
the reign of his successor. The triumphs of his reign
consisted of some easy conquests, in the South, of
negro tribes, recorded on a tablet of the seventh year
of his reign in the island of Konosso.

Thothmes also reigned but a short time, and was

I06 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

succeeded by Amenhetp III, or Amenophis, con-
sidered by the Greek epitomists to be Memnon, the
son of Heos or Aurora, who appeared at the head
of his dusky warriors at the Trojan War, on the
slender foundation of his statue at Thebes giving out
musical sounds at sunrise. The tablets sculptured
on the rocks at the quarries of Tourah, near the
ancient Memphis, dated in the first and second year
of his reign, announce that he had re-opened them
for the reparation of the temples of the North and
South. The first historical inscription of his reign
is the account of some triumphs over the negroes in
his fifth year, inscribed on a tablet engraved on the
rocks in the neighbourhood of Philae, and designated
one of his first campaigns. -A tablet from Samneh
mentions the rapid passage which the king had made
on the Upper Nile in a day and an hour, where he
sailed or rowed fifty-two atours, an unknown distance,
no doubt of considerable length, extending from the
station of Baka, and reaching to Atarii or Adulis. In
this great razzia the king had taken a great number
of prisoners of war or rather slaves, amounting to
150 negroes, no boys, 250 negresses, 55 judges,
175 of their children, 740 in all, besides the usual
trophies of 3 1 2 hands of the dead enemy, making a
total of 1052 head of negroes, killed and captured in
this one expedition. It is remarkable to find the
negroes counted like cattle, by "heads" instead of
"persons," as the Egyptians are, and that they were
not ruled by kings or chiefs, but by "judges," an
institution subsequently adopted by the Hebrews
after the Exodus. There is no trace of such a form

NEW EMPIRE. 107

of government in Egypt, but it may have been the re-
sult of a theocratic rule prevailing at the time amongst
the inhabitants of Kush. It is probable that the queen
Tii was about this time married to the monarch.
Her origin was evidently foreign, for she is represented
as pink or flesh-coloured, the tint of the Japhetic
races on the monuments. The scarabaei which record
their marriage state thai her father's name was luaa,
and her mother's Tuaa. This strange and probably
foreign woman exerted at a later period a marked
influence on the politics of Egypt. The scarabaei issued
in his tenth year mention that from the first to the tenth
year he had killed with his own arrows no fierce
lions, a passion for the chase like Nimrod, or for the
battue like that of an Assyrian monarch or Roman
gladiator. At a later period another monarch of
Egypt was seen giving battle to these lords of the
desert, or entering the battle-field accompanied by
his faithful lion. Some scarabaei dated in his eleventh
year, foreshadow the religious revolution which was
impending. On the first of the month Athyr of
that year he had constructed a great lake or basin,
3000 cubits long and 600 cubits broad, or about 5000
feet by 1000 feet, English measure. On the i6th of
the month he celebrated a festival, and brought into
it the boat of the solar disk, called Atennefru, "the
most lovely disk." This worship of the sun's orb or
disk was not unknown in Egypt, and was allied with
that of Ra. In the Aten may perhaps be recognised
the solar disk or orb specially worshipped by the
Ethiopians, and the mother of Amenophis was of that
race. In it some have seen the Hebrew Adonai or

103 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

" Lord," and the Syrian Adonis. To this new form
of worship, allied with that of the sun, Amenophis in-
clined, but it was necessary to introduce it by degrees,
and at the close of his reign the attempt to change
the capital and religion of the country was unsuc-
cessfully made.

In the same year there is a tablet recording certain
endowments of the temple of Karnak, and invoking
curses on all daring to disturb the provisions of its
gift, or employ the slaves on other work than the
service of the temple. While Ethiopia continued to
be governed by a royal prince or viceroy, who was
named at this time Merimes, the frontiers of Egypt
continued to reach to the land of Mesopotamia,
Asiatic and negro tributaries are seen in the tombs
of Thebes prostrating themselves in his presence and
offering the accustomed tribute of ivory, ostrich
feathers, panther skins, baskets of gems, and metals ;
while at the temple of Soleb the lands of the North,
Naharaina or Mesopotamia, Singara, Pattana or
Padan-Aram, and Assur or Assyria are recorded
amongst his conquests or possessions. His chief
exploits were, however, over the Ethiopians, and his
dominion reached to Karu or Kalu, perhaps Coloe,
or Gallas in the South. The numerous Nigritic names
recorded on his monuments show that the South par-
ticularly attracted his attention.

A monument of the thirtieth year of his reign repre-
sents him receiving the account of a great harvest
from the store-keepers of Upper and Lower Egypt.
This monarch also renewed the construction of the
Sarbit - el - Khadim in the peninsula of Sinai, and

NEW EMPIRE.

IO9

tablets with his name dated in his thirty-fifth and
thirty-sixth years, have been found on the site, the last
of those of the eighteenth dynasty. Amenophis was a
great builder of palaces and temples ; and the temple
of Amon-Ra at Luxor, that of Khnum at Elephantine,
and of Soleb in Nubia, besides the two colossal statues

which he placed before
the palace of Luxor, rep-
resenting him seated on
his throne, attest his de-
votion to architecture and
sculpture. The North-
ern colossus, the upper
part of which was broken
by an earthquake B.C. 27,
was the so-called vocal
Memnon. Restored by
the Roman emperor Se-
verus about A.D. 160, it
spoke no more to the
rising beams of morn-
ing. Amenophis must lie
under the reproach of
having been too much
under female influence,
but the empire was still
maintained in its integ-
rity. His son, Amenhetp

Khuenaten adoring the Sun's disk. IV, who had been ap-
pointed in the lifetime

of his father, became an heretical fanatic of the the
worst sort. He carried the worship of the " disk," or

HO HIST'ORY OF EGYPT.

Aten, to its extreme limits, and persecuted all other
forms of deities except those of the purely solar gods.
In this he appears to have been principally guided by his
mother, the queen Tii, and the eunuchs and other officers
of his court. The disk itself was represented shedding
rays of light which often terminated in hands, and in the
hymns addressed to it in the tombs, is considered to be
the same as Amon-Ra, the creative power of the deity
and the creator and ruler of time. Amenhetp endea-
voured to remove the capital to Alabastron, the modern
Tel-el-Amarna, and the tablets and inscriptions there
dated in the sixth year of his reign, record his homage
to the disk. Not only are the scenes represented
peculiar the king is seen showering on his court
donations of various kinds from a window of the
palace, while the types, features, and the abject prostra-
tion of his court, and unusual freedom of art, show the
introduction of a foreign element into the annals of
the country. His power extended over Egypt and part
of Asia. At Silsilis is recorded the extraction of an
obelisk for the god Harmachis; a sanctuary he had
raised at Thebes was pulled down by his successor to
construct a gateway. The usual tributes came from
the Khara or Khalu of the North, the people of the East,
the isles of the Mediterranean, and Rush, while Asiatic
and negro soldiers filled the ranks of his army. His
reign did not extend for long time, and he had no
male issue but two daughters, whom he associated with
him in the empire in order to succeed him.

It would appear that Khuenaten, the name sub-
stituted in the latter days of Amenophis IV for his
original appellation, was succeeded after a short reign

NEW EMPIRE. Ill

by another monarch, who had married a queen bearing
the name of Atenmerit. They might have flourished
for a short time only, as the next monarch Ai, or Aui,
had held under Amenophis IV the rank of fan-bearer at
the king's right hand, and groom of the royal stud.
He played an important part during the reign of
Khuenaten. His name is found on the blocks of the
pylon of Horus, and tablets of his first and fourth year
are known of officers of his court, but the name of
Amen is not erased on these, and those of the usual
deities appear. Yet he was an object of hatred to his
successors, and the avenging chisel has mutilated his
name and features in his tomb, showing evidently that it
was violated, had he indeed been buried there. His tomb
was in the western valley of Thebes, and not finished.

His successor was Tutankhamen, whose name was
given to him in honour of the Theban god. It may per-
haps be conjectured that this monarch did not immedi-
ately succeed, but it is clear that his place in the dynasty
is at its close. It is, however, remarkable that Kush or
Ethiopia continued in his reign to be administered by
Hui and Amenhetp, the same princes who are men-
tioned as governors in the reign of Amenophis III.
A tomb at Thebes represents the tributes of the
Rutennu or Syrians ; they bring as tributes vases of
silver, gold, lapis lazuli, turquoise, and all the precious
stones of the country, and the usual presents of horses
and chariots. The prince of Ethiopia, Hui, sent up a
great embassy of negroes, both black and copper
coloured, accompanied by their queen drawn in a
bullock car. Besides the oxen, horses, and other
animals, the negroes bring many objects which show

112 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

a high refinement, and prove the influence of Egyptian
civilization and their capacity for improvement. At a
later period it will be seen that they brought chairs
and other articles of furniture as offerings to Egypt.
The reigns of the monarchs who succeeded Ameno-
phis III up to this period, are supposed to have lasted
thirty-four years, and their names do not appear in the
royal lists of Abydos, either that they were considered
usurpers, or that chronologically the duration of their
power was reckoned under their predecessors and
successors on the throne.

The last monarch of this dynasty was Haremhebi, or
Horus, of the lists of Manetho. No remarkably glorious
event distinguished his reign. Monuments are known
dated in the seventh year of his reign. Piety or his
beholding the gods, according to the Greek epitomists,
was his characteristic; but he made one campaign at
least against the Ethiopians. In the sculptures of
Silsilis are seen his exploits against that people, and
the legends which accompany the representation of his
triumphal march in a palanquin, call him " The Lion of
Kush." " His bow/' they add, " is in his hand, like
Mentu lord of Thebes, the powerful and glorious king,
leading captive the chiefs of the vile Kush. He
returns thence with the spoils he has captured as his
father Amon ordered him." These consisted of silver
and gold, ivory and ebony. The chant of the negroes
as they are led along is, " Incline thy face, oh king of
Egypt, Sun of Barbarians, great is thy name in Kush,
and thy war-cries in its places ; thy valour, oh good
king, has defeated the nations. Pharaoh is my sun !"
Horus destroyed the edifices of the heretic monarchs

NEW EMPIRE. 113

at Thebes, and built with the stones the fourth gateway
of the temple at Karnak, in honour of Amon, re-
established in his pristine glory. The name of the
god which had been cut out of the monuments of the
country was also reinserted in his reign.

The manner in which the nineteenth dynasty suc-
ceeded the eighteenth is unknown, probably owing to
Horus not having had any family, as although the
name of his wife Mutsnatem occurs on the monuments,
no prince or other member of his family is mentioned.
The first monarch of the dynasty was Rameses or
Ramses I, and he is supposed to have been connected
with marriage with the previous family. Perhaps the
wife of Horus survived that monarch, for she is repre-
sented on the monument under the form of a female
sphinx, showing that she exercised sovereignty in her
sole person, and Ramses may have married either the
widow of his predecessor or her daughter, and no
queen of this monarch is known. Little is known of
the reign of Rameses. A tablet of the Wady Haifa in
Nubia, dated in the second year of his reign, records
that he constructed a prison full of slaves, whom he
had taken prisoners in war, for the god Khem or Amen
Horus. From the treaty of his successor, Rameses II,
it appears that he had made a campaign against the
Khita in Northern Syria, and made a treaty with
Separuru or Sapor, the king who at that time ruled
over the Hittites. The details are however unknown.
The tomb of Rameses is in the Biban-el-Molook at
Thebes, and the paintings represent him adoring the
usual sepulchral deities, especially Turn or the setting
sun, lord of Heliopolis, and demiurgos or creator of

i

114 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

beings, who promises the sun to come forth like the
sun in heaven, and be like that luminary. Rameses
had no time to recover the lost power and territories
of Egypt, and the task devolved on his son and suc-
cessor Seti I. The first year of this monarch re-
presents him in arms against the Asiatics, and his
victories almost equal those of the kings of the
eighteenth dynasty. His battles are sculptured on the
outer walls of the temple of Amon at Karnak, in a
series of pictures representing his successive cam-
paigns. In the first of these the monarch is in the
country of the Remenen or Armenia ; the chiefs appear
in homage before him, cutting down their woods to
construct a fleet on the river. This country is stated
to be connected with the Ruten, the Assyria or
Northern Syria. In the second of these pictures Seti
mounted in his chariot attacks the Shasu or Arabs.
These invaders of Egypt, who had made themselves
masters of the country just prior to the eighteenth
dynasty, had evidently again invaded the Eastern
frontier, for the accompanying Egyptian inscriptions
state that in his first year Sethos "had attacked the
hostile Shasu, who inhabit the town of Pithom, even to
the land of Kanana or ' Canaan/ His majesty sur-
prised them like a strong lion, and made a slaughter
of them in their valley. They lay on the ground in
their blood, so that none could escape his fury to
tell his prowess to the people."

In the third picture Seti attacks the Rutennu, and
later the fortress of Innumau, which had been formerly
captured by Thothmes III, and its revenues bestowed
on the temple of Amon. In the battle under its walls

NEW EMPIRE. 115

the chariots of the enemy were entirely routed. In this
third picture the king enters the desert occupied by the
Shasu, and changes the names of the fortresses taken in
the march into Egyptian ones connected with his own,
as if founded by him to maintain his conquests. The
Kharu or Khalu, a maritime people, apparently on the
coast of Syria, offer tribute and submission. On his
return to Egypt his chariot is laden with the chiefs of
the Ruten, whom he drags at its wheels like the
legendary Sesostris, and this forms the subject of the
fifth picture. In the last of the series he marches back
by the desert of Uagi, Makatala or Migdol, and the
City of the Lions, or Leontopolis, to the fort of Taru
or Garu, the frontier town of Egypt, probably Hero-
opolis, if it is not Pithom, which has been at all times
the frontier and key of Egypt. It is represented as
placed on the left bank of the Nile, and the river is full
of crocodiles : these at that time descended almost if
not quite to the sea. Over the stream is a bridge, the
earliest example in the monuments of this mode of
traversing a river. The inscription states that the
prophet, high priests, and chiefs or governors of Upper
and Lower Egypt, have come to make obeisance to the
king on his victorious return from the land of the
Ruten. "Thou hast returned," it says, ".from the
lands thou hast defeated, justified against thy enemies.
The length of thy reign is like that of the sun in
heaven ; thou hast washed thy heart in the barbarians,
and the sun has placed thy frontiers. The arms of the
sun have protected thee, while thy mace fell on the
heart of all the countries, and thy sword slaughtered
their inhabitants." From Tsaru or Tanis the monarch

I 2

Il6 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

proceeded to Thebes, and descended from his war
chariot at the gate of the temple of Amon. He was
accompanied by the chiefs or princes of the Ruten ;
and in reply to his address the god says to him that
Amon himself accorded the victories and the safe
return to the metropolis. After his return the captives
are represented led up in a long file to the Theban
deities, Amon-Ra, the goddess Mut, and their son
Khonsu, a lunar god. The prisoners ask favour or
mercy of the king, and aver that they knew not Egypt,
and that their forefathers had never trod upon its soil.
Such at least is the declaration of the Rutennu. That
of the Shasu or Arabs is not the same, but it is stated
that they were conquered in the first year of the reign
of Seti. In the accompanying list of prisoners, whose
hieroglyphic names encircled in embattled ovals or
enclosures, fifty-nine in number, are placed on the
adjacent wall, are mentioned among the Northern
countries the Hanebu, the supposed Javans lones, or
lonians, as the Greeks were always called by the Egypt-
ians, the Eastern Shepherds, the Khita or Hittites, Na-
haraina or Mesopotamia, the Ruten just cited, the Punt
Somali or Southern Arabia, the Shasu or Hyk-shos,
and many towns of Central Asia, besides several
appellations of Kushite tribes of Nubia and Abyssinia.
It is in this reign that the Khita first appears in history,
and Seti attacked the town of Kadesh, said to be part
of the land of Amor or the Amorites, but under the
jurisdiction of the Khita. It is situated in an island in
the midst of the Arunata or Orontes, and is supposed
to be the modern Hums or ancient Edessa. These
people, like the Hyk-shos, were attached to the worship

NEW EMPIRE. 117

of the god Seti or Seth, known to the Egyptians as
Typhon or the Satan. The local goddess of Kadesh
was Anata or Anaitis, the Bellona or goddess of war of
the land of Canaan, and she appears armed with
spear and shield when introduced into the worship of
Egypt. In Canaan and the neighbouring countries,
Bar or Baal, the local god of Tyre prevailed, and his
worship was accompanied by that of Astaruta, the Ashta-
roth or Astarte of the Scriptures, to whom was built a
temple at Memphis. Reshpu, or Reseph, another
Semitic deity, mentioned in the Phoenician inscriptions
as Reseph-Mical, also was introduced about the same
period into Egyptian temples. He too armed with a
spear, appears to have been a god of war. Seti
perhaps commenced the canal which joined the Nile
with the Red Sea. It started from Bubastis and
entered the Bitter Lakes. He occupied with his forces
Tyre, Avathus, and Bethanath. In Canaan he built
new fortresses to hold the countries. Sethos also
came into conflict with the Tahennu or Libyans. The
Western neighbours of Egypt had already been attacked
by Thothmes and Amenophis, probably in return of
the incursions which they were continually making on
the exposed Western frontier of Egypt. They were a
branch, if not identical with the Tamahu, and were
distinguished by having their hair shaved and plaited
into a lock at the right side of the head, while two
ostrich feathers were placed on the top of the crown.
For dress they wore a long cloak or tunic, open in
front, and for arms they had only bows and arrows.
It would appear that they inhabited the Atlas range,
and were perhaps Troglodytes ; for in the inscription

IlS HISTORY OF EGYPT.

"which accompanies the scene, representing Seti in his
chariot defeating their host, it is stated that "'he stood
in the pass of the barbarians bearing bows, watching in
their caves like wolves lying in wait for his majesty."
This description corresponds with the condition of the
Kabyles and other Arab tribes, who even in recent
times when conquered in the field, have fled for
protection to the caverns of the Atlas range. But the
victories of Seti were only a portion of the alternate
vicissitudes of Egypt, exposed on the West to the
incursions of the barbarians of Western Asia, whose
only curb was the intervening desert.

His conquests of the South are mentioned at Karnak,
and Kush or Ethiopia, was governed by the royal
prince or viceroy, Amenemapet. Evidences of his
dominion are found at Sesebi ; at Rhedesieh or Contra
Pselcis, opposite the town of Apollinopolis Magna or
Edfu. Seti constructed a sanctuary for the local
gods, and made a tank or well for the supply of the
miners who crossed the desert to go to the ancient
gold mines, but many of whom perished for want of
water on the way. In this he is said to have but to
say the word, and the water would leap out of the
living rock ; a metaphor indeed in his case, but an ex-
pression that forcibly calls to mind the miraculous
action of Moses in the desert. At Beni-el-Hassan, or
the Speos Artemidos, he made a small rock temple ta
the goddess Sekhet, the wife of Ptah and the Nemesis
of the enemies of Egypt. A stele at Silsilis records
his victories over the Kharu or Syrians, and Kush or
Ethiopia, and another dated in the ninth year of his reign
at Assouan, the monuments he had made. At Sesebi

NEW EMPIRE. 119

his dominion is said to have reached " on the South the
arms of the winds, and on the North the Great Sea."
The Flaminian obelisk at Rome, at present in the
Piazza del Popolo, and removed from Egypt to Rome
to ornament the Circus Maximus by Augustus B.C. 19,
was originally placed by Seti at Heliopolis. His tomb
in the Biban-el-Moluk, discovered by the traveller
Belzoni, and which contained his alabaster sarco-
phagus, now in the Soane Museum of London, was
ornamented with great care, and depicted the passage
of the sun through the hours of the night. The name
of Seti has often experienced injury from a subsequent
religious revolution, the name of the god Set having
been effaced by the chisel, and that of Osiris substituted
in its place. The fifty-one years attributed to his
reign by the epitomists are not confirmed by the monu-
ments.

Seti was succeeded by Rameses II, one of the most
remarkable of Egyptian kings for his personal exploits,
the magnificence of his monuments, and the duration
of his reign. From his popular appellation, Sestesura,
and its varieties, he was known to the Greeks as Sesostris,
and the events and conquests of other monarchs added
to his own. He ascended the throne a mere youth,
having apparently attained less than ten years. His
first campaigns were directed against the people of
Kush or Ethiopia. Some of the later campaigns are
apparently the subject of the sculptures of the passage
leading to the temple at Beitoualli in Nubia. These
represent the prince Amenhersemif introducing, into
the presence of Rameses, Amenemapt, prince-viceroy of
Ethiopia, accompanied by the tributaries and tributes.

320 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

of that country, lions, gazelles, oxen, panthers, the
camelopard, and the ostrich, and the defeat of the
negroes by Rameses in person, attended by his sons
Amenhersemif and Shaaemuas. The great event of the
reign of Rameses, was the campaign against the Khita
in his fifth year. It commenced on the ninth of the
month Epiphi, and is represented or described in the
temples of Luxor, Abusimbel, Beitoualli, and the
Ramesseum, as well as on a papyrus in the British
Museum, known as the Sallier Papyrus, in which the
events are described in terms resembling an Epic poem,
which has been called the Iliad of Egypt. Rameses
marched against the confederation of Central Asia,
headed by the king of the Khita and his allies, com-
prising the people of Carchemish, the Khirubu or
Chalybes, the Maouna or Ilion. The king desired to
know the position of the enemy, as the Egyptian army
ascended the Arunata or Orontes and approached
Kadesh. Two spies of the Rubu or Arabs came and
informed the monarch that the king of the Khita,
frightened at the approach of the Egyptian host, had
marched to the South, and were drawn up in the land
of the Khirubu. But the forces of the Khita were
concentrated to the North-west of Kadesh. The
advanced guard of the king seized however the two
spies, and these, bastinadoed by the orders of the king,
confessed that they had been sent to reconnoitre the
Egyptians, and that the allied armies lay behind
Kadesh on the North-west, watching their enemies, and
waiting for an opportunity to attack Rameses. The
king assembled his generals, reprimanded them for
their neglect, and told them that instead of lying to

NEW EMPIRE. 121

the South, the army of the Khita was posted on the
North of Kadesh, and about to attack them in the rear.
The generals admitted the fault of their manoeuvres,
and an officer was despatched towards the main army,
already on the march to the South, and uncovering by
its movement the position of the king. In the mean-
time the king of the Khita and his allies marched to
the South of Kadesh, and before the Egyptian host
could retrace their steps the staff of Rameses was
dispersed, and the Egyptian monarch found himself
surrounded with the chariots of the allied forces. The
monuments describe Rameses at this moment as seizing
his arms, encouraging his dismayed charioteer, marching
alone to attack the Khita, and breaking their ranks.
The victory rested with the Egyptians; the Khita
killed and wounded comprised Grabatusa, the charioteer
of the king of the Khita, Rabsuna the general of
the troops, Tarakennas, the general of the cavalry
Khirapusar, scribe or secretary; Matsurama, the
brother of the king of the Khita, and the king of the
Khirubu, half-drowned in the waters of the Orontes.
The king of the Khita descended from his chariot and
humbly entreated peace from Rameses. In the poem
of Pentaur the king is described " as all alone, no other
with him; when he looked behind him he found
himself encircled with 2500 chariots obstructing his
way, and all the men of the vile Khita and their
numerous lands there were three men on a chariot,"
the same number as the Hebrews in their Exodus.
After an address to Amon, stating the counsels he
had followed and the offerings he had given the god,
and reiterating that he was in the midst of the 2500

122 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

chariots, he states then " they were overthrown before
my steeds, not one of them found his hand to fight ;
their hearts sank within them, their hands dropped,
they had no heart to grasp a spear ; I made them sink
into the water like crocodiles sink." On the fear of
his charioteer Menna, who asks how they can hope
to withstand the enemy, " Courage ! courage, my
charioteer !" he exclaimed, " I will pierce them like a
hawk. I will slay, cut them down, and throw them
into the dust. What to thy heart are these Asiatics ?
Amon brings low those who know not God, his face
is not white for millions of them." " Then," it adds
towards the end, " the king of the vile Khita sent to
do homage to the great name of the king Rameses.
Thou art Ra, Harmachis; thou art Set, mighty in
strength, son of Nut or the celestial ether, Baal himself.
Thy terror is over the prostrate land of the Khita ;
thou hast broken the back of the Khita for ever and
ever !" With all due allowance for poetic exaggeration
and servile adulation, it is clear that Rameses had fallen
into an ambuscade, and rescued himself by great
daring and personal courage. The war did not how-
ever end with this battle, but continued till the ninth
year of his reign.

In the eighth year of his reign Rameses took the
fortress of Shaluma or Salem, supposed to be the
ancient name of Jerusalem before its occupation by
the Hebrews. In the same year Maram was taken,
and Tapura of the land of Amaru or the Amorites,
supposed to be Dabir, situated at the foot of Mount
Tabor. Bethanath and Kamon were captured at the
same time; as also Askaluna or Ascalon, then in

NEW EMPIRE. 123

possession of the Canaanites, not having yet fallen into
the hands of the Philistines, which it subsequently did
about the commencement of the twentieth dynasty.
In his twenty-first year Rameses concluded an extra-
ditionary treaty with Khitasar, the king of the Khita,
at the fortress of Paramessu or Tanis, to which the
two monarchs had gone for that purpose. In this
treaty Khitasar refers to a previous one between his
brother Mautmer and Seti, the father of Rameses.
Khitasar it appears was the son of Maursar, and
grandson of Separuru or Sapor, and his brother had
been killed or assassinated. The treaty was a mutual
agreement not to make incursions into each other's
territories, nor aid and abet others in attacking one
another. The Khita towns were placed under the
protection of Sutech and Ashtaroth, those of Egypt
under the Theban god Amon. Considerable differ-
ence of opinion has existed as to the names of the
allies of the Khita, and some think that they are those
of the Trojans and their confederates in Asia Minor ;
but in the temple at Abusimbel the Khita have a very
Scythic character, with shaven hair, single lock from the
crown, blue garments, and square worked shields, the
so-called gerrha. It appears from a tablet at Abusimbel
that Rameses married a daughter of the king of the
Khita, and that she adopted the Egyptian name of
Ra-maa-ur-neferu. Rameses had marched to this war
along the coast of Palestine, and has left tablets at the
Nahr-el-Kelb or Lycus, recording the passage of his
forces to Northern Syria. At Beitoualli the Asiatic
campaigns of the king appear to have been directed
against the Amorites, the Canaanites, and Kharu or

124 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

Syrians, and his Libyan ones, against the Tahennu
and Mashuash or Maxyes. In this he is accompanied
by his dog, named Antaemnekht, or "Anaitis in her
strength." When seated on his throne the king is
accompanied by a lion named Smaemnekhtef. All
things in Egypt were named, not only favourite animals,
but swords, sceptres, sticks and tools.

But the affairs of the South no less engaged the
attention of Rameses. In his third year he had given
orders for the excavation of a well at Redesieh or Contra
Pselcis, to supply the miners and their asses, which
crossed the desert to the land of Akaitau. In flatter-
ing language the deputation addressed the monarch;
after explaining that the miners perished if no pools
formed by the rainfall happened to exist. " If/' said
they, a thou formest a plan at night, it is realized in the
day, and again if thou hast said to the waters, come out
of the mountain, the celestial water comes according
to your word." The king ordered the well to be made,
and it was called the Well of Meriamoun- Rameses.
The land of Akataui is probably Gebel Ollaki and the
gold mines of that spot. The speech recalls to mind
Moses, at the command of God, striking the rock of
Horeb, and- the water issuing from it. The great
length of the reign of Rameses enabled him to construct
many temples in Egypt and Nubia, on which he
employed captives taken in war. For this purpose, as
also to hold in check his numerous prisoners, he
transported the negroes to the North, and the Asiatics
to the South. At Gerf Hussein he founded the town
of Paptah, and a temple dedicated to the Ptah of
Rameses or Vulcan, the protector of the king. At

NEW EMPIRE. 125

Sebua, the town of Paamen, he built a similar town
and temple, dedicated to the Amon of Rameses, and
at Der, the city of Para, a temple dedicated to Ra.
The town of Abusimbel, called Paramessu, had a
speos or cave temple, in which was represented the
defeat of the Khita. On the Eastern side of Egypt
he finished a great wall, commenced by his father
Seti, from Pelusium to Heliopolis, as a bulwark
against the Asiatics. It was on this line that it is sup-
posed the king constructed the fortresses Pa-khatem-
en-Tsaru, or the citadel of Tanis, and Paramessu
or Raamses, the two cities on which the Hebrews
were employed, as mentioned in the book of Exodus :
" And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities Pithom
and Raamses 1 ." Raamses was also the name of
the land of Goshen, assigned to Jacob and his sons,
and from this fact it has been generally supposed
that the Exodus took place after the reign of
Rameses, as the fort and land must have borne his
name ; and the political condition of Egypt with the
conquests of Seti I in Palestine, are adverse to the
idea that it could have happened at a time when the
arms of Egypt were triumphant in Syria and Palestine.
In this case Rameses would be the monarch mentioned
in Exodus i. 8 : " Now there arose up a new king
over Egypt who knew not Joseph, and he said unto
his people, Behold the children of the people of Israel
are more and mightier than we. Come on, let us deal
wisely with them, lest they multiply and it come to
pass that when there falleth out any war they join also
unto our enemies, and fight against us, and get them

1 Exodus i. 2.

126 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

up out of the land/' This agrees with the great wall
of Sesostris or Rameses, evidently made at a time when
Egypt was not too able to resist the attacks on her
Eastern frontier, and when a revolt of the Babylonian
captives had resulted in Sesostris or Rameses conceding
to them a city which they called Babylon, now the site
of the modern Cairo. Such a state of affairs with the
necessity of protecting the kingdom, already in its
decline, by a "long wall," which forcibly recalls to
mind that of China, made to shield that country from
the Tartars, would have been favourable to the
approaching Exodus. At the same time no country
appears to have oscillated more in its political relations
than Egypt, alternately planting its standards on the
banks of the Orontes and the Tigris, or its very
existence threatened by its powerful neighbours, and
shut up between the desert of Sahara and the confines
of Canaan. The works of Rameses are also found at
An, the scriptural On, or Heliopolis, and San or Tanis.
Tanis was, according to some, the same as Paramessu,
and one of the principal towns of the Hyk-shos or
Shepherds. On a tablet found at San, the king has
recorded that a period of 400 years elapsed between
his reign and that of Seti or Saites, one of the
Shepherd kings. Important to the calculation of the
chronology of the eighteenth dynasty, this tablet has
also a bearing on the disputed question of the Exodus,
and the period when it happened.

The oppression of the Israelites was one to which
all hostile or conquered people were reduced. Thoth-
mes, it has already been seen, treated his captives in
the same manner, and made them, like convicts, build

NEW EMPIRE.

127

the brick edifices at Thebes. Rameses built the
greater portion of the temple of Luxor, founded by
Amenophis III, and added to it both obelisks and

colossal statues : one of these obe-
lisks is now in the Place de la
Concorde at Paris. The king also
added considerably to the Karnak
quarter of Thebes. At Gournah
he enlarged and finished another
temple built by his father Seti ; and
also the temple or edifice known
to the ancients as the tomb of
Osymandyas or the Ramesseum.
The Greek authors state that here
was sculptured the revolt of the
Bactrians, who must have been
represented by the Khita. On
Brick of sun-dried clay the ceiling of the Ramesseum,

R^ ses P Iaced an astronomical
Rameses II. projection of the heavens, pro-

bably intended to represent
his genethlion or horoscope. In the accompanying
inscription, the star Setp or Sothis, the Dog-star, or
Sirius is said to appear heliacally, or in the morning,
just before sunrise at the commencement of the year;
this is supposed to show that the calendar at that time
had a fixed solar year of 365 days, and was not the
wandering year of 365, which lost one day in four
years, and by which year the Egyptians also reckoned.
At the same palace he is seen celebrating the festival of
Amon-Ra in his character of Khem, apparently the
anniversary of the royal coronation, and carrying in

128 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

procession the statues of his ancestors Menes and
the kings of the eleventh and eighteenth dynasties.
His family was unprecedented in number, even in the
annals of Egypt, and consisted of many sons and
daughters.

The monuments have also recorded the names of
three of his queens, but he must have married more in
the course of his long life. One of his daughters, after-
wards queen, named Bantanath, or " Daughter of
Anaitis," was also a queen, but it is not known of
whom she was the wife. . Her name suggests a
Semitic mother. Several of his sons died before him.
Of these the best known from the monuments is
Shaemuas, who for a long time was governor of
Memphis, and who died in the fifty-fifth year of the
reign of his father. His mummy was found in the
Serapeum at Memphis, in one of the chambers where
the mummies of the bull Apis were buried; but the
reason of his interment there is unknown.

In the reign of Thothmes, the name of the Aperiu,
supposed to be the Hebrews, appears amongst the lists
of people conquered by that monarch, which throws
considerable doubt on its identity with that of the
Hebrews. In the days of Rameses they still are
mentioned as in a condition of servitude, quarrying
and transporting stone for the great fortress of the
city of Paramessu or Tanis, and they continue in the
service of Egypt till a still later period of its history.
The age attained by Rameses was probably very
great, as his reign extended to upwards of sixty-six
years. The rich tombs in the valley of Gournah, and
the sepulchre of the monarch himself, attest the wealth

NEW EMPIRE. 129

and prosperity of the country. The country had,
however, begun to decline ; the kingdoms of Asia were
more than a match for the power of Egypt, and
although it was a golden age for literature and poetry,
romance, letter-writing, and works of imagination
flourished, sculpture sensibly declined, and the fatal
influx of Asiatic blood and religions began to destroy
the national faith. The Asiatic element evidently
prevailed in the Delta and the modern Fayoum, and
Rameses himself exhibits in his features the refined
Asiatic, different from the Nigritic type of the kings
of the eighteenth dynasty.

Menephtah, the successor of Rameses, was his
thirteenth son, the others having already died at the
time of the death of their aged parent. He had been
appointed governor of Memphis at the decease of his
brother Shaemuas, and his name and' titles contain a
mention of Ptah not Amon, like his predecessor.
Probably he had transported his capital to Memphis,
the sacred city of Ptah or Vulcan, in order to hold the
Delta in subjection, in which a revolt of captives had
already broken out ; and at the same time to defend
the frontier against the Canaanites on the East and the
Libyans on the West, for the configuration of Egypt is
such that the Fayoum once conquered, the narrow slip
of land beyond it must inevitably fall into the hands of
an invader. Considered as the Pharaoh of the Exodus,
it will be at once seen from the political events of the
time, how suspicious he was likely to have shown
himself towards subjects on his Eastern frontier, whose
fidelity he probably suspected, whose numbers and
power he feared, and whose affections his father had

13 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

lost, by the cruel treatment and the slavery to which
they had been reduced. The monuments of Meneph-
tah are dated in the first years of his reign, and a
tablet of that year at Silsilis, records the offerings
made to Amon-Ra, or Amon the Sun, the king of the
gods, or Theban Jupiter, and to Hapi, or the Nile, the
father of the gods. These gods were associated pro-
bably on account of some unusual rise of the river,
which had conferred great benefits on the country.
Another tablet at Gebel-el-Teir or Sourarieh, inscribed
on the walls of the temple of the goddess Athor, has
a mention of the Rubu or Libyans, over whom the
god Ptah had given the monarch a great victory. The
frontiers of Egypt and Libya could not be clearly
defined, and were the constant cause of contention.
The Libyans had behind them the northern portion of
the great continent of Africa, and consisted of several
tribes or nations, each governed by its king. Of
these nations those known in the inscriptions of this
reign were the Rubu or Lubu, the Libyes or Libyans, the
Mashauasha, known to the Greeks as the Mazues or
Maxues, and the Kanaka, a name extinct at a later
period. In the reign of Menephtah, induced probably
by the weakness of the Egyptian forces on the West,
and the internal distraction of the Delta, these Libyan
nations, in alliance with the Sharutana or Sardinians,
some of whom had already served as mercenaries in
the armies of Rameses II, and the Shakalusha, or
Siculi, the Sicilians, the Tursha, the Tursi or Tyrseni,
as the Etruscans were called, the Luka or Lycians, and
Akaiusha or Achaioi, the Achaeans or Greeks, marched
on Egypt. The western part of Egypt had submitted

NEW EMPIRE. 13!

to the barbarians, and it was requisite to defend
Heliopolis and Memphis, for the enemy had pushed
his advanced guard to the city of Pabaris, north of the
port of Horus. Menephtah accordingly assembled
his army, which consisted partly of mercenaries, and
advanced to give battle. The Libyan king, Marmaiu,
son of Deid or Dido, had brought his wife and children
with him, and reached a frontier town named Paari-
sheps. Menephtah harangued his host, and assigned
the post of honour to the mercenaries. The god Ptah
appeared to him in a dream and foretold him victory.
The battle took place on the third of the Egyptian
month Epiphi, and for six hours the mercenaries
slaughtered the Libyans. Marmaiu fled from the field
of battle, on which he had left his bow and quiver,
while the oxen, goats, asses, and jewels of his wife, fell
into the hands of the Egyptians. The return of the
army was triumphant, preceded by asses laden with
the hands which had been cut off the slaughtered
confederates. Six Libyan generals and 6359 soldiers
were killed on the field, besides their Greek allies, the
number of which is wanting; but a text at Medinat
Habu gives the total of the killed at 12,535 persons.
The number of prisoners, comprising the women who
had accompanied the Libyan monarch and other
princes, amounted to 9376. Besides these an amazing
number of weapons, horses, and cattle, were captured,
and a portion of the spoil given to the Mashuasha,
who were in the Egyptian service, for the Libyans
seem to have been divided amongst themselves ; and
even from the Egyptian account, the brunt of the
battle seems to have fallen on the Libyan mercenaries

K 2

132 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

who formed the vanguard of the troops of the Nile.
The skin tents and provisions of the enemy were burnt.
The battle was probably fought about the eighth year
of Menephtah, as the private letters of that date
mention the departure of Egyptian officers from Tanis
or Pelusium to Paarisheps or Prosopis, apparently to
meet the coming war.

In this campaign the name of the Achaians first
appears applied to the Greeks, called before Hanebu or
lonians, and does not recur. It has been recognised as
the genuine name of the Greeks in the Homeric times,
and to have been so for a period not longer than
140 years. The Achaioi do not appear in the great
confederation of the Khita against Rameses II, in
which were included the Mysians, Lycians, and Dar-
danians, nor do the Sicilians and other Italian people;
after that they disappear from history. Hence the
wars of Rameses and Menephtah have been considered
to be contemporaneous with the war of Troy, and to
mark Homer's period in synchronous history. The
Khita have been supposed also to be the Ketaioi of the
Odyssey 1 , and the Exodus and the Trojan War to have
occurred, if not exactly at the same time, yet closely
after one another.

Menephtah continued the construction of Paramessu,
and the brick-makers were condemned to send in a
certain number every day, the same task to which the
Hebrews were compelled under the Pharaoh of the
Exodus. As the works of Menephtah, who paid no
great attention to Thebes, were chiefly executed in the
Delta, they have nearly perished, and this king does

* W. E. Gladstone in the Contemporary Review, 1874.

NEW EMPIRE.

133

not appear important in the annals of the country. It
is generally admitted that the Exodus took place in
his reign, and that he was the Pharaoh addressed by
Moses and Aaron, visited by God with plagues on
account of the hardness of his heart, and finally
drowned in the Red Sea, in pursuing the Hebrews
after their departure from the land of bondage. Lately
a new theory has been started about the place from

Portrait of Menephtah, the supposed Pharaoh of the Exodus.

From a statue.

which the Hebrews started. It is supposed to have-
been from Paramessu or Tanis, and that the Hebrews
took the northern route, between the waters of the
Lake Serbonis and the Mediterranean, where the
sea waters had subsequently engulfed an army of"
Artaxerxes. Subject of much diversity of opinion,
as the tracing of the exact route of the Israelites
has ever been, it is difficult to conceive how, from.

134 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

so northern a point the Israelites could have
reached the peninsula of Sinai, instead of directing
their advance at once upon Canaan and the Jordan.

This theory that the Exodus took place towards the
coast of the Mediterranean and not in a direct southern
route, towards the Red Sea, has lately been advanced
in supposed accordance with the geography of Egypt
in the days of Menephtah. It has been asserted that
the name of the ancient Zoan was Paramesu or the city
of Ramses, the pharaonic appellative of Zoan, and that
Zoan was the later Tanis of the Greek. In accord-
ance with this theory, the Egyptian Pithom is asserted
to be the Succoth of the Hebrew narrative. The third
station of the Hebrew line of march, Etham, is con-
jectured to be the Egyptian Khetam or "Fortress/'
lying to the west of the modern El-Khantereh, or " The
Bridge," and on the confines of the desert. From
hence they are thought to have directed their course
northwards to Migdol, the Magdolon of the Greek and
Roman writers, and the modern Tel-es-Semout. Then
they encamped between Migdol and the Mediterranean
in face of Pihohiroth and before Baal-zephon or the
Egyptian Baali Tsapuna, a sanctuary situated close to
Mount Kasios. It was along the isthmus, there ex-
isting, according to the hypothesis, that the Egyptian
army perished in pursuit of the retreating Hebrews as
they crossed between the Lake Serbonis or " Serbonian
Bog," and the waters of the Mediterraneans, amidst " a
sea of sea weeds " or reeds "yam suph/' which has often
proved fatal to numerous hosts or single travellers.
Arrived at Mount Kasios, the Eastern frontier of Egypt,
the Hebrews went to Marah or the Bitter Lakes, and

NEW EMPIRE. 135

from thence to Elim, the Egyptian Aalim or "Fish
Town," which lies to the north of the Red Sea. This
ingenious hypothesis is supported by circumstantial
evidence connected with the history of Joseph and
Moses, also by the condition of this part of Egypt in
the days of Menephtah, when this Eastern frontier
appears to have been denuded of cities, and scarcely
occupied by the Egyptians, but left to the Herusha
or "Inhabitants of the Desert," as the tribes on this
confine were called. The difficulties, however, of re-
conciling the scriptural account as to the time passed
in the transit as well as that of allowing the philologi-
cal coincidence of some of the Hebrew and Egyptian
names, have caused this brilliant discovery of the
supposed direction of the Exodus not to be universally
admitted by those who have studied the antiquities of
Egypt or Biblical geography *.

Seti II, also called Menephtah, son of Menephtah and
queen Hesineferet, succeeded his father on the throne,
but it is not known if his title was not contested, or
his rule preceded by another ting. Seti II has not
left many memorials of his reign. He erected a small
temple at Thebes, and the second year of his reign is
mentioned on a pillar at Silsilis, while a tablet at
Abusimbel represents him as a conqueror. There is a
fine statue of him in the British Museum, found at
Thebes; but the name of the god Set has been
anciently erased, showing that the destruction of the
name of that god, and the substitution in its place of
Osiris, was subsequent to his reign. Details are un-

1 Brugsch-Bey's lecture before the International Congress of Orien-
talists, 17 September 1874. Academy, 26 September 1874, p. 352.

1 36 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

fortunately wanting in the monuments of the religious
struggle between the worshippers of Osiris and Set,
which revived the animosities of the Shepherd rule, and
ended in erasing the name of Set, after it had been
adopted by a later king. The reign of Seti II was
perhaps followed by that of Amenmes, of whom little
is known, beyond his tomb in the Biban-el-Molook,
and the name of his wife. The dynasty was closed by
the joint reign of a king named Siphtah and a
queen named Tauser or Thousiris, the Thouoris of
Manetho. It appears from the inscriptions that Siph-
tah had been placed on the throne by Bai, and that
Siphtah was a native of Kheb, a city of the Aphrodito-
polite nome. Kush was under his power, and Seti, a
prince of that country, accompanied by Bai, offers his
homage to Siphtah. He was buried in the Biban-el-
Moluk, or really in the tombs of the kings at Thebes ;
but his tomb was treated with ignominy and appro-
priated by his successor.

The interval between the reign of Siphtah and his
successor Setnekht was one of great disturbance. It
appears from the great Harris papyrus, that a great
Exodus took place in Egypt, in consequence of the
troubles. " For many years," it states, " there was no
master, and for a time the country belonged to the
governors of cities, one massacring another. After a
time one Arsu or Areos, a Kharu or Syrian, was chief
as it were among them, and the whole country offered
him homage, each joining his companion and wasting
his goods. And the gods having become as men, no
more offerings were made in the temples." How long
this state of anarchy continued does not appear, nor

NEW EMPIRE. 137

by what means the confusion arose, or if it was conse-
quent on the death or usurpation of Siphtah, in whom
some recognise Arsu the Syrian. The return of tran-
quillity was brought about by the gods, who, in order
to restore the equilibrium of the country, placed Set-
nekht on the throne. The actions of Setnekht are
summed up in the address of his son Rameses
in the same papyrus. " He was like the god Kheper
and Set, Typhon, in his rage ; he quieted the whole
of the country in revolt; he slaughtered the violent
who were in Egypt, purified the throne of Egypt,
took care to recognise what had been subverted;
each saw the brother of those who had been immured ;
he restored the temples and the divine offerings, so
that honours were rendered to the divine orders
according to their rights ; he promoted me to be heir
apparent on the throne of Seb." His name is found
at the Sarabit-el-Khadim at Sinai. After this pacifica-
tion of Egypt and a reign, the length of which is un-
known, Setnekht died, and was buried in the tomb
of Siphtah in the Biban-el-Moluk.

His successor was his son, Rameses III, who
followed his father upon the throne. Rameses was one
of the most remarkable of the Egyptian kings, and
was known to the Greeks by the name of Rampsinitus.
From his riches and his power he has been called the
Egyptian Solomon. The events of his reign are
detailed in the great Harris papyrus, in the address
from the throne, which he made to the people of
Egypt and the troops. On his elevation to the crown
his first task was to reorganise the kingdom. This he
did by distributing and reorganising the castes, officers,

138 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

chiefs, and army throughout the country. Amongst
the soldiers were the Sharutana or Sardinians, and the
Kanakas, a tribe or nation of the Libyans. Besides
these, his plans embraced the regulation of slaves
and other labourers or servants, and the administration
or temples. This was necessary after the overthrow of
the government which had happened in the Delta.
The disposition and organisation of the foreigners
established in Egypt had become one of the urgent
necessities of the political situation. The king pro-
ceeds to assert that he had smitten the Danauna
coming from their isles, the Tsakkaru and the Pulesta.
" The Sharutana or Sardinians, and Uashasha of the
sea, were reduced to non-existence." They were
taken at a blow, and led captive " in numbers like the
sands of the torrents," to Egypt. They were placed
under guard with their numerous families in a fortified
city. These events happened in the eighth year of his
reign, and were probably, on account of their import-
ance, placed before some which will be mentioned,
and happened after ; for the first task of Rameses was
to repulse the Shasu or Shepherds, whose sinister re-
appearance threatened again the existence of Egypt.
The Mashausha, who had permanently established
themselves in the Delta, revolted, attacked the principal
towns, desolated the country, and advanced beyond
Memphis to a city named Karbana ; they went as far
as the "great river," and established themselves for
years as masters of the Fayoum. Rameses attacked
and drove them back, after a fearful battle, in which
there were heaps of the slain Mashausha, who were
confederated with the Libyans in the fifth year of

NEW EMPIRE. 139

his reign. In this campaign, signalised alike by the
hosts of the dead and the number of prisoners, the
king was accompanied by the " Council of the Thirty,"
while the enemy had been excited to revolt by five
chiefs, named Taiti or Didi, Mashaken, Maraiu, Gamar
and Gautmar, whose names are mentioned in the in-
scription of Medinat Habu. In this war followed the
usual mutilation of the dead, analogous to that de-
scribed in scripture, as inflicted on the living by the
king of Bezek. "Adoni-bezek fled: and they pur-
sued after him, and cut off his thumbs and his great
toes. And Adoni-bezek said, Threescore and ten kings,
having their thumbs and great toes cut off, gathered
their meat under my table 1 ." This attack on the
Mashuasha only repulsed them for a while, and it
appears that Rameses had about the same time to
repulse the Satu or Asiatics. In his eighth year he
had to resist the maritime nations, who again attacked
Egypt. " They had cast their eyes " on Egypt. The
enemy had this time come from the isles of the
Mediterranean. They had subdued the Khita or
supposed Hittites, the Kati, the Karkamasha or people
of Carchemish, Aradu or Aradus, and Aras, and
pitched their camp in the midst of the land of Amaur,
or the Amorites, south-west of the Dead Sea. These
maritime people, like the invaders in the days of
Menephtah, consisted of the confederated Pulusata or
Pelasgi, the Tsekkariu or Teucrians, the Shakalusha
or Sicilians, the Tanau or Daunians, and the Uashasha
or Osci. They had threatened the Asiatic frontiers of
Egypt. Rameses concentrated an army at Taha in

1 Judges i. 6, 7.

140 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

Palestine, consisting of Egyptian and mercenary or
tributary soldiery, and assembled a considerable fleet
at the mouth of the Nile. In the pictures representing
this campaign, the Egyptian vessels are depicted
sinking the ships of the enemy ; while four of the sons
of Rameses, and the monarch himself, armed, shoot
down with their bows the enemy from the shore, for
the enemy had entered the mouth of the Nile. This
great war is represented in seven pictures, sculptured
on the walls of Medinat Habu. In these Rameses is
depicted haranguing the Egyptian officers, announcing
to them the war, and distributing arms to the troops
which he has raised to repulse the enemy. The
march of the Egyptian army is then seen, the monarch
in his war chariot preparing for the struggle. The
first victory of the Egyptians, was the slaying of the
Pelasgi or Teukri, some of whom are in .cars drawn by
four oxen. These Teukri and Pelasgi have a peculiar
head-dress, surmounted by plumes, like that of the
Egyptian god Besa, and also found on the head of
certain figures on the stair-case of Persepolis. This
scene is followed by another in which Rameses
enters a place filled with lions, which probably
impeded his army, as that of Xerxes is said to
have been at Mount Athos by the same beasts.
Rameses destroys them from his chariot like the
Assyrian kings in the reliefs of Kouyunjik. This
place is supposed to correspond to Southern Palestine,
which abounded in lions in the days of Samson *,
David, and Jeroboam 2 . The naval battle is the

1 Judges xiv. 5.

2 i Samuel xvii. 34 ; 2 Samuel xxiii. 20 ; I Kings xiii. 24.

NEW EMPIRE. 141

subject of the fifth picture, and has been already
described. It appears to have taken place after the
defeat of the enemy by land. In the description of
the action at sea, it is stated in the text that the
natives who had come from the isles of the Great Sea
or Mediterranean, were taken as in a net, and fallen
in the mouth of the Nile. For the sake of defending
Egypt from the attack, the king had returned from
his frontiers in the land of Taha after the battle with
the Pulusta and their confederates, to defend the
mouths of the Nile. This land of Taha was a part of
Palestine in which was comprised Amaur or the
Amorites. After the victory Rameses counted the
hands cut off the dead bodies of the fallen enemy
at the Makataru or Migdol of Rameses, the fortified
city of the same name as that mentioned as built
by the Hebrews. It is clear that the fortress could
not have been distant from the Egyptian frontier,
as the slaves who fled from Egypt had to pass its
ramparts. After his victory Rameses led his European
captives to the temple of Amon at Thebes. In this
expedition the Pelasgi had been united with the
Tursha or Etruscans, the Pelasgi at that time having
issued from Samothrace, and colonized the isles of the
Archipelago and Aegean as well as Crete and
the shores of Caria, the Teucrians occupying the
northern coasts of Asia Minor and the Tursha or
Turseni, the western coasts of Italy, where they had
early introduced writing into Latium. It is re-
markable, however, to find them so named at so
early a period, as the Etruscans called themselves
Rasenna.

142 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

The European nations of this period were only
partially provided with defensive armour, such as the
helmet and the shield. The Sardinians may have
worn the breast-plate, but no greaves, as mentioned in
Homer, are seen ; while the plume is absent from the
helmet, or replaced by horns such as the Gauls and
Thracians are said to have worn, or else by a globe
and horns, perhaps an emblem of Astarte. The
Etruscans had the pointed helmet, seen in the monu-
ments of that people. All used circular or Argolic
bucklers, and for offensive weapons, swords or lances.
The head attire of the other Italic and Greek races
is unlike that ever seen on the monuments of these
people. The ships of the Egyptians and their enemies,
as represented in the pictures, have one mast, and a
square sail lowered by . cords on the deck by haul-
yards, the mast and crow's nest in which the look-out
was kept ; the galleys only a single bank of oars, the
prows end in the heads of animals as in the Greek
galleys.

After the war with the European nations, another
broke out with the Libyans in his eleventh year.
The expressions of the victory of the king are poetic.
" The enemy/' it is said, " were hid like birds before a
hawk who darts from his hiding place in the midst
of the wood." It continues, "they came as to a
slaughter-house, and fell under the grip of the king
like rats." The leaders of this war were the Mashu-
asha, Maxyes or Mazyes, who had again invaded Egypt
urged on by the Tahennu or Numidians. They were
led by their monarch Kapur, and after a battle appear
to have surrendered; but Kapur was killed in the

NEW EMPIRE. 143

struggle, apparently when taken prisoner, and his son
Mashashar surrendered unconditionally to Rameses.
The Libyans lost 4227 killed or taken prisoners, of
which last 538 were women, which naturally suggests
that these were, in fact, migratory movements of
Libyan people defeated by their neighbours, and
forced to seek a refuge or new home in the valley of
the Nile. Numerous weapons and a small number of
horses and cattle fell as spoil to the Egyptians. The
Mashuasha, who appear to have inhabited the Cyrenaica
or Marmarica, the Marmaris of Strabo, were incorpo-
rated with Egypt, and supplied mercenary troops for
the service of the Pharaohs. They are mentioned in
the Scriptures as the support of No-ammon, and the
allies of Egypt and Ethiopia. 1 Their princes were
hereditary, and carried on war in person. Their
names will continue to appear in history. These
victories had so assured the tranquillity of Egypt that
the scribe exclaims at the end of one inscription:
" The earth is like a birth without pains; let the woman
go forth when she likes, let her adorn herself according
to her inclinations, and boldly walk where she chooses,"
which has been compared with the words of Isaiah,
"Pass through thy land as a river, oh daughter of
Tarshish, there is no more strength 2 ." In the Harris
papyrus the tribes of the Libyans mentioned are the
Rubu or Libu, the Libyans, the Sabata, the Kaikasha,
the Shai, the Hasu, and the Bakana. These have
been supposed to represent the different tribes of

1 See Nahum iii. 9; Daniel xi. 43; 2 Kings xvi. 8; Ezek. xxvii.
10; xxx. 5.

2 Isaiah xxiii. 10.

144 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

Numidia and Mauritania, but their names cannot
be identified with those otherwise recorded. Besides
recruiting the armies they also manned the fleets of
Egypt. In the Eastern states Rameses had made
a great reservoir in the country of Ainau, surrounded
by a wall sunk in the earth to the depth of thirty
cubits, with quays and doors of cedar-wood with
bronze bolts, supposed to be Beersheba, half-way from
Hebron to Rehoboth, on the road to Syria. He had
also despatched a fleet to Arabia, which had returned
laden with the spices and gums of Arabia to Coptos,
and thence carried them on the backs of men and
asses to Thebes. To the foundries of Ataka 1 he
had sent also ships, which returned laden with bricks
or ingots of brass of the colour of gold. To the
goddess Athor he had dedicated her temple of the
Sarabit-el-Khadim bringing thence quantities ofmaf&a,
supposed to be the turquoise. This temple still con-
tinued to be the principal station of this Egyptian
colony. The expedition of Rameses is recorded
on the spot by the sculptures still remaining on the
walls of the temple of the goddess. Egypt, it appears,
had been reduced to safety and tranquillity, the country
and army had been reorganized. But the people
are described as receiving their daily sustenance from
the Pharaoh, in return for their labour, as if the land
entirely belonged to the monarch 2 . Rameses had
also carried on war against the Ethiopians, and con-
quered the Taraui and the Amari. The works of
Rameses are of great beauty and extent, and the Harris

1 Perhaps the Athak of I Samuel xxx. 30; xiii. 20, 21.

2 See Gen. xlvii.

NEW EMPIRE. . .145

papyrus records the enormous gifts he made during
his reign to the temples of Ptah at Memphis, of
Turn at Heliopolis, and of Amon at Medinat Habu.
It is at this part of Thebes his conquests are sculp-
tured, and a calendar marked the fixed year or
the rising of the Dog-star on the first day of the
month Thoth, the new-year's day of Egypt, about
1300 B.C. Nine of his sons are here recorded,
some of whom succeeded to the crown ; and his
treasury, on the walls of which are depicted and
recorded his riches, is that described by Herodotus in
his sensational account of the life of Rampsinitus.
Besides his riches and his martial exploits, Rameses
appears to have been addicted to sensual indulgence,
which gave rise to the caricatures and sarcasms of his
contemporaries. His visit to Hades and his playing at
draughts with Isis, was apparently a myth, derived from
an imperfect understanding of the sculptures. After a
reign just exceeding thirty-one years, Rameses was
buried in a stone sarcophagus placed in a large and
magnificent tomb in the Biban-el-Moluk. But the
" irony of fate," as it has been sometimes styled, has
transported the lid of his granite coffin to the Fitz-
William Museum, of Cambridge, and the endowment
papyrus roll of his temples to a table case in the British
Museum. He was the last of the great heroic kings of
Egypt, uniting in his person the valour of David with the
luxury of Solomon. The domestic repose of Rameses,
was disturbed by a conspiracy in the palace in which
the intrigues of Penhuiban, an officer of the court
played an important part. He made use of magical
figures of wax, written charms or incantations, talis-

L

146 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

mans, and other enchantments, and fascinated the
females of the palace to enter into a conspiracy against
the life of the monarch. The conspiracy against the
Pharaoh comprised ten officers, and six women of the
palace who had combined with them for the purpose.
Besides the principal conspirators, several others had
participated in a greater or less degree, and had
listened to, without denouncing to the authorities, the
proposals of the principal conspirators. Amongst
them appear Ethiopians and foreign officers of the
mercenary troops, who had entered the service of
Egypt. One of the royal family was implicated in the
treasonable plot. They were detected and examined
before the king in council, a kind of criminal tribunal
or commission, constituted of twelve judges or persons
of high rank, such as the treasurers, the standard
bearers, and the royal scribes or secretaries of state,
nominated by the monarch for the special purpose.
The accused were subjected to interrogation, and the
punishment of death was inflicted on the most culpable,
amongst whom were Penhuiban, his accomplice Pen-
bakakamen, and one Pentaur, a scion of royalty. In
some instances the extreme penalty of death was
commuted for one hardly more merciful, the cutting off
the nose and ears of offenders, one that at some time
or other has prevailed in all countries. The judicial
papyrus of Turin, which records this episode of the
life of Rameses, has its date unfortunately torn off,
so that it is uncertain when it happened, probably
indeed towards the close of the reign of this illustrious
monarch.

His son Rameses IV mounted the throne after him,

NEW EMPIRE. 147

apparently at a youthful age. Little is known of the
events of his reign. He founded a station at El
Hammamat in his second year, and the highest date
found of his reign is his eighteenth year. Consequent
probably upon some revolution, Rameses V succeeded
as an usurper to the throne. He has left a tablet of
some benefits conferred on Silsilis. His successor,
Rameses VI, was not more distinguished than his
predecessor, and the most interesting monument of his
reign is his tomb, constructed in the Biban-el-Moluk.
On the ceiling is a list of star-risings, amongst others
that of the Sothis or Dog-star, calculated at 1240 B.C.
The only other monument of his reign is a tomb at a
place anciently called Shaa, now Anibe, near Para, or
the modern Deru. In it Punnu, a prince of Kush or
Ethiopia, offers to Rameses VI a royal statue of the
monarch. Punnu, it appears, was a native of Uauat,
apparently known to the Greeks as Aue. The king,
it appears, had conquered or held subject the countries
of Ahi and Akaka, reduced to subjection by the
prince of Ethiopia. His successors, Rameses VII
and Rameses VIII, were insignificant monarchs. A
royal scribe, named Horus, formerly a slave in the
town of Mendes, has just recorded his reign in a
sepulchral tablet, dedicated to the deities Onouris,
Osiris, and Horus. According to some he was
followed on the throne by Meritum, the seventh son
of Rameses III, and succeeded by the equally un-
important Rameses IX. The reign of Rameses IX
was disturbed by the sacrilege of the tombs of the
ancient kings, which had been broken into and
plundered by robbers in the sixteenth year of his reign,

L 2

148 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

and it appears that these had been preceded by other
violations, and continued till his nineteenth year, and
a commission was appointed to examine the condition
of the tombs and try the offenders. Ten sepulchres of
kings, including one of the queen Isis at Drah-abu-el-
Neggah, were examined. They comprised those of
some of the Antefs,or monarchs of the eleventh dynasty;
that of Sebakemsaf of the succeeding line, Taakan of
the seventeenth, and Amenophis I of the eighteenth
dynasty. Six members composed the commission,
and amongst them were the governor of the district,
a magistrate, and a royal officer. Some of the tombs
were broken into, but that of Sebakemsaf was parti-
cularly injured, the coffin violated, and the royal
mummy thrown on the ground. It appears that eight
robbers were engaged in the spoliation, and that after
having stripped the mummies of their gold ornaments,
they burnt the royal coffins. The accused were sub-
jected to the interrogatory in prison, and the commis-
sion of six subsequently augmented to twelve members,
the usual number of judges, the high priest of Amon
and other functionaries having been placed upon it.
The accused were acquitted, but it appears from
another document that the eight engaged in the
spoliation, perhaps afterwards discovered, were bastina-
doed or put to death. After his nineteenth year this
Rameses, the successor of Rameses VII, associated
his son in the government of the country.

Rameses IX was succeeded by the Rameses X and
XI, monarchs whose names are just found on the
monuments, but who performed no action or left
behind them no works worthy of record. It has been

NEW EMPIRE. 149

supposed that, like the mayors of the palace in France,
the high priests of Amon at Thebes usurped the
authority of these short-lived kings ; but this was
probably owing to domestic discords, and the revolu-
tion of the palace, which undermined the family and
abridged their reigns.

Rameses XII, who came to the throne after the
last king, is known by a remarkable inscription. A
tablet, found in the temple to the east of the palace of
the south-western quarter of Karnak, dedicated to the
god Khons, a personification of the moon, and the son
of Amon and Mut, contains an account of the princi-
pal event of this reign. The temple had been erected
by the previous monarch, and in it were the living
cynocephali, apes, the sacred animals of the Khons,
under the charge of a priest of the god. The picture
of the tablet represents Rameses holding a censer,
worshipping the ark of the god, which partially covered
with curtains, is placed on a boat terminating at each
end in the bust of Khons. Figures of priests, a sphinx,
and standards are in the boat, behind it is a standard
and flabellum, while twelve priests carry it upon
their shoulders 1 . In this ark the figure of the god
was enshrined, and the scene, as will be subsequently
shown, depicts his departure from Egypt.

Another scene represents the return of Khons, the ark
borne by four and met by another priest. It appears
from the inscription that the king had been in the land
of Nehar, .collecting or receiving the annual revenues or
tributes, and that the lands had obediently rendered
them ; each of the chiefs or princes vying with one

1 Like the arks of the Moabites, Amos v. 26.

15 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

another in submission, and bringing the usual tribute
imposed by the Egyptians, gold and silver, lapis lazuli
or glass khesbet, the blue or green ores, or turquoise
requisite for the blue colours, and porcelain of Egypt,
and all the good or fragrant wood of Taneter or the
" Holy Land," as Arabia was then called, " upon their
backs." This term, " Holy Land/' was applied by 'the
later prophets to Palestine, then designated in the
Hebrew admata hakhodesh l . The chief of Bakhtan was
amongst the tributaries, and he offered in addition to
his other tributes his daughter, who "being a very
beautiful person, his majesty prized her above all
things." Rameses, who was probably at that time a
mere youth, took her for his wife, and changed her
name to Ra-neferu, or " Most beautiful Sun." On
his return to Egypt the marriage rites were duly
solemnised, although it is unfortunate the ceremonies
necessary for an Egyptian marriage are unknown.
On the 22nd of the month Epiphi, of the fifteenth year
of his reign, when Rameses was in the Thebaid, an
envoy of Bakhtan came with presents to the king.
" I have come to thee, my lord/' he said, " on account
of Bentaresh, the younger sister of thy royal wife Ra-
neferu, who is unable to move, would your majesty let
a royal scribe see her." The king ordered the college
of sacred scribes, the rekhkhet, and the doctors of
mysteries or magic, the rekh-tet-amon'*' lt those ac-
quainted with hidden words," to be sent for, and when
they had come "Show me/' he said, "a man of
intelligent heart and skilful with his fingers, one of

1 Zechariah ii. 12.

2 These are the chartummin of Exodus.

NEW EMPIRE.

your number." They pointed out the royal scribe,
Tetemhebi, and the king sent him with the envoy to
the land of Bakhtan. Tetemhebi found the princess
was possessed with an evil spirit or demon, but he was

Departure of the Ark of the God Khons to the land of Bakhtan.

unable to cope with it. Upon this the king of Bakhtan
sent again, in his twenty-sixth year, to ask for aid.
Rameses consulted in this strait Khons of Thebes, to
order Khons, the giver of counsels or oracles, to go to
Bakhtan to cure the princess. The god nodded or
assented, and despatched the second Khons, as he.

152 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

must be called, who departed in an ark, accompanied
by five other arks and a chariot, and escorted by
a troop of cavalry. The journey occupied seven-
teen months, and on the arrival in the country, the
king of Bakhtan accompanied by his guards, prostrated
himself, and saluted the god. When Khons was
brought to the place where Bentaresh was, his presence
expelled the spirit and cured the princess. The
exorcised demon exclaimed, " Great god, who chasest
demons, thou hast come in peace. The fortress of
Bakhtan is thine, its inhabitants are thy slaves. I re-
turn whence I came to satisfy thee for thy journey.
Would your sanctity order that a festival should be made
in my honour by the king of the Bakhtan/' The god
accorded the request by the mouth of the prophet who
accompanied him, and the king, alarmed at the inter-
view between the god and the spirit, prepared the
feast, only, too happy to see the departure of the evil
spirit. This work of thaumaturgy having been per-
formed, the king of Bakhtan was unwilling that the god
Khons should return to Egypt, and wished to retain
him at his capital, when the god gave another manifes-
tation of his power. After a detention of three years
and nine months, Khons appeared in a vision to the king
while reclining on his couch, and assumed the appear-
ance of a golden hawk coming out of his ark and flying
towards Egypt. Agitated and convulsed, on his awak-
ening he sent, for the priest of the god. " Let him
quit us/', he said, " and depart towards Egypt, make
ready the chariot for Egypt." Not unmindful of the
benefits conferred, or awed by the power of the god,
the king gave rich and numerous presents to the god,

NEW EMPIRE. 153

and soldiers and horses, probably to escort him in
safety to the Thebaid. When Khons the counsellor
arrived at the temple of Khons, he offered to him all
the presents which he had received, and re-entered
his own chapel or temple in peace, on the nineteenth
Mechir, in the thirty-third year of the monarch's reign.
Bakhtan is supposed to be either Bagestan or Ecbatana,
and the inscription shows the intimate relations which
existed between the Egyptian and Asiatic monarchs,
and the mutual influence of the idolatries of Egypt
and Asia upon each other. Rameses XIII closes the
list of the twentieth dynasty, at this time effete or
extinct 1 . The high priests of Amon took command
of the troops as well as of the temples, and assumed
the serpent diadem, the badge of royalty. One of
these high priests, who lived in the reign of this last
Rameses, at last mounted the throne and founded a
new dynasty.

1 There is an official letter of the seventeenlh year of his reign
addressed to his son Painehsi.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM THE TWENTY-FIRST DYNASTY TO THE CONQUEST.
From about noo B.C. to 332 B.C.

THE Theban line of the Ramessids appears to have
been broken up by the complete usurpation of the throne
by the high priests of Amon. It has been supposed
that three contemporary dynasties were existing in
Egypt at the time, as it is difficult to reconcile the lists
of Manetho of the kings of the twenty-first dynasty
with the monuments. In the first place it will be
desirable to follow the Theban line of king-priests
who assumed the sovereign power. The first of these
was Harhor, high priest of Amon in the reign of
Rameses XII. The only historical points of his reign
are the submission of the Rutennu or Northern
Syrians, and his marriage with a Semitic female, by
whom he had several sons bearing Semitic names.
He does not appear to have established the govern-
ment in his own family, and was succeeded by his
grandson Painetem, who was married to a princess
named Rakemaa, of the Ramessid line, and thus ac-
quired a kind of legitimate title to the throne. But

NEW EMPIRE. 155

some difficulty pervades the exact knowledge of this
part of the history of Egypt, and the same or another
Painetem, with a prenomen and another wife, intrudes
on the monuments of Egypt. The last sacerdotal
monarch of this line is Ramenkheper. His name
and that of his wife Hesiemkheb have been found
on the bricks of Kheb in the Heptanomide. The
names supposed to correspond to those in the lists of
Manetho are those of the king Pasiuenkha or
Psinaches, and another Harpasebensha. During the
twentieth dynasty the Hebrews are supposed, guided
by the judges, to have established themselves in
Palestine, and founded their monarchy, and Solomon to
have sent for an Egyptian wife to one of these Tanite
princes. That king had taken the town of Guzer and
burnt it, slaughtering the Canaanite garrison. It was
from Egypt at this period that Solomon and the contem-
porary kings of the Khita and Syrians imported chariots
and horses, at the rate of 600 pieces of silver for a chariot
and 1 50 for the horses. No information as to the period
of the twenty-first dynasty is afforded by the Apis
tablets. If the history of the twenty-first dynasty is
obscure, that of the twenty-second, or Bubastite
dynasty as it has been called, is not less difficult.
According to Manetho it consisted of nine kings, who
reigned 116 years. The first of these monarchs
was the Sheshanka of the Egyptians, Shishak of the
Hebrews, and Sesonchosis of the Greeks. His
family was of Libyan or Semitic origin and de-
scended from Psusennes. The names of his descend-
ants, as will be subsequently seen, identify them
with the great Chaldean families which reigned over

156 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

Assyria and Babylonia. It is in this reign that the
web of Egyptian and Hebrew history again becomes
interwoven. Jeroboam, one of the officers of Solo-
mon, revolted against him. Designated by the pro-
phet Ahijah l as the future king of Israel, Solomon
sought to kill him. and Jeroboam fled to the court
of Shishak for protection, as Hadad the son of the
king of Edom had previously done, and married
into the royal family of Egypt, both Hadad and
Jeroboam being the avowed enemies of Solomon.
After the death of Solomon Jeroboam, supported
by the Egyptian interest, returned and was elect-
ed king of Israel, while Rehoboam obtained only
the kingdom of Judah. Alarmed at the state of
affairs he fortified the principal cities, but in the fifth
year of his reign Shishak marched with an army
of 1200 chariots, 60,000 horsemen, and a numerous
infantry, composed of the Mashuash or Libyans,
Nubians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians, to the attack of
Jerusalem 2 . The host of Shishak is supposed to
have penetrated Judah in three columns, and Shishak
took and pillaged Jerusalem, taking the treasures of
the temple and the palace, and golden bucklers
which Solomon had made probably for his body-
guard. On the walls of the so-called portico of the
Bubastites at Karnak Shishak has recorded more
than 130 cities which he had taken, given to him by
Amon and the goddess of the Thebaid. Amongst the
cities which can be recognised in the hieroglyphic
legends are Rabboth, Taanach, Sunem, Rehob,
Hapharaim, Adorairn, Mahanaim, Gibeon, Beth

1 I Kings xi. 14-40. 2 I Kings xiv. 25-26.

NEW EMPIRE. 157

Horon, Kedemoth, Ajalon, Megiddo, and Judah Maluk,
" the royal city of Judah," or Jerusalem.

Although, owing to the dilapidations of the wall,
the whole of the names cannot be read, it is evident
that the arms of Shishak were carried into Pales-
tine. Unfortunately the year of his reign in which
he invaded that country is not known, so as to give
the synchronism of the history of the two countries.
Shishak did not, however, reign more than twenty-
one years, so that it must have happened before that
date. His successor Uasarkan or Osorchon I may
have been named after the Assyrian name Sargon;
his reign was insignificant, an observation which
equally applies to that of Takarut or Takalut, Takel-
lothis I. It is about the period of these reigns that
the invasion of Judah by the Ethiopian monarch
Serach and his Kushite and Libyan hosts, defeated
by the king of Judah at Tsezphath, near Maresa,
is placed by some. Uasarkan or Osorchon II was
equally undistinguished during his long reign. The
mention of an eclipse of the moon, which, was ex-
pected or happened, occurs in an inscription of his
successor. This took place on the twenty- fifth of
the month Mesori of his fifteenth year. The mutil-
ated inscription which records it also mentions dis-
turbances which happened at the time; records the
victories of the king in the South and North ; refers
to some more operations, and the festivals and offer-
ings made in honour of the gods of Thebes and
Hermonthis. In the twenty-third year of his reign
one of the bulls of Apis died, and was buried with
great pomp in the Serapeum by his son Shishak,

158 HISTORY OF EGYPT

at that time governor of Memphis. Search was
made for another of these sacred bulls after the
seventy days of embalming and mourning had ex-
pired. Osorchon left two sons behind him. The
youngest, named Namrut or Nimrod, after his As-
syrian ancestors, was high priest of Amon, and com-
manded the army stationed at Heracleopolis. His
eldest son, Shishak II, his successor, is scarcely
known from the monuments. His nephew, Takarut
or Takelut, Takelothis II, son of Nimrod, succeeded,
and appears to have been associated in the govern-
ment with his predecessors. Some long but muti-
lated inscriptions, dated in the eleventh year of his
reign, towards the close of which his wife Karu-
mamma, a statue of whom is in the Louvre, died,
are known. The texts mention the rise of Sothis
or the Dog-star, and the offerings of gold and other
objects made to the temple of Amon and the gods
of Thebes. Another inscription of the same date
is known about a deceased prince Uasarkan. An
Apis died in his fourteenth year.

Sheshanka III reigned fifty-one years, and all that is
known of his rule is that an Apis was born in the
twenty-eighth year, showing that another had died
about the period. An inscription of the portico of
the Bubastites of the same date mentions the rich
gifts he made to the temple of Amon at Thebes. His
successor Pamai is only known by the tablet of the
bull Apis at the Serapeum, the Apis born in the
twenty- eighth year of his predecessor having died in
the twentieth year of his reign at the age of twenty-six
years. Pamai was succeeded by Sheshanka IV, who

NEW EMPIRE. 159

reigned thirty-six years more, during which three of
the sacred bulls died, in the fourth, eleventh, and
twenty-seventh year of his reign. With this monarch
the twenty-second dynasty closed.

It would appear that after Sheshanka IV, Egypt had
fallen into the power of the Ethiopians, having pre-
viously, from some unexplained causes, broken up into
a number of small states. These were under the pro-
tection or government of Piankhi, an Ethiopian
monarch residing at Noph or Napata. In the twenty-
first year of his reign, in the month of Thoth, a
messenger came to inform the king that Tafnekht,
commander of the foreign troops, chief or nomarch of
the nome Menouthes, had revolted and made him-
self master of Lower Egypt, and extended his sway as
far as Heracleopolis. One of the principal chiefs who
had been conquered was prince Nimrod of Hermopolis.
On the receipt of this intelligence, Piankhi sent rein-
forcements to the chiefs who remained faithful to him,
and embarking his troops on the Nile, sailed down
towards Thebes, and met on their way the army of
the North, which Piankhi's forces rapidly defeated.
The Northern troops fled to Sutensenen or Heracleo-
polis. The confederated rebels consisted of the princes
Nimrod and Uaput, the prince Osorchon of Bubastus,
Sheshanka, the prince Bakennifi, and some chiefs of
the Libyans, and other mercenaries under Tafnekht.
The prince Nimrod was ascending the river southwards
when he heard of the advance of the Ethiopians, and
at once fled into the port of Hermopolis. After some
partial but imperfect successes of his troops, Piankhi
left his Ethiopian capital and arrived at Thebes. He

i6o

HISTORY OF EGYPT.

harangued and rebuked his army from his war chariot.
He then proceeded to besiege Hermopolis, raising
works against it, and after three days Hermopolis,
overcome by the stench of the dead, surrendered.
Envoys were sent by Nimrod to treat with Piankhi.
After them Nimrod " sent his wife, a queen by marriage

Surrender of Nimrod and other Princes to Piankhi.

and birth, named Nestennest, to offer homage to the
king's wives, concubines, daughters and sisters, and to
prostrate herself in the female apartments before the
king's wives. ' I am come/ she said, ' oh, queens and
princesses, do you reconcile the divine king, lord of
the palace, whose spirit is mighty, and whose justice is
great/ "

Nimrod himself subsequently came, leading his

NEW EMPIRE. l I

horse by a bridle in his right hand and holding a
sistrum in his left. Piankhi entered Hermopolis and
examined the treasury, store-houses, and stables.
Piankhi was exceedingly vexed at the state of the
horses, and their starved condition, which could
scarcely have been due to the siege. Pefaabast, the
chief, prince of Heracleopolis, subsequently surrendered,
and offered his riches and the choicest of his stud to
Piankhi. The haughty Ethiopian averted his face
from the wives of the Egyptian. The cities of Pa-ra-
sekhem-kheper and Mertum surrendered without a
blow. His victorious march was directed to Memphis,
but Tafnekht hastened to reinforce it with 8000 men,
and strengthened its eastern fortifications. Tafnekht
after two days' stay retreated to the north, and Piankhi
advanced to the siege of Memphis, and came in his
ship to the north of the city, and as there was a high
Nile, brought his fleet close under the walls of the city.
The city was taken by assault, and after a great
slaughter, he re-entered the city and sacrificed to the god
Ptah. Uaput, Merkaneshu, and Petesis, with a con-
siderable portion of the northern confederation, sur-
rendered. From Memphis Piankhi proceeded to Heli-
opolis, where he bathed in the lake, and offered a
sacrifice to Ra at sunrise on the dunes. He then
went to the temple of the god Ra, and was purified by
the high priest; after this ceremony he ascended the
steps to the great shrine in the temple, and alone drew
the bolts and opened the folding doors, and beheld the
boats of Ra and Turn. He then sealed the doors
with a clay seal J and said, " I have set my seal, let no

1 Cf. Daniel vi. 17, also the apocryphal Bel and the Dragon 14.

M

1 62 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

other king whatever enter therein." The prince
Uasarkan then came to the king, who proceeded to
Kaken, and Petesis surrendered, invited Piankhi to his
palace, and gave up all his treasures, declaring with an
oath that none had been reserved or concealed. The
whole of the land had gradually fallen into the power
of Piankhi ; but Tafnekht fled to the islands of the
Mediterranean, probably Cyprus, whence he sent
envoys to the conqueror, and two Ethiopian envoys
went to Tafnekht, who took the oath of allegiance.
This completed the general submission of the northern
chiefs, and the suppression of the revolt. Four
sovereigns, two of the North and two of the South,
rendered homage to Piankhi, but were not allowed to
enter the palace because they were eaters of fish.
'Nimrod, however, who was not addicted to that un-
-clean food, was admitted. With a rich booty, amongst
^vhich are reckoned the products of Kharu or Syria,
;and Taneter or Arabia, Piankhi ascended the Nile in
triumph to Thebes.

As the narrative stands, Piankhi appears to have
"been distinguished for his devotion to the god Amon,
and the moderation he displayed towards the con-
quered. Apart from the necessities of war he seems
to have shown no vindictive feeling either to the
revolted princes or the assaulted cities. Although it is
usual to consider that the invasions of Piankhi preceded
the reign of Bokchoris, some doubts are thrown on the
actual period of the invasion, by the fact that the
names of many of the monarchs and governors of
cities reappear in the Assyrian annals of Assurbanipal
at a later date; and that it is within the verge of

NEW EMPIRE. 163

probability that Piankhi might have preceded Sabaco
and not Bokchoris, as is usually assumed by those
who have hitherto treated the subject of this reign.
The twenty-second dynasty was succeeded by the
twenty-third or Tanite, and consisted, according to
Manetho, of four kings, who reigned eighty-nine years.
Petsabast or Petoubastes was the first monarch.
According to Manetho he reigned forty years, but no
important monument of his time remains. Uasarkan
or Osorchon, the second monarch, reigned eight years,
and Psaenmut or Psammus ten* The last king of
Manetho, Zet, has not been discovered, although a
reign of thirty-one years has been assigned to him. The
tablets of the Serapeum throw no light on this dark
spot of Egyptian history, for no Apis is recorded
either to have been born or died in their reigns. From
this it would appear that they were local contempo-
raries of the Ethiopians and the twenty-fourth dynasty,
which consisted of a single king named Bakenranef or
Bokchoris, native of Sais, and son of Tafnekht or
Tnephachthes. He is stated to have been feeble in
body, but wise, intelligent, and avaricious of gain. As
a statesman he passed laws about the interests of
money, and the succession to the crown; and his
sayings attained great popularity. A monstrous ram,
with eight feet, two heads, four horns, and two tails, is
said to have spoken in his reign, supposed to refer to
some mythological event, as also the combat of the
bull Mnevis and another bull provoked by the king.
He reigned six years, and the Apis which died in that
year is mentioned in the hieroglyphic legends, and one
buried in the same chamber with the bull which died

M 2

164 HISTORY OF EGYPT. .

in the thirty- seventh year of Sheshank IV, showing
that Bokchoris succeeded that king at Memphis.
Notwithstanding his wisdom he was unable to resist
the arms of the Ethiopians, who advancing under their
king Sabaco, took Bokchoris captive, and burnt him
alive, about B.C. 715. From this period the contem-
poraneous history of Assyria is known from the Cunei-
form inscriptions, which throw great and unexpected
light upon the relations of Egypt, both to the kingdoms
of Israel, Judah, and the kingdom of Assyria. At this
time the preponderance of Assyria appears fixed in the
neighbourhood of Egypt, which it prepared to attack.
Shalmaneser approached the frontiers of Egypt, at-
tacked the kingdom of Israel, and took Samaria in the
ninth year of Hoshea. The general of the Assyrian
king reproached Hezekiah for resting on the staff of this
bruised reed, "even Egypt, on which if a man lean, it
will go into his hand and pierce it, so is Pharaoh king
of Egypt and all who trust on him V It was in vain
that Hoshea applied to So 2 , the Ethiopian monarch
who then ruled Egypt, and who afforded him no
assistance.

The weakness of Egypt led to the conquest of
Samaria by the Assyrians, and the carrying away of
the ten lost tribes. Shabaka or Sabaco, the first of the
recognised monarchs of the twenty-fifth or Ethiopian
dynasty of Manetho, was a native of Akesh, in Kush
or Ethiopia. His name is found on the temple at
Karnak. He was the contemporary of Sargon, and
the king who burnt alive the unfortunate Bokchoris.
He is mentioned by Herodotus, and retired from

1 2 Kings xviii. 21. 2 Ibid. 4.

NEW EMPIRE.

Egypt in consequence of a dream. The death of an
Apis is recorded in the second year of his reign at the

Serapeum, and his name
is found on the monu-
ments of Karnak. He
concluded a treaty with
one of the Assyrian mo-
narchs, and the seal which
was attached to it was
found in the archives of
Kouyunjik, the ancient
Nineveh. His reign is
supposed to have lasted

Clay Seal of Shabaka or Sabaco. eight years. The SUC-
Found at Nineveh. fni , , ,

cessor 01 Shabaka, named

Shabatuk, the Sebichos of the Greek list and Sibahi
of the Assyrian annals, must have reigned about ten
years. Sibahi, according to the Assyrian annals,
marched to the assistance of Khanunu king of Gaza ;
but the confederates were defeated at the battle of
Raphia, from which Sibahi escaped. Probably the
power of Sibahi was not recognised by the Assyrians,
for they do not call him king in their annals. Ta-
harka or Tirharka, whose sister Sabaco had married,
ascended the throne. He was soon at war with the
Assyrians. About ten years after the capture of
Samaria, Hezekiah threw off his allegiance from
Sennacherib, and asked the assistance of Tirhakah to
expel the Assyrians, and Sennacherib marched on
Judaea. Sennacherib, it appears, subsequently retired
after having reduced Hezekiah once more to sub-
mission. In the subsequent reign of Esarhaddon, B.C.

1 66 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

672, Tirhakah stirred up Bahal king of Tyre to revolt
against the supremacy of Assyria. To defeat this
combination Esarhaddon marched to Palestine and
laid siege to Tyre, in a tenth campaign which he had
made during his reign 1 . He himself marched from
Aphek in Lebanon, along the coast of Palestine to
Raphia, for a distance of about 200 miles; and the
king of Arabia supplied his forces with water. They
suffered intensely from the effects of thirst, till they
reached the banks of the father of waters, the Nile.
Once arrived in Egypt, in the twenty-third year of
Tirhakah, he rapidly became master of the country, and
took Thebes, annexing the whole of the country to
Assyria. The object of Esarhaddon was the conquest
of Meroe, which it is uncertain if he ever reached. On
the rocks of the Nahr-el-Kelb, "Dog river," near
Beirout, he carved a tablet close to those of Rameses II,
recording his march through that defile to Egypt,
traversing the route of the former conquerors of
Assyria. Tirhakah continued the struggle for the
possession of Egypt with Esarhaddon.

It must have been about this time that Esarhaddon
organized Egypt as a subject kingdom, under local
princes or governors, dividing the country into twenty
nomes or districts. The names of some of the rulers
were Assyrian, and those of the cities were changed into
others of the same language. The names recorded in
the Assyrian annals are Niku or Necho, king of
Memphis and Sais, the principal monarch, Sarru-etiq-
dairi king of Zianu or Tanis, Pasankhuru king of
Natku, Pakruru king of Pisabtu, Pukhuniniapi king of

1 Athenaeum, June 2O ; 1874, P-

NEW EMPIRE. 167

Khatkiribi or Athribis, Nakh-ke king of Khininsi or
Heracleopolis, Patubisti or Petubastes, king of Zanu,
Unamunu or Unamen, king of Nalakhu, Kharsiyesu or
Harsiesis, king of Zabnuti, Puaima or Puma, king of
Bendidi or Mendes, Sasingu, Sheshank or Shishak,
king of Busiru, Tapnakhti or Tnephakhthes, king of
Bunu, Pakhunaniapi, Iphkhardesu, or Heptharesis,
king of Pizattikhurunpi, Nakhti-kharu-anshini or
Nekhtharenshen, king of Pisabtinuti, Pakurninip king
of Pakhnuti, Tsikha king of Siayut or Lycopolis,
Lamentu king of Khimuni, Chemmis, or Panopolis,
Ispimagu king of Taini or Thynis, Mantumiankhu or
Mentuemankh, king of Nia or Thebes. It is remark-
able that a similar kind of government prevailed under
the Mamelukes in 1783: Egypt being then ruled by
twenty-four beys, who met at Cairo under a presi-
dent, called the Sheik-el-Belled, A pasha from the
Porte also resided in the country, in order to re-
ceive the tribute, but did not directly interfere in the
civil administration of the country. This political
combination so closely resembles Egypt under the
Assyrians, that it is one of the numerous instances in
which history, according to the saying, repeated itself.
Under this divided rule of the twenty Egypt re-
mained till B.C. 669, when Esarhaddon fell ill,
and Tirhakah endeavoured, at the head of an
army, to regain possession of the country. In
the subsequent year Esarhaddon associated his son
Assurbanipal in the government, and retained only
the kingdom of Babylon. Tirhakah, in the meanwhile,
subdued Upper Egypt, and advanced to Memphis,
which he entered in triumph, and drove the vassals of

1 68 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

the Assyrian king before him. The news of these
events reached Assurbanipal whilst staying at Nineveh,
and the Assyrian monarch at once prepared to act,
and advanced his army to the frontiers of Egypt. As
he proceeded in his march, the countries through
which he passed paid homage to the Assyrian ruler ;
and the ten kings of Cyprus, alarmed at the progress
of the Assyrian army, rendered their submission
through their envoys to the youthful monarch, who
entered Egypt by the usual route of Raphia and
Pelusium. In the battle which ensued the Egyptians
and Ethiopians were defeated with great loss, and Tir-
hakah, unable to oppose the advance of the Assyrians,
or defend Memphis, embarked on the Nile, and accom-
panied by numerous fugitives fled to Thebes. The
forces of the vassal monarchs of the country then joined
the Assyrian forces, and embarking on board another
fleet, after forty days' sail on the river, reached Thebes.
A second time Tirhakah, conscious of his inability to
continue the struggle, crossed the Nile, abandoned
Thebes, and finally retreated to Napata or Gebel
Barkal. After these great successes Assurbanipal
returned to Assyria, having taken the necessary pre-
caution of leaving Assyrian garrisons in the principal
cities to secure his conquest. But the Egyptian
vassals were tired of their dependency on Assyria, and a
league, at the head of which was Necho, was formed,
and made overtures to Tirhakah, who seems to have
been regarded with greater favour by the Egyptians
than the Assyrian monarch. The revolt broke out,
but was speedily quelled by the Assyrian generals, who
promptly seized the leaders; and Necho, who had

NEW EMPIRE. 169

been raised to power by Assurbanipal, was sent bound
with chains to Nineveh, to expiate the consequences of
his unsuccessful attempt to free the country from a
foreign conqueror. While these events were in pro-
gress Tirhakah had not been idle ; entering Egypt
he had regained Thebes, and having defeated the
Assyrian generals in Upper Egypt, advanced on
Memphis. The success of Tirhakah alarmed the
Court of Assyria, and Assurbanipal immediately libe-
rated Necho from his chains, and sent him accompanied
by an army to again govern Egypt in the interest of
Assyria, and to check the progress of Tirhakah.
This operation appears to have been successful, for
Tirhakah retired at his advance to Upper Egypt, and
finally to Napata where he appears to have died. The
name of Tirhakah is found on many of the monuments
of Egypt ; and absolute chronology begins with it, the
later years of his reign being linked to that of the
twenty-sixth dynasty by the dates of the Apis bulls
found in the Serapeum; for an Apis, born in the
twenty-sixth year of Tirhakah, died in the twenty-
sixth year of Psammetichus I, which proves that the
reign of Tirhakah was twenty-six and not eighteen
years as given by Manetho, and gives the clue to the
chronology of the period. The successor of Tirhakah
in Ethiopia was Rutamen, the Urdamani of the Assyrian
annals, who was the son of Sabaco, having been
displaced in the kingdom of Egypt by his uncle. As
soon as he ascended the throne he prepared to wrest
Egypt from the Assyrians. In the first instance he
appears to have regained Thebes, if indeed he had not
held it as an Assyrian vassal. From Thebes he

170 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

marched upon Memphis, and appears to have defeated
the Assyrians and taken Memphis, driving the As-
syrians once more from the valley of the Nile. The
Assyrian monarch had again to quell the revolt of this
important province. The king of Tyre seems to have
taken part in the struggle, for Assurbanipal laid siege
to Tyre and blockaded it with an investing force.
Thence he marched to Egypt, passing through Aphek on
the frontier of Samaria, and supplied with camels and
water by the king of Arabia, crossed the desert which
separates the two countries and defeated once more
the Ethiopian and Egyptian forces. Rutamen retired
in dismay from Memphis, and Assurbanipal after re-
ceiving the submission of the Egyptian princes, marched
in person to Thebes. Rutamen fled at his approach,
the city was taken by storm and plundered, and the
palace of Rutamen spoiled. Amongst other objects,
the Assyrian monarch removed or threw down two of
the great granite obelisks which adorned the temple of
Amon. This capture of Thebes is alluded to by
the Hebrew prophets 1 . Once master of Thebes
Assurbanipal overran the whole of Egypt, and set up
the kings of the nomes, who had been deposed by the
Ethiopians, and as Necho does not appear in the list,
he had either been killed in the course of the war, or
dying, had been succeeded by his son in the govern-
ment of Sais. The fate of Rutamen and the length of
his reign, supposed to be twelve years, are unknown.
The Assyrians state that he fled to Kip-kipi. His
daughter was married to Pefaabast, a name found in
the annals of Piankhi. His successor at Napata or

1 Nahum iii. 8-10.

NEW EMPIRE. 171

Gebel Baikal seems to have been Nutmiamun, and
from a tablet preserved at the site just mentioned, it
appears that in the second year of his reign he was
induced by a vision to appear once more in the field
against the Assyrians, and to attempt the conquest of
Egypt. Nutmiamen saw in a dream two uraei serpents
or cobra de capello snakes, one on the right and the
other on the left hand. When he awoke they were
not there, and he asked the priests the interpretation of
the vision. The explanation of one of the prophets
was couched in these words, "Thou possessest the
South, thou submittest the North, the diadems of the
two regions shine on thy head, thou hast the whole
country in its length and breadth." The king pro-
ceeded to Napata, entered the temple of Amon, and
probably held the sacred image which, according to
Diodorus, conferred on him the right of sovereignty.
He gave thirty-seven bulls, forty vases of beer and
the liquor called ash, besides a hundred ostrich feathers
to the temple and his coronation was performed by the
priests. From thence he marched and sailed to Ele-
phantine, worshipped the local god Khnum, presenting
rich offerings, and went on to Thebes, which he entered
apparently without resistance. He was received by
Sentur the prophet, and forty horoscopi or astrologers,
who offered him the flowers, or crowns of the god.
Pursuing his march to Lower Egypt, he was well
received by the Egyptians; but he took care to
fortify the city of Amon in case of a reverse. " Be
received," they exclaimed, " in peace ; thou givest life
to the double region, thou comest to restore the temple
which fell to ruin, to re-establish the gods in their

I 7 2 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

sanctuaries, to make offerings to the departed spirits,
and to purify every one in his abode." The connec-
tion of the religion of Upper Egypt with that of
Ethiopia probably facilitated his march through the
South, but on his arrival at Memphis the state of
affairs changed. The kings of Lower Egypt more
faithful to Assyria, or unwilling to submit to a Nigritic
conqueror, gave battle to his hosts, and received a
signal defeat. Pakrur the king of Pasupti, and appa-
rently the chief of the confederation, proffered submis-
sion to the conqueror, but as Nutmiamen either then or
subsequently fortified Unu or Hermopolis, it is prob-
able that his successes alarmed the Assyrians, and
brought them once more into collision with the
Ethiopians. At all events, the events of the reigns of
Rutamen and Nutmiamen, do not appear in the tombs
of the bull Apis in the Serapeum, and must be regarded
as comparatively transient in the history of the great
struggle for Egypt, at this period too weak to defend
itself against its northern or southern neighbours.

The rise of the twenty-sixth dynasty, the last of
the native princes which possessed continuous power,
sprung from the Saite line of Necho. According to
the Greek lists Stephinates and Nechepso 1 had pre-
ceded Necho I, whose fate has been already described
in the events of the twenty-fifth dynasty. It would
appear from the Assyrian accounts that a son of Necho,
probably Psammetichus, had received an Assyrian
name; but if this was the fact Psammetichus subse-
quently resumed his Egyptian appellation. To secure
the favour of the Egyptians, Psametik or Psammetichus

1 Rev. Ant. 1868, vol. xvii. p. 329,

NEW EMPIRE.

173

married the princess Shepenaput, daughter of Piankhi,
a king descended in the male line from the un-
fortunate Bokchoris. According to the Greek accounts,
the twenty tributaries or kings reduced to twelve in
number formed a dodekarchy. Allied by ties of
blood and marriage, each reigned peacefully in his

Portrait of Psammetichus. From a Statue.

kingdom, and abstained under treaty from invading
the domains of his neighbour. Of all political arrange-
ments such a one is the most provisional, and in the
flat and narrow valley of the Nile strategically im-
possible. It was alone maintained by Assyrian
jealousy and armed occupation. The superior wisdom
or policy of the house of Sais alarmed the other

174 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

eleven princes of the dodekarchy, and when Psamme-
tichus had fulfilled, by pouring water out of his brazen
helmet, the prediction of an oracle, which asserted that
whoever made a libation out of a brass vessel should
become sole monarch, the other princes decreed his
banishment to one of the most sterile parts of Egypt,
but Psammetichus prepared for war. It would ap-
pear that the others were under the Assyrian protect-
orate, and that Psammetichus followed the traditional
policy of the Saite dynasty in attempting to recover
possession of Egypt. At this conjuncture the Asiatic
Greeks rendered useful assistance to Psammetichus.
The powerful and wealthy kingdom of Lydia, the
head of the Greek confederacy on the western
coast of Asia Minor, was ruled by Gyges. Struck
with admiration of the power of Assyria, Gyges
acknowledged the supremacy of Assyria, and it
appears that he received some aid from the valley
of the Euphrates in the shape of men, or other
means by which he defeated the Cimmerians. But
at a later period the disturbed and unsettled state
of the Assyrian dependencies caused Gyges to take
the part of Psammetichus against the Assyrian power
in Egypt, and Gyges sent a contingent of Greeks,
principally Carians and lonians, to aid the Egyptians.
An oracle had foretold success to the employment of
brazen men who should rise from the sea, and the
services of these Greeks in their invulnerable panoplies
of brass, turned the scale in favour of Psammetichus,
and the Assyrian garrisons left Egypt for ever. The
battle, which decided the fate of Egypt, took place at
Momemphis the modern Menouf, and Psammetichus

NEW EMPIRE. 175

rewarded his foreign troops with permanent places of
occupation called " The Camps/' in the neighbourhood
of Bubastus. From them arose a class which acted at
a later period as dragomans to the Greeks who
visited Egypt. The preference accorded by Psamme-
tichus to his foreign troops, who in the Syrian war
formed a kind of body-guard, so enraged the Egyp-
tians placed on the left flank, that 200,000 of the
national troops are said to have revolted and sought
a new country in Ethiopia.

Some of the Greeks left an inscription engraved
in the rock at Abusimbel recording that when
Psammetichus came to Elephantine those who sailed
with Psammetichus, son of Theokles, going beyond
Kerkis inscribed it on the rock. This is the earliest
Greek inscription to which a positive date can be
assigned. Egypt had now lost all her foreign con-
quests, and her energies were directed to secure her
frontiers from invasion. Garrisons at Elephantine,
Daphne, and Meroe, protected the Ethiopian, Syrian,
and Libyan frontiers. In foreign expeditions Psam-
metichus appears to have had little success, and the
siege or rather blockade of Azotus alone consumed
twenty-nine years of his long reign. If, however,
Egypt was no longer able to take the field, great
attention was paid by the new dynasty to the repairs
of the temples and the revival of the arts. At Sais,
Memphis, Thebes, and Philae, the works of Psam-
metichus I, are found. The great temple of Ptah at
Memphis was enlarged, and at the Serapeum of the
same place he made a new gallery for the reception of
the mummies of the bull Apis, which had died in his

176

HISTORY OF EGYPT.

reign. The first mummied bull deposited in this
gallery died in the fifty-second year of his reign.
These bulls were buried with great honour and at a
great expense, and appear to have been treated with
special veneration, agreeable to the importance as-
sumed by Memphis, once more re-established as the
political capital of Egypt. The revival of the arts

Tomb of the Apis of the reign of Psammetichus in the Serapeum at

Sakkarah.

at this period is not less remarkable; the principal
and favourite material was basalt, especially a green
variety. There is great suppleness and vigour in
the limbs, but not that vigorous display of anato-
mical details visible in the older works of painting
and sculpture. It was an age of revival, the older

NEW EMPIRE. 177

works of the fourth dynasty were imitated and copied
in all their chief details, with greater smoothness,
fineness, and floridity. In literature the older re-
ligious works were amended, collated, and arranged
in accordance with the canon adopted by the priests.
A new form of hand-writing called the demotic, or
"popular," or else the enchorial, or native, came into
use and superseded for the ordinary purposes of
legal documents and civil life the hieratic or sacred
cursive or writing hand which had hitherto prevailed.
This had probably resulted from the influence of
the foreign nations who traded to the ports of the
Delta, and had made the Egyptians acquainted with
the more compendious Phoenician and the still more
perfect alphabet of the Greeks. Egypt was already
in its decadence and old age, and the hieroglyphics
already represented a dead language, so that a new
form of writing was required to express the changes
which had taken place not only in the grammatical
structure of the vernacular, but also in the body of
the language, into which foreign words had already
been extensively introduced and which could no
longer be adequately expressed by the hieratic. In
sculpture the canon of proportion changed, and in
architecture the columnar slab, which raised to
about four feet, linked column to column, and kept
the view of the sacred shrine from the eyes of the
profane vulgar, was introduced into the temples.
Some of the later shrines were huge monoliths, quar-
ried out of masses of basalt, and their size or
beauty excited the admiration of posterity. But in
all respects Psammetichus must be considered one

N

178 HISTORY JOF EGYPT.

of the noblest of the Egyptian monarchs, combining
shrewd political knowledge with military talent, and
an enlightened love of the arts which decorate and
immortalize the present by transmitting to the future
a knowledge of the irrevocable past. Necho II, son
of Psammetichus and Shepenhap succeeded to the
crown, and he married his sister-in-law Nitakar or
Nitocris. The development of the maritime power
of the Greeks probably induced him to turn his
attention to the marine of Egypt. He conceived the
idea of joining the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea,
now for the first time realized by the Suez Canal.
Necho II continued the old canal of Necho. which
he cleared and enlarged, and his canal starting from
Bubastus at the Pelusiac branch of the Nile,
entered the Bitter Lakes close to the ancient Pa-
khetam or Pithom. It must have been of consider-
able breadth, for two triremes could pass each
other as they went along. The work was no doubt
executed by forced labour, and 120,000 labourers
are said to have perished in the digging. A con-
venient oracle declared that he was working for the
foreigners, and Necho desisted from the too arduous
project. With the name of Necho is associated the
first recorded attempt of the circumnavigation of
Africa. He despatched some Phoenician navigators
down the Red Sea with orders to enter the Mediter-
ranean by the Straits of Gibraltar, the pillars of
Hercules of the Greeks. In this voyage they suc-
ceeded, and proved the truth of their enterprise by
bringing back the startling account that they had seen
the Sun rise at their left hand. Necho also built

NEW EMPIRE. 179

dockyards on the shores of the Mediterranean and
Red Sea, for the construction of a fleet of triremes,
a kind of vessel not used by his predecessors, but
with which he had become acquainted through the
Greeks. Necho was the last Egyptian monarch who
had relations with the Jews. He desired to attack
the Assyrians, and marching on Carchemish, was
attacked by Josias, king of Judah, who attempted to
oppose the march of the Egyptian monarch in the
plains of Megiddo. In the battle which ensued
Josias, who had disguised himself, was mortally
wounded, and leaving his chariot, was carried in
another chariot to Jerusalem, where he died. The
Jews appointed Joachaz the son of Josias as king
in the place of his father, but Necho marched on
Jerusalem, deposed Joachaz and condemned the
city to a tribute of a talent of gold and a hundred of
silver. He then set up Eliakim the brother of Joa-
chaz as king, and took Joachaz with him as prisoner
or hostage to Egypt. Eliakim it appears changed his
name to Jehoialdm. After the fall of Nineveh to the
arms of the Babylonians and Medes, and the extinction
of the line of Sennacherib, Necho, probably to secure
his Syrian conquests, marched again against the
Babylonians, and sustained a severe defeat at Carche-
mish, where his army was routed by Nebuchadnezzar,
son of Nabopalassar king of Babylon. All Syria,
except the country of the Philistines, fell into the
power of the Babylonians, whose triumph is cele-
brated in the prophecies of Jeremiah. Like his
father, Psammetichus, the Pharoah Necho renewed
or embellished the different temples of Egypt; and

N 2

l8o HISTORY OF EGYPT.

tablets at El Hammamat, which are dated the eighth
year of his reign, and those in quarries at Tourah
record his care to embellish the monuments of his
country. A stele* at the Serapeum mentions the death
of an Apis in the sixteenth year of his reign, and
that Necho buried the deceased bull with unparalleled
magnificence. The other details mentioned on the
stete fix the duration of the reigns of his immediate
predecessor and successor. Sais, the seat of the
dynasty, shared with Memphis the honours of the
capital, and there is every reason to believe that
Necho was there buried. The mummy of this king
was destroyed about a century and a half ago, the
sacred scarabaeus placed upon the region of the
heart, and inscribed with his name, having been
brought to a convent in Paris. Necho reigned six-
teen years, and was succeeded by Psammetichus II,
son of Necho and the queen Takhauat. His name
is found in the island of Elephantine and Konosso,
an islet between Elephantine and Philae, and its
presence there is supposed to record a campaign
against the Ethiopians, whose kingdom now extended
to Syene or Assouan. Psammetichus II only reigned
five years, and was succeeded by his son Uahhapra
or Apries, the Hophrah of Scripture. He appears to
have vanquished in a naval battle the allied fleets of
Cyprus and Phoenicia, and taken Sidon. Laden with
the spoils of the Phoenicians, probably at that time
the tributaries of the Babylonians, he revived the
prestige of the Egyptian arms which had received so
severe a shock under Necho II. The Jews, more
inclined to the supremacy of Egypt than the domin-

NEW EMPIRE. l8l

ation of Babylonia, revolted for a third time, and
their king Zedekiah made an alliance with the Phar-
aoh, and Apries marched against the Babylonians,
who retired at his approach. They returned how-
ever to the siege of Jerusalem, which was taken by
Nebuchadnezzar, B.C. 558, and Apries appears to
have been unable from some unexplained cause
either to aid the Jews or raise the siege. A great
number of the Jews, and amongst them the prophet
Jeremiah, emigrated to Egypt and arriving at
Taphnes subsequently distributed themselves through-
out Egypt, chiefly in the cities of the Delta. Sub-
sequently Apries made an alliance with Adiacras
king of the Libyans, and attacked the Greek settle-
ment of Cyrene, which became menacing to its
neighbours. The army of Apries was defeated and
the conquered army on its return to Egypt revolted
against the monarch, owing to the spread of a
rumour that it had been sacrificed to the ambition
of Apries. It was in vain that he sent Amasis an
Egyptian commander to the disaffected army. The
army saluted Amasis as king, and that officer placed
himself at the head of the insurgent forces. Alarmed
at the conjuncture, Apries sent Patarbemis, another
Egyptian, to bring Amasis captive into his presence.
The task was too great, for Patarbemis returned
unsuccessful' to the court. Apries, furious at the
want of success, then cut off the ears and nose of
Patarbemis, a cruel and ignominious punishment in-
flicted as already described on traitors. The revolt
then became general, and Apries in vain with his
army of Greek mercenaries attacked Amasis. De-

1 82 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

feated in the battle of Momemphis, he was led captive
to his former palace at Sais, and well treated by the
conqueror. The nation however clamoured for his
death, and Apries was strangled and buried at Sais.
Such is the Greek history of this later Pharaoh, and
his name and titles are found throughout the length
and breadth of Egypt. Like his predecessor, he had
occupied himself with the erection or embellishment
of the public monuments, and had buried with the usual
pomp an Apis, which died in the twelfth year of his
reign, which lasted nineteen years. His successor
Aahmes II, or Amasis, was of an ignoble family and
a native of Siouph. It appears he was addicted to the
pursuit of pleasure rather than ambition, and his ele-
vation to the throne was more the result of accident than
design. His reign continued the policy of his pre-
decessors. At home he embellished the temples of
Sais and Memphis, and the numerous inscriptions
of the quarries at Tourah, near Memphis, El Ham-
mamat, or the Cosseir Road, and Silsilis, show the
extent of his public works. The most remarkable
of these was the monolith naos or shrine, brought
from Elephantine to Sais. It took 2000 boatmen
three years to transport it, and its weight was about 500
tons. An Apis died in the twenty-third year of his
reign, B. c. 548, and was buried with great magnifi-
cence after seventy days of mourning or preparation.
The expense at this period of such rites had in-
creased enormously in proportion with the riches of
the country, and the 25,000 towns and villages with
which it was studded. The power and importance
of the Greeks, now become a kind of janissaries or

NEW EMPIRE. 183

praetorian guard, encamped in the neighbourhood of
Memphis, was too strong to be ignored, and Aahmes
not only favoured the Hellenic population domiciled
in Egypt, but opened to the commerce of Greece
the port of Naukratis in the Saite nome. The
" Guard/' as the Ionian and Carian troops were con-
sidered, Aahmes quartered at Bubastus in the neigh-
bourhood of Memphis, the Northern capital. Either
from inclination or policy, the Egyptian monarch par-
ticularly cultivated the friendship of Greece and the
isles. He offered rich presents to the Delphi, Samos,
and Lindos. To the Cyrenians, with whom he had
made peace, he sent an image of Athene and his
statue, and married Ladike the daughter of the
Cyrenian Kritoboulos. The island of Cyprus, accor-
ding to Greek accounts, he conquered, but there is
reason to think that it had been long prior invaded
if not annexed by the Pharaohs, and the arts of the
island show unmistakeable evidence of Egyptian
influence at a remote period. Aahmes married at
least three, and apparently four wives during his life-
time. Of these, the most important was Ankhnas,
the daughter of Psammetichus IL Her fine sarco-
phagus of black marble covered with hieroglyphic
inscriptions, the prayers of the queen, and the res-
ponses of the gods was found at Luxor, and is now
in the British Museum. At the close of his reign,
Egypt excited the ambition of the rising power of
Persia, and Cambyses prepared a military expedition
for its conquest. The pretext was the duplicity of
Aahmes, who had sent an Egyptian oculist to cure
Cambyses of a malady of the eyes. The oculist

184 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

recommended or lauded the beauty of a daughter of
Aahmes, and the Persian ruler demanded her in
marriage; but Aahmes, apprehending that his own
child would have only the ignoble position of a
secondary wife, substituted for her Nitetis the daughter-
in-law of Apries, and the last descendant of the line
of Psammetichus I. Indignant at the fraud which
had been practised, Cambyses prepared for war, but
Aahmes died before the advance of the Persians,
and closed, B.C. 527, a long reign of forty- five
years, in which he had displayed all the qualities of
a good monarch, sagacious statesman, and able
commander. His place of 1 sepulchre is unknown,
although the satirist Juvenal speaks of his body as
torn from the pyramids, probably alluding to the
tradition of the vengeance of Cambyses.

The opportune death of Aahmes opened Egypt to
the Persians, if indeed it could have been held against
the fierce valour of the Persian troops which had
already conquered the East and Asia Minor. Phanes,
a former soldier of Aahmes and commander of the
Greek body-guard of that monarch, had deserted to
Cambyses, and led the advance of the Persian army,
which traversed Palestine and the Arabian desert.
From the Arabian king it received the necessary supply
of water carried in jars on the backs of camels, for the
Arabian monarch had formerly been engaged in hos-
tilities with Aahmes. Psammetichus offered battle on
the Pelusiac branch of the river, and after a terrible
conflict, chiefly sustained by the Greek mercenaries on
the part of the Egyptians, the Persians gained the
victory, and with it the possession of Egypt ; for it was

NEW EMPIRE. ^ 185

in vain that the defeated forces sought refuge in
Memphis, and attempted to defend it against the
Persians. Cambyses placed in the van of his army
the sacred animals of the Egyptians, who, from re-
ligious motives, were afraid to shoot their arrows at
the Persian host lest they should destroy these living
idols. The debris of the Egyptian troops covered
themselves in the white wall or citadel of Memphis.
A Mitylenian galley which ascended the Nile to that
city, bearing a Persian herald and a summons to sur-
render, was attacked, its crew and the herald killed.
Cambyses then ordered the assault of Memphis, which
was taken after some resistance, and the son of Psam-
metichus III, and 2000 Egyptians who had been con-
demned to death were put to the sword. The life of the
Egyptian monarch was spared for the time and he was
kept in surveillance at the court of Persia, but found to
be an useless incumbrance and a dynastic danger;
he was- accused of conspiracy against Cambyses and
condemned to drink the blood of a bull, a mode of
execution peculiar to the Persians. He reigned
only six months, and his name is scarcely found on
the monuments of Egypt. Psammetichus was the
last of the independent monarchs of Egypt, as al-
though the Persians were driven out for a time,
they conquered Egypt again and reduced the native
monarchs to the condition of vassals and the country
to a satrapy or administered province, which Egypt
ultimately became. The reign of Cambyses over
Egypt was not longer than eight years. After the
capture of Memphis Cambyses proceeded to Sais, and
having exhumed the mummy of Arnasis, publicly burnt

1 86 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

it, having treated it with the greatest dishonour in his
power. Some account of his actions at Sais are
narrated in the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the statue
of Utaharpenres, a priest and high admiral who lived
in this reign. It appears that Cambyses, who conferred
an important charge on the officer, assumed a royal
praenomen. Cambyses cleared the temple of Neith
of the crowd of foreigners who had seized on the pre-
cincts, and levelled the constructions they had erected.
He was initiated into the mysteries of the temple
of the goddess, supposed to be the mother of the Sun,
an attractive legend for the fire- worshipping Persians ;
lie then prepared to attack the Carthaginians, the
Ammoneum or Oasis of Amon in the desert, and the
Ethiopians. His plans were unfortunate, 50,000 men
.and their general are said to have perished in the
sands of the desert while attempting to reach the
Oasis. The campaign against Ethiopia was equally
unsuccessful, and after some small success on the
southern frontier, and great loss of life and much
suffering, Cambyses failed in his attempt, and returned
maddened to Thebes in the fifth year .of his reign,
B.C. 525, at the moment of the discovery of a new
Apis. Mistaking the public rejoicings for those at his
own defeat, he wreaked his vengeance -OB the magis-
trates, whom he killed. The priests of Apis were
ordered to bring their charge into his presence, and he
stabbed the sacred bull in the thigh and bastinadoed
the priests. At Memphis he opened the tombs, visited
the sanctuary of Ptah, mocked the image of the god
and burnt the images of the gods of the circle of Ptah.
The town and temple of Sais, according to the legends

NEW EMPIRE. 187

of the statue already mentioned, were saved " from
the very great calamity which happened in the whole
country, for never a like took place in this country,"
by the good offices of Utaharpenres. The revolt of
the Magi saved Egypt from further horrors and insult,
for Cambyses, whilst mounting his horse at Ecbatana
to march to Susa to quell the revolt of the false
Smerdis, stabbed himself accidentally in the thigh, ac-
cording to the Egyptians with the very dagger with
which he had wounded the Apis, and at the corres-
ponding place of his own thigh. The name of
Cambyses with the date of his sixth year is found on
the rocks of El Hammamat. The successor of Cam-
byses was Darius, called by the Egyptians Tariush or
Entariush. Egypt formed part of the African satrapy,
and paid a tribute of 700 talents of silver besides the
revenues of the Lake Moeris, and 120,000 measures
of corn. The civil government of Egypt seems to
have been conferred by Darius on Utaharpenres, who re-
duced to order the state of the country convulsed by the
madness of Cambyses and the revolt of the Magi. The
administration of Darius was mild ; he built or repaired
the temple of Amon in the Oasis of El Khargeh, and
worshipped the deities of Egypt ; and when the country
was thrown into revolt by the cruelties of Aryandes.
Darius in the fourth year of his reign, B.C. 517, returned
to Egypt and offered 100 talents for the discovery
of a new Apis to replace the one which had just died.
Another Apis subsequently died in his reign, and a
third appeared in the thirty-first year of the same
king. Darius attempted to complete the canal of
Necho, and amongst the monuments of his reign at

1 88 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

Suez, may be cited his signet ring, with a representa-
tion of Darius in his chariot shooting a lion, and his
name and title in Cuneiform characters in three lan-
guages Persian, Median and Babylonian. Aryandes,
the Persian viceroy of Egypt, was put to death by
Darius on suspicion of treason. He had made an
attack on Cyrene with an army commanded by Amasis
to punish the murderers of Arcesalaus, who had been
assassinated by the natives of Barce ; but the Egyptian
army suffered heavily from the Libyans, and the pri-
soners taken at Barce were transported according to
the Persian custom to another spot in the Empire to
Bactria, where they founded another town with the
same name. After the battle of Marathon, B.C. 490,
when the Persians were defeated by the Greeks, Egypt
revolted from Darius, and it was not recovered during
the lifetime of the Persian king. His rule had been
mild and his moderation great, so much so that when
he desired to set up an obelisk at Thebes, the priests
who had charge of the temple refused the required
permission, on the ground that his exploits had not
equalled those of the native rulers. In B. c. 485, Xerxes,
called by the Egyptians Khshairsha, carried on war
with Egypt and reconquered the country, and then
prepared for the conquest of Greece. In the interval
between Darius and Xerxes, according to an in-
scription on a tablet later than the Macedonian con-
quest, Khabash, perhaps a Persian satrap or other
foreigner, had ruled Egypt for at least two years.
According to the language of the tablet "the god
Horus had expelled the evil-doer Xerxes out of his
palace, together with his eldest son, letting it be

NEW EMPIRE. 189

known in the town of Neith to this day/' In the
second year of Khabash, an Apis had been buried
in the Serapeum, and Khabash had fortified the
coast against the Persian fleet. Xerxes had, however,
compelled the Egyptians to furnish 200 vessels for
his great fleet, and they distinguished themselves at
the battle of Artemisium. Inscriptions at the Cosseir
Road and El Hammamat confirm the fact of the reign
of Xerxes having lasted twelve years, as recorded by
a Persian named Ataiuhi of the court, son of Artames,
a Persian officer who held the same employment in
the reign of Artaxerxes the successor of Xerxes. The
struggle was now renewed with varied success. The
Egyptians called in the monarch Inarus, whose name
has not been found on any monument, and demanded
the assistance of the Athenians, who sent a powerful fleet
to aid them, while Artaxerxes dispatched his generals
to subdue them at the head of an army of 300,000 men.
The Persians, at first victorious, then defeated, were
besieged in Memphis, but the Persians raised the
siege, destroyed the Athenian fleet and impaled Inarus
the Libyan king, who had fostered the revolt. The
Egyptian king Amyrtaios fled to the marshes of the
Delta, and the Persians after the six years of struggle
placed as vassals or satrap monarchs Thannyras on
the Libyan, and Pausiris on the Egyptian throne.

Artaxerxes was succeeded by Xerxes II, who, after a
transient reign of a few months, was assassinated by
his brother Sogdianus, B.C. 424, who is said to have
reigned only seven months. After these domestic
revolutions Darius II, the son of Xerxes, ascended the
throne and reigned for nineteen years, till B.C. 425.

1 96 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

Recent discoveries at El Khargah or the Oasis have
discovered the names and titles of two monarchs
named Darius at that spot, and one of them probably
belongs to this Darius rather than the monarch of the
thirty-first dynasty, whose short reign of four years was
too anxious and disastrous, on account of the march of
Alexander into Asia, to allow the unfortunate monarch
to pay attention to the affairs of Egypt.

The affairs of Egypt from this period are involved
in some obscurity, as the authority of the monuments
is wanting to confirm or set right the Greek accounts.
As, however, the defects of monumental history are at
this period filled up by the narratives of foreigners
who lived at the period, especially the Athenians, the
absence of contemporary monuments is not so im-
portant as it otherwise would have been. A second.
Amyrtaios is the only king of the twenty-eighth or
Saite line, and he was succeeded by the twenty-ninth
or Mendesian dynasty. The first of its monarchs was
Naifaarut or Nepherites. He rarely appears on the
monuments, although he partly restored the temple of
Amon at Karnak ; but his name and titles are found
on his clay seal in the British Museum, which had
been formerly appended to some important state docu-
ment. Naifaarut reigned only seven years, in the
fourth of which he aided the manning and. victualling
of a Lacedaemonian fleet. His successor, Hakar or
Achoris, like his predecessor, combined with the
enemies of Persia in the vain hope of. more securely
establishing his dynasty. Hakar allied himself with
Evagoras the king of Cyprus, who had almost expelled
the Persians from that island. The allied fleets were

NEW EMPIRE.

defeated by the Persians, and Hakar after a reign of
eight years, left the struggle to his successor. The
name of Hakar also occurs on the monuments
of Egypt at Alexandria, and Medinat Habu. The
thirtieth dynasty, the Sebennyte was founded by
Nekhtherheb, the Nektaneles or Nekhterebes of the
Greeks. This monarch gave the command of his fleet
to Chabrias, but tEat officer was recalled at the re-
monstrances of the Persian Court. Artaxerxes II
attacked Egypt with an overwhelming force and a fleet
of 500 gallies, and a mercenary Greek force of
20,000 men. Nekhtherheb fortified the coast, but the
Persian fleet entered the Pelusiac branch of the Nile
and disembarked. Dissensions, arose between Iphi-
krates the Greek, and Pharnabazos the Persian general;
irreparable time and advantages were lost. Nekhther-
heb contentrated an army at Mendes, and defeated the
Persians, who retired from Egypt. In his reign of nine-
teen years this monarch renewed the temple of the Delta,
especially that of Behbut, and the temple of Khonsu,
at Karnak ; also that of the god Turn or Tomos at Ro-
setta. The arts had all the elegance, but were more
florid than at the period of the twenty-sixth dynasty.
Two obelisks of black granite in the British Museum,
formerly found at Cairo, show the admirable finish
which prevailed at this period. A beautiful sarcophagus
of this monarch is also in the British Museum, and
another is known of a person deceased in the fifteenth
year of his reign. His successor Getho or Teos, was
apparently his son, and his name has been found in the
quarries of Mokattam. With an army of Egyptians
and Greeks commanded by Agesilaos he held the

192 HISTORY OF EGYPT.

country, but the Egyptian oppressed the natives by his
taxation, and annoyed Agesilaos by his speeches. The
army revolted after two years, and Nekhtenebef the last
of the native Pharaohs, was recalled from Phoenicia
to mount the throne of Egypt. His right to the
throne was disputed by a Mendesian prince, and
Nekhtenebef threw himself into one of the great
fortified towns of the country, which was invested
by the Mendesians, but a successful. sortie of Agesilaos
defeated the forces of his rival. The energy of Ochos,
the successor of Artaxerxes, however, restored once
more the Persian rule in Egypt. Sidon, notwith-
standing its Egyptian garrison, was taken, and the.
Persians, reinforced by Greek mercenaries,,commenced
the siege of Pelusium. Nekhtenebef, a bad general
but jealous of command, directed the operations in
person, and alarmed at some Persian successes fled to
Memphis, which he fortified. The Greek garrisons of
Pelusium and Bubastus surrendered, and Nekhtenebef,
afraid of offering further resistance, did not even sus-
tain the siege of Memphis, but fled with his treasure
to Ethiopia, B. c. 340, after a reign of nineteen years.

From this period Egypt became a satrapy of Persia,
till the conquest of Alexander the Great, B.C. 332;
then it became a Greek kingdom under the Ptolemies
till the death of Cleopatra, B.C. 30, and finally a
Roman province till the Mussulman conquest.

THE END.

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