LIBEARY 
 
 of mi 
 
 Theological Seminary, 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 ' C'tSC Division VJB3.... 
 
 Shelf . Section. : B:&1...^ 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/ancienthistoryfrOObirc 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 FROM THE MONUMENTS. 
 
 EGYPT 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 FROM THE MONUMENTS. 
 
 I EGYPT From the earliest times to B - c - 3°°- 
 
 By S. Birch, LL. D. 
 
 II ASSYRIA From the earliest times to the fal1 of Nineveh. 
 
 By George Smith, of the British Museum. 
 
 Ill PERSIA From the earliest period to the Arab Conquest. 
 
 By W. S. W. Vaux, M. A. F. R. S. 
 
 In this series we have a compact but popular presentation of 
 the highly important results of recent archaeological investigation. 
 The annals of Egypt, Assyria and Persia, as derived from the 
 monuments and from the cuneiform inscriptions generally, are of 
 the greatest importance to understanding the development of 
 human civilization and the tendency of religious thought. Besides 
 this there has been brought out a mass of evidence and illustration 
 on manners and customs, language and literature, tending to 
 throw light on the earlier books of the Bible, a knowledge of 
 which is indispensable to every well-informed man. This has 
 heretofore been practically inaccessible because of the recondite 
 manner in which it has been discussed. Each of these volumes 
 has been prepared by specialists who are masters of their respective 
 departments. 
 
 Each volume handsomely illustrated. Small i2mo. Cloth. 
 Price, $1.00. 
 
 **t Sent Post-paid, ufon Receipt of Price, by 
 
 SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG &. CO., 
 
 New York. 
 
TEMPLE OF LUXOR. 
 
 (p. 109.) 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 FROM THE MONUMENTS. 
 
 EGYPT 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 EARLIEST TIMES TO B. C. 300. 
 
 BY 
 
 S. BIRCH, LL.D., etc 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO. 
 
 i875. 
 
'RANT, FaIRKS & R.ODGERS, 
 
 Electrotypers and Printers, 
 52 k 54 N. Sixth St. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
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 — Bcethos — Sent — Pyramid of 
 Meydoum. Third dynasty — Monuments at Sakkarah. Fourth 
 dynasty — Cheops — Kephren — Mencheres — Pyramids of Gizeh — 
 Civilization — 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 dynast}'. From 
 about 2000 B. c. to 1600 B. c. Eleventh dynasty — Antef — 
 Tombs at the El-Assasif— Mentuhetp valley of El Hammamat. 
 Twelfth dynasty — War of Osertesen 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 Hyk-shos or Shepherd rulers Page 59 
 
vi 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 New Empire from the eighteenth to the twentieth dynasty. From 
 1600 B.C. to ino B.C. Expulsion of Shepherds — Exploits of 
 Aahmes I. — Thothmes I.— The Queen Hasheps— Arabian tributes 
 and queen — Wars of Thothmes III. — Battle of Megiddo— Trib- 
 utes — Exploits of Amenemheb — Amenophis III. — Heretical wor- 
 ship of the sun's disk — Restoration of the worship of Amen — 
 Seti I. and his wars — Rameses II. — Great war with the Khitaand 
 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 Bakhlan — Fall of the Ramessids Page 81 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 From the twenty-first dynasty to the conquest. From about 1100 
 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 — Artaxerxes— 
 Nechterebes — Teos— Conquest of Egypt by Alexander.. Page 162 
 
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 
 civilization and the tendency of religious thought. 
 It was in it that the Hebrews passed their first cap- 
 tivity, 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 civilization. The 
 land itself, called in the hieroglyphics Kam or the 
 Black, from the color 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 Mudraya, but the Greeks 
 called it Aiguptos, a word of uncertain 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 popula- 
 tion. 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, which it fertilized; retiring 
 again to a narrower bed, it left behind it a long and 
 
 vii 
 
Vlll 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 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 
 rivers, mostly repelled by the Mediterranean, 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 ena- 
 bled even the most fragile materials, such as rapidly 
 perish elsewhere, to survive the slow process of de- 
 stroying time, for all above the level of the inunda- 
 tion 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 color, especially in Upper 
 Egypt, from a slimy green to a turbid red color. 
 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 
 ^vatered 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 
 resembling the Mosaic account of the creation of man. 
 Modern researches have, however, not as yet finally 
 determined if advancing from Western Asia they en- 
 tered the alluvial land bringing with them an already 
 developed civilization ; or if ascending from Ethiopia 
 they followed the course of the river to its mouth ; 
 or if they were Aborigines, the date of whose appear- 
 ance is beyond the knowledge of man and the scan 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ix 
 
 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 races, it has been usual to style them Hami- 
 tic, as 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 
 contrast 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 physi- 
 cal 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 adjacent countries already partly populated. 
 South of Syene lay the numerous black tribes, the so- 
 called Nahsi or Negroes, inferior in civilization but 
 turbulent and impatient of subjection. The skirts 
 of the Eastern desert were held by wandering tribes 
 called Satu, not yet subjected to the arms and disci- 
 pline 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 ex- 
 ercised the arts of piracy and commerce. Beyond 
 the North-eastern desert, in which resided the Heru- 
 sha or Inhabitants of the Waste, were the Menat, 
 perhaps also a Shepherd race, the dwellers of North- 
 ern 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 con- 
 nected. 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 no- 
 tions, 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 pas- 
 sage or were connected with his worship, and the 
 gods Amen and Kheper, who represented 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 judg- 
 ment 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, transmi- 
 grated 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 produced ail beings, or 
 to have been the universal and animating principle 
 of nature. In the different sects Ptah was thought 
 to have produced the Sun and Moon, or celestial 
 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 Uni- 
 verse. He was succeeded by Ra, the meridian or 
 mid-day Sun, Ra by Shu, another form of the same 
 luminary allied with his sister Tef. These were fol- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 lowed by Seb or Saturn, the prince of the gods, and 
 apparently the stellar universe allied to Nut or the 
 Ether, like the Greek Rhea, from whom sprung the 
 terrestrial 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 Ho- 
 rus, the conqueror of Set, the avenger of his father, 
 and the immediate 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 suc- 
 cession at Thebes followed nearly the same order, 
 but Amon Ra, the Theban Jupiter was placed at the 
 head of the list, although the evidence of the monu- 
 ments proves that his appearance in the mythology 
 was later than that of Ptah. The god Mentu, an- 
 other 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 
 Venus and the lord goddess of Dendera or Tentyris, 
 Athribis, and Aphroditopolis. Besides the gods of 
 the first order, 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 em- 
 balmer 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 prin- 
 cipal 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 
 
xii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 female goddess Bast, lion-headed like Merenphtah 
 and probably her sister, was also occasionally seen. 
 At Heliopolis the triad consisted of Turn or Harma- 
 chis, Nebhetp, and Horus. At Abydos of Osiris, Isis 
 his wife, and Horus, to whom Nephthys was some- 
 times added ; while at Elephantine Khnum or Chnou- 
 mis 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 hawks' heads ; Khnum, that of 
 a ram; Sebak, a crocodile's head ; Thoth, the head 
 of an ibis ; and Anubis, that of a jackal. The uraeus 
 or cobra di capella snake often appeared on their 
 heads, and they held in their hands emblems of life, 
 and sceptres terminating in the head of a mystic ani- 
 mal ; goddesses sometimes 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 efnatus 
 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 representations 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 particu- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xiii 
 
 lar marks, and all had honors paid them during life, 
 and were carefully embalmed after death. 
 
 The Egyptians possessed an extensive literature, 
 the invention of the art of writing being due to them. 
 By means of the hieroglyphs or direct representa- 
 tion 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 writ- 
 ten, 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 
 Lamentations or sighs of Isis ; hymns to different gods ; 
 ethical treatises 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 indict- 
 ments 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 hiero- 
 
xiv 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 glyphical inscriptions of the principal monuments 
 of the country, in which conquests and other great 
 public events, are described in heroic strains. 
 
 In their moral law the Egyptians followed the same 
 precepts as the decalogue, and crimes were punished 
 according to their enormity ; the bastinado was 
 administered to obtain confessions, as a punishment 
 for minor offences, while serious crimes were visited 
 with excision of the nose and ears, or death by de- 
 capitation. Treason, murder, adultery, theft, and 
 the practice of magic were crimes of the deepest dye, 
 and punished accordingly. In domestic life the 
 Egyptian was attached 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, participated 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. Unfortu- 
 nately, 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, how- 
 ever, 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 Assyrian or Greek while 
 his wife sat respectfully on the 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 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XV 
 
 puberty went undressed, 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 sin- 
 don. 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 ankles, relieved by straps across the 
 shoulders. Sandals were not worn till the fifth dy- 
 nasty, 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 
 armor 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 per- 
 sons of high class, and the barber in full activity 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. Females only 
 wore earrings, but both sexes loaded their fingers 
 with rings, some of which were used as seals or sig- 
 nets. Men of rank and authority often bore a cylin- 
 drical 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 tabernacles, razors, tweezers and hair pins were 
 also in use for the 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, acrobats, and pantomimic dances helped to 
 shorten the weary hours, with the game of draughts 
 or robbers, that of the base played with many pieces, 
 and morra. Women sported at ball, danced, spun, 
 and sewed. The youthful aristocracy 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 management 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. Ele- 
 gant 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 water-fowl. The public architecture 
 was on the grandest scale, and dwarfs the Greek on 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xvii 
 
 comparison. Gigantic columns with lotus or papyrus 
 capitals, towered to a height of sixty feet. Others, 
 *he 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 colors 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 colored patterns, devices, and hieroglyphs, mi- 
 niature portraits of things in heaven, on earth, and 
 under the water. Architecture, sculpture, and paint- 
 ing descended as mourners to the grave. In the dark 
 sepulchral passages where no sunlight enters, the 
 torch reveals careful though unshaded painting, and 
 brilliant colors 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 tun- 
 nelled hills, lay the mummies of the illustrious dead. 
 For, from the earliest age the corpse was an object of 
 solicitude ; it was expected 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 minis- 
 ters of embalmment took it into their keeping. The 
 paraschistes or dissector opened the side with an 
 Ethiopian stone, the viscera and softer parts were re- 
 moved ; 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 hundreds 
 of yards packed it with pledgets into a symmetrical 
 shape. It was then consigned to its coffin or sarco- 
 phagus, gaily painted or elaborated, sculptured with 
 appropriate mortuary scenes and funeral prayers, 
 accompanied with the paraphernalia of the tomb, the 
 boxes, jars, and other objects deposited for its use. 
 
 B 
 
xviii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The service of the dead was then performed. Hired 
 mourners 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 favorite cemetery — to the Pyra- 
 mid 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 
 priesthood, with richly endowed temples, in posses- 
 sion 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 abso- 
 lute or nearly so, but in the civil administration he 
 was assisted by princes, royal scribes or secretaries 
 of state, intimates or counsellors, and privy counsel- 
 lors, 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 crimi- 
 nal 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 accompa- 
 nied the monarch in his military expeditions. The 
 monarch was head of the army, and the princes held 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xix 
 
 high commands ; besides them were generals called 
 haut, colonels or mer, lieutenants ien, captains menh, 
 and other officers. The drill of the forces was very 
 regular, and the service severe. The army was divi- 
 ded into corps or brigades, which bore the names of 
 different deities. It had standards, music, cars or 
 chariots for transport, and all the necessary appli- 
 ances 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 con- 
 structed. At all times auxiliaries or mercenaries 
 were in the service ; Negroes, at first, and even later, 
 Libyans, Sardinians, and Greeks, composed a con- 
 siderable 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 capa- 
 city 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 t of each nome or district, and under him a pre- 
 fect mer, of each principal city, besides a magistrate 
 ga, who heard civil plaints. "Auditors of pleas in 
 the Tribunal of Truth," or judges, are also men- 
 tioned, as also the scribes or clerks, and the superin- 
 tendents 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 pub- 
 lic property and drew up official reports, and super- 
 intendents of the different subdivisions of the royal 
 stores and other property, as the magazines of corn, 
 arsenals, wardrobes, horses, cattle, treasury, palaces. 
 
XX 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Egypt swarmed with a bureaucracy, the mark of a 
 highly civilized community and centralized govern- 
 ment. The taxes appear 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, 
 ultimately 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 Egypt- 
 ians 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 wo- 
 men were necessarily few and chiefly in connection 
 with the priesthood. Queens were honorifically 
 styled wives or handmaids of the god Amen, and 
 some females of high rank were prophetesses, sing- 
 ing women, and sistrum players of the god. 
 
 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 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xxi 
 
 lost one day every four years, returning to its normal 
 condition after 1460 years had passed. All attempts 
 to rectify it were either 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 con- 
 secrated or devoted to some particular god. At- 
 tempts to substitute 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 honor 
 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 relating to the temples, 
 the contributions to the king and other affairs, occa- 
 sional synods were held at different places. All 
 things connected with the temples and worship were 
 in the hands of the priests. The embalmers appear 
 
XXll 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 also to have belonged to the order of priests, although 
 of inferior rank : they attended to the preparation 
 of the mummies, sepulture of the dead, and recital of 
 litanies. The bodies were not prepared in the houses 
 of the deceased, but removed to public establish- 
 ments 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, dog- 
 matic, 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 neighbors. His loyalty was 
 slavish, his submission to his superiors servile, his 
 piety tinctured with base superstition. His percep- 
 tion of moral truths and social duties was high ; his 
 inventive powers considerable ; his conceptions of 
 art stupendous. He influenced the thought of the 
 neighboring nations. Moses was learned in his wis- 
 dom ; 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 
 corruption of manners if not morals ; for Mena was 
 supposed to have introduced a more refined civiliza- 
 tion than the austere and simple mode of life which 
 had preceded his reign. One of his successors, pro- 
 bably 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 ear- 
 liest rites of public worship were attributed to 
 
 2 3 
 
2 4 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 neighborhood 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 Bedre- 
 stein, 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 neigh- 
 boring 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, de- 
 voured 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 dynas- 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 ^5 
 
 ties at Sakkarah, Thebes, and in the papyrus of 
 Turin ; but nothing known to have been made at 
 the time of Menes remains, and he must be placed 
 amongst those founders of monarchies whose per- 
 sonal 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 pre- 
 sent day inscribed in the hieratic character on 
 papyri, are attributed to the kings of the Old Em- 
 pire. To that period must be referred the com- 
 mencement of the art of embalming the dead, which 
 required an empirical knowledge at least of the dif- 
 ferent parts of the human frame. The king Atho- 
 this was succeeded by another of the same name, and 
 that monarch in his turn by a king named Ouene- 
 phes, 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 0 30'. It was constructed of cal- 
 careous 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 
 
26 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 mound erected to preserve the royal mummy, and a 
 sarcophagus and some other remains were discovered 
 in it when opened. Ouenephes reigned according 
 to the canon only twenty-three years, and was suc- 
 ceeded 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 pyramids 
 of Lower Egypt was his sepulchre, but modern re- 
 searches have not discovered which of these numer- 
 ous constructions were dedicated to the sepulchre 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 reign. 
 
 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 dif- 
 ference of transcriptions, showing that some un- 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 2 7 
 
 certainty about their appellations prevailed even 
 amongst the Egyptians themselves. The first king 
 Butau, or the Greek JBoethos, is stated to have reigned 
 thirty-eight years, the most remarkable event of the 
 period being a fissure of the earth, probably the 
 result of an earthquake, which carried off many 
 people at the town of Bubastus. His successor 
 Kakau, or Khaiechos, instituted the worship of ani- 
 mals, which prevailed so extensively at a later period. 
 To him is referred the introduction of the Apis bull 
 worshipped at Memphis, and the bull Mnevis at He- 
 liopolis, as also of the goat Baeiitattu 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. Binothris probably had no male heir, and 
 thus endeavored to secure the crown to his daughter, 
 who in all probability, if she did not die before him, 
 succeeded to his power. He reigned forty-seven 
 years. His successor, Utnas or Tlas, reigned seven- 
 teen 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 
 
28 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 exhibit- 
 ing at so early a date the introduction of the personal 
 adoration of the monarch, supposed, according to 
 Egyptian notions, to be the direct and lineal de- 
 scendant 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 fla?nen, 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 seven- 
 teen years, and the Greek glosses mention the rule 
 
 Pyramid of Meydoum. 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 29 
 
 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. The monuments 
 of this period are excessively rare, and almost limited 
 to the tombs in the cemeteries of Gizeh and Sakka- 
 rah, and the pyramid of Meydoum. The first ap- 
 pearance of the word Ra or the Sun, occurs in these 
 last two 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 suc- 
 cessors, but Manetho gives only Cheneres, an in- 
 glorious 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 Memphite 
 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 statement 
 that the Libyans revolted in his reign, shows that at 
 
3° 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 a prior period they had been subjected to the arms of 
 Egypt. A sudden increase of the moon's size, ap- 
 parently a lunar eclipse which occurred at moonrise, 
 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 by the Egyptians 
 Aesculapius, who appears at a later period to be the 
 god Aiemapt or Imouthos, the son of Ptah. He ob- 
 tained this appellation on account of his knowledge 
 or patronage of the medical art, and is stated to have 
 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, 
 Sonphis 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- 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 3' 
 
 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 
 history of Egypt begins to assume greater impor- 
 tance, the events recorded are no longer dependent 
 for their 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 Senefru or the Greek Soris, if indeed 
 that name does not represent another monarch. The 
 most remarkable event of his reign was the dis- 
 covery 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 wan- 
 derings of the Israelites in that locality. 
 
 Pyramids of Gizeh. From the Nile. 
 
3^ 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 A tablet at the mouth of the cave or ancient mine 
 represents Senefru conquering one of the people 
 named Mena nu sat or "Shepherds of the East," 
 probably the nomadic tribes of the neighborhood, 
 called at the period the Abt or Eastern land of 
 Senefru. It is the first monumental record of Egyp- 
 tian conquest. The names of different member's of 
 the family of Senefru are found in the sepulchres at 
 Gizeh, and one of an officer named Amten, throws 
 some light on the political state of the country. It 
 records that some of his lands came to him by here- 
 ditary descent, while others were the gift of the 
 monarch. Dates of reigns are rarely found on the 
 monuments of the period, but Soris the first mon- 
 arch 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 0 50', was 611 feet, and 
 it had two sepulchral chambers with suitable pas- 
 sages. The pyramids appear to have been called 
 mer, or abmer ; the origin of the word pyramis or 
 "pyramid" being probably, like the other well- 
 known word obeliskos or " obelisk," derived by the 
 Greeks from words in their own language. The 
 principle of their construction appears to have been 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 53 
 
 :hc 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 leading 
 to a rectangular sepulchral chamber in the rock itself. 
 The distance from the entrance of the shaft or gal- 
 lery 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 surface 
 of the pyramid finished. This was effected by fill- 
 ing up the masonry with smaller stones of rectangu- 
 lar 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 with- 
 out allowing the water to penetrate the building. 
 Simple in shape it was eternal in duration, and ex- 
 c 
 
34 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 hibited a perfect mathematical knowledge of the 
 square and the triangle. All pyramids were not 
 constructed exactly alike ; the older one of Mey- 
 doum, already mentioned, is constructed with rub- 
 ble 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 corvets or forced labor, which has pre- 
 vailed at all times in Egypt. The material of which 
 they were constructed varied ; the nummulite lime- 
 stone of the neighboring Arabian chain of hills was 
 employed for the great mass of the work, but the 
 granite of the distant quarry of Syene, principally 
 the red, was used for casing the passages 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 con- 
 struction. The first or subterranean chamber ap- 
 pears 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- 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 35 
 
 municating with the original passage, by a passage 
 sloping at an angle with it. Finally the king's 
 chamber 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 pas- 
 sage with granite portcullises which were also to de- 
 fend 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, re- 
 lieved every three months for ten years, or in all 
 4,000,000 of men, and twentymore 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 encircled 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, 
 
36 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 symmetrical 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 obser- 
 vation, the points of the compass and other elemen- 
 tary 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 titles only of Khufu are 
 found on the tablet there erected ; but Khnum-Khufu 
 appears striking down one of the prostrate enemies 
 of Egypt, the Pet or An foreigners, in the presence 
 of the ibis-headed god Tahuti 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 princes and other 
 members of the family or time of Khufu. Amongst 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 37 
 
 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 Tem- 
 ple 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 inscription 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 Mariette, and had been partly touched by 
 Caviglia. If this inscription was contemporaneous 
 with Khufu it would prove that the Sphinx was an- 
 terior to the fourth dynasty, but it does not appear 
 to be so, and it is consequently doubtful if this mar- 
 vel of Egyptian monuments 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 Athri- 
 bis. Of the other works of Khufu little is known : 
 the court was evidently at Memphis, and most of the 
 
33 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 hiero- 
 glyphic inscription states that the great foundation 
 and restoration of the monuments was made accord- 
 ing 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 parchment 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.* A medical papyrus of the British Museumf 
 also states that a recipe for the cure of wounds was 
 found in the night, in the principal hall in the Tem- 
 ple 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 discovered 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 endeavored 
 to suppress the worship of the gods. Priests indeed 
 were attached to his worship, but these fla??ie?is ap- 
 pear in the reigns of still earlier monarchs, and there 
 is no reason to believe that Cheops substituted his 
 own personal worship for that of the deities of Egypt. 
 The most lasting monument of his fame is the great 
 
 * Duemichen, die Bauerkunde, Dendera, s. 15-19. 
 f Zeitschrift, fur agyptische Sprache, 1871, p. 62. 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 39 
 
 pyramid. In the days of Cheops, sculpture had at- 
 tained great excellence, and one inscription records 
 ^he offerings of images of stone, gold, bronze, ivory, 
 and ebony presented by Khufu to the gods. The 
 pyramid of Khufu was called the 11 Splendor 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 Cha- 
 bryes. 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 portraiture 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 j their son, the 
 prince Nebemakhut, was a hierogra??imateus 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 were admitted to participate in 
 the honors of the priesthood, which at a later period 
 were denied to them. It seems possible that Meri- 
 sankh was the daughter of Khufu, and that some 
 other persons, whose tombs lie around the pyramid, 
 
4 o 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 were sons or relations 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 construction of one of these vast, but scarcely 
 useful edifices, an immense sepulchre, by forced 
 labor, and according to the legends, the closing of 
 the temples of the gods. The successor of Shafra 
 was Menkauraor Mencheres, the builder of the third 
 largest pyramid at Gizeh, distinguished 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 labor in building it. Some account 
 of the operations for doing so are found on a hiero- 
 glyphic inscription of an officer named Tebuhen, who 
 lived in the reign of the monarch, but the text is un- 
 fortunately 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 pre- 
 decessors. Some color 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 the god Thoth himself. During the 
 reign of his predecessor Khufu, however, medical 
 treatises had been found in the temples by the priests. 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 41 
 
 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 re- 
 mains. 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 
 ornaments, 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 formulary. 
 It reads thus: — " Oh, Osiris, king of Upper and 
 Lower Egypt, Menkaura, ever living, born of Nut 
 (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 show- 
 ing that the worship of Osiris had assumed greater 
 importance 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 ac- 
 cusers. Before the time of Menkaura, the god Anu- 
 bis is mentioned in the tomb as the special deity of 
 
42 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the dead, to the exclusion of the name of Osiris ; 
 but the coffin of Menkaura marks a new religious de- 
 velopment 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 per- 
 sonage of the court buried at Sakkarah, in his sepul- 
 chre 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 edu- 
 cated in the palace amongst the princes. Subse- 
 quently Aseskaf gave his daughter, the princess Mat- 
 sha, in marriage to Ptahases. The praises and honors 
 rendered by the monarch to his son-in-law were con- 
 siderable. He was invested with the post of secre- 
 tary 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 honor. The 
 numerous offices that he held show that pluralities 
 were of a very early date, unless it is to be con- 
 jectured that he held them in succession. But the 
 kings of Egypt accumulated 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 func- 
 tions exercised by the select few show a highly arti- 
 ficial state of society, already enslaved by an all 
 pervading bureaucracy. The sense of public order 
 appears highly refined at this early period, of public 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 43 
 
 liberty there is no evidence. Civilization, in its 
 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 predecessor 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 Me?icheres or Mykerinos. 
 There is some probability that this conjecture is cor- 
 rect. 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 archi- 
 tect. The hardest materials, such as the granite of 
 Syene, was hewn into the requisite form of the truest 
 proportions, while the softer but more beautiful ala- 
 baster 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 sculpture, while in the features is clearly to 
 be recognized a portrait of the monarch, showing 
 that the power of producing excellent representations 
 
44 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 of the living form in all its details existed. The 
 other sculptures of the period exhibit even greater 
 skill ; the statues and busts in calcareous stone show 
 a freedom of treatment and design which does not 
 reappear in the more conventional forms of the later 
 dynasties. The seated scribe in the Louvre, and the 
 heads of some priests of the period are excellent ex- 
 amples, and rival in their portraiture the busts and 
 statues of Rome itself. In wood even greater excel- 
 lence was attained, for in that material the sculptor 
 developed all his power. The wooden statue of the 
 Museum of Boulaq is an unrivalled 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 inlaid, and in its lifelike 
 treatment the experienced eye beholds the unchang- 
 ing 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 appears, 
 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 monochrome 
 colors, principally red, black, blue and yellow, pre- 
 vails, and is the only painting known of the period. 
 The graphic system of writing was complete ; the 
 language perfectly represented by the hieroglyphs, 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 45 
 
 which presented to the eye a lively picture on the 
 painted wall of tomb or sepulchre j while the inscrip- 
 tions show that the religion of the country was 
 already reduced to a system, and the seasons marked 
 by a regular calendar of festivals. The political or- 
 ganization had also attained a considerable degree 
 of refinement. The Court of Memphis swarmed 
 with sacerdotal personages, 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 j 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 
 occupation 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 nu- 
 merous slaves or servants, his household of artizans 
 
46 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 and his boats on the great river Nile. His domesti- 
 cated animals were not so numerous as at a subsequent 
 period. He had dogs, cats and apes, for his com- 
 panions. For riding he had only the ass, with the 
 horse he was unacquainted, nor had the wheeled car- 
 riage as yet been invented. The gazelle, the antelope, 
 the ibex, the 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 ne- 
 glected the sheep; veal and beef, not pork and mut- 
 ton, were the principal meats that appeared at his 
 table. The different kinds of venison already men- 
 tioned were much prized, and the chase of these 
 animals one of his most loved occupations j 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 vul- 
 panser amongst them. The domestic fowl was un- 
 known 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 un- 
 known 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 
 
OLD EMPIR£. 
 
 47 
 
 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 anklets 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 requirements. 
 Stools, chairs, footstools, couches and head-rests or 
 wooden pillows — the use of these rests is still 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 transmi- 
 gration 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, affectionate towards his wife 
 and children were the maxims inculcated for his do- 
 mestic 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 old. 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 
 
4 3 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 of a good Egyptian, and the favorable 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 positive information the monuments afford, 
 the point to which at this remote period the intel- 
 lectual and material civilization of Egypt had ad- 
 vanced. 
 
 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 
 of Geziret-Assouan. He was named Userkaf or 
 Ouserchercs. Little is known of his reign, and the 
 most important personage of it, was Khnumhotep, 
 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 con- 
 quest of the Wady Magarah, and is there represented 
 on a rock tablet striking down the Mentu foreigners, 
 perhaps some of the tribes of the neighborhood 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 monument called the Ska 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 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 49 
 
 than that of his predecessor. Placing aside the 
 monarch Kaka, who is only known from some lists, 
 the successor of Sahura was Neferarkara, the Nepher- 
 cheres of Manetho. Little is known of the events 
 of his reign, except that several functionaries of his 
 reign were buried in the cemetery of Gizeh j they 
 were principally scribes and other functionaries at- 
 tached 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 Rathou- 
 res of the Greek lists. Under this monarch the 
 mining operations at the Wady Magarah were con- 
 tinued, and a rock tablet on the spot records his name 
 and 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 mum- 
 my. The tombs of this period in the cemeteries of 
 Memphis are remarkably fine and numerous, and in- 
 dicate 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 ap- 
 pears from the inscription, made an expedition in 
 that region. In excavating the Serapeum at Memphis 
 a slab was found with a representation of this mon- 
 arch. He appears to have been youthful, with a good 
 •profile and rather a full face. The hieratic papyrus 
 of Turin containing a list of all the kings before the 
 twentieth dynasty, gives him a reign of eight years, 
 and his legends show that he was another of the pyra- 
 
 D 
 
HISTORY OF EGY.PT. 
 
 mid 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 shown, 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 tombs of the period are found 
 in the vicinity of Memphis, but the important monu- 
 ment of his reign is the papyrus called the Prisse, 
 after its possessor. It is written in the hieratic charac- 
 ters, and the oldest extant document in this frail ma- 
 terial. The author of the composition, Ptahhetp or 
 Phthaophis, was the son of a king; but was already 
 overcome by old age at the moment when he reduced 
 to writing his moral precepts or book of Egyptian wis- 
 dom. 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 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 5" 
 
 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 incul- 
 cated. "The obedience of a docile son is a bless- 
 ing; 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 know- 
 ledge in ignorance virtue in vices ; he commits daily 
 and boldly all sorts 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 discipline 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 favor 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 
 
5^ 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the king, and the approbation of my seniors, fulfill- 
 ing my. duty to the king in the place of his favor." 
 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 obe- 
 dience and those favored 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 in- 
 scribed with it, probably derived from the tombs at 
 Gizeh, are in the different museums of Europe. He 
 reigned thirty-three years, and was buried in the 
 long building constructed of enormous blocks of 
 limestone, anciently inlaid with hard stones at Sak- 
 karah, 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 Egyp- 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 53 
 
 tians computed the chronology of the old mo- 
 narchy. 
 
 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 mon- 
 arch, 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 
 burial places of the contemporaries of these monarchs. 
 The successor of Teta was Pepi or P/iwps, also called 
 Mir a 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 Mesori, 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, 
 
54 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 who inhabited the peninsula, in his second year. 
 Considerable 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 offi- 
 cer 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 
 neighbors 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 ne- 
 groes, 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 com- 
 missariat and the 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 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 55 
 
 defeat in the north of their territory, This has been 
 supposed to be some pari of Eastern Egypt or Arabia, 
 for the exact country of Herusha has not been deter- 
 mined. 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 priv- 
 ilege of wearing his sandals when he entered in the 
 palace, the rewards and decorations 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 suc- 
 ceeded 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, Jle was 
 appointed chief and governor of the South from 
 Elephantine to the second nome, and sent by the 
 king to get the sarcophagus and part of the original 
 sepulchre or pyramid from the land of Abeha, and 
 the granite door from Elephantine. 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 removed 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 
 
56 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 of Uaua to hold his transports. The negro chiefs 
 of the lands of Ararat, the Uaua, the Am, as tribu- 
 taries 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 honor 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. succes- 
 sor 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 cap- 
 tain of the boat who appears in the former commis- 
 sions, 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 papyrus 
 of Turin places Nitakar or Nitocris, the celebrated 
 queen with "rosy cheeks," before Neferkara. Ac- 
 cording to the Greek legends, to revenge the assas- 
 sination 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 pyramid. Some insignificant 
 names follow Nitocris, whose absence from the monu- 
 ments proves that her reign was not of length or im- 
 portance. The difficulty of reconciling the monumen- 
 tal and traditional information and dates has given 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 57 
 
 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 sepul- 
 chral, 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 performed 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 
 sarcophagus or wooden coffin. The process of em- 
 balming 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 inscriptions, 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 appear. Sculpture is admirably 
 shown in the statues of the period, the arts and 
 sciences had visibly advanced since the fourth dy- 
 nasty. At this time the neighboring countries were 
 plunged in a comparative state of barbarism, and 
 held by wandering tribes, not more relatively, ad- 
 vanced in arts and sciences than the Bedouin of to- 
 day. There may have been the commencement of a 
 parallel civilization in the valleys of the Tigris and 
 
58 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 
 Hebrew. 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 Kar- 
 nak, in the tombs of Gournah and Sakkara, and the 
 papyrus of Turin record many monarchs that belong 
 to this obscure period. A few amulets and other 
 objects offer also isolated names, but no monument 
 of importance attests their sway. It has been sup- 
 posed 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 Heracleopolite. This reduces the period 
 to 285 years, but does, not solve the difficulty. The 
 
 59 
 
6o 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 monuments 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 repre- 
 sented standing 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 recognized 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 
 
MIDDLE EMPIRE. 
 
 61 
 
 rocks of the island of Konosso near Philse as the 
 conqueror of thirteen nations, 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 chief god Coptos. This town, 
 named Kebta, and from which the Coptic language 
 derives its name, and even, according to some wri- 
 ters, the name of Egypt itself was formed or invented, 
 was under the eleventh dynasty an important fortress 
 commanding the entrance of the valley of Hamma- 
 mat ; and amongst the numerous inscriptions which 
 cover the face of the rocks of that spot, it is recorded 
 that Coptos was the residence of Mentuhetp, and 
 that the votive inscriptions were in honor of the god 
 Khem who dwelt in " the beautiful valley " of Ham- 
 mamat. One of the most remarkable is dated in the 
 second year of the reign of Mentuhetp ELL, 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 number of his counsellors. His Holiness 
 ordered me to go to this beautiful mountain, with 
 the soldiers and principal persons of the whole coun- 
 
6a 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 try, ' ' 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 sanc- 
 tity such as the predecessors had affected, who had 
 even priests attached 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, Mentu- 
 hetp III., had ordered the same to be engraved on 
 the rock in honor of his father, the god Khem, lord 
 of the mountain districts of the valley. The archi- 
 tect employed was also accompanied by troops to 
 protect or watch the masons and laborers 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 re- 
 corded 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 
 
MIDDLE EMPIRE, 
 
 63 
 
 of this period so closely resemble, those of the subse- 
 quent dynasty that they will be considered with them. 
 The first monarch of that line was Amenemha 
 who seems to have risen after some political distur- 
 bance to the throne. He feigned nine years alone 
 and seven associated in the government with his suc- 
 cessor Usertesen I. A few monuments of his reign 
 are in the temple of Karnak, which he appears to 
 have commenced, and in the quarries of Mokattam, 
 near the modern village of Toura, in the neighbor- 
 hood of the ancient Memphis, and those of Hamma- 
 mat, which were still worked. A papyrus in the 
 British Museum records the instructions given in a 
 dream by Amenemha 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 de- 
 scribes it in 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, pro- 
 bably 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 neighborhood 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 
 
64 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 forty-third year of the reign of Usertesen L, has left an 
 account of the exploits he performed and the service 
 in which he was engaged. Ameni it appears was an 
 Egyptian 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 ac- 
 companied the king in a campaign against the Ethio- 
 pians, 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 6lite of the district, for the same purpose. In ad- 
 dition to the spoil or produce of precious metal which 
 Ameni had obtained from the South, he had also ac- 
 quired 3000 head of cattle, probably from Kush 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 
 administrator of the district. From the royal work- 
 shops 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 superintended a gang for my works. 
 
MIDDLE EMPIRE. 
 
 65 
 
 There was not any famine in my days, and no hunger 
 under my government. For I worked all the fields 
 of the district of Sah to its frontiers on the South and 
 North j 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 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 deficient Nile. Such a famine 
 happened in the days of Abraham amidst the neigh- 
 boring nations, and he then went to Egypt, which 
 then, as at a later period, was the granary of the 
 adjacent countries.* It also shows that there had 
 been about the period years of famine like the seven 
 years of which Pharaoh had dreamedf 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 interpretation given 
 by Joseph to the Egyptian monarch, meant seven 
 deficient years. It is also remarkable that in the 
 tombs of Ab/dos at this period were buried several 
 overseers of the account of the corn placed in the 
 royal granaries ; the mention in the hieroglyphic in- 
 scriptions of these officers, suggests that years of fam- 
 ine 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 "appoint officers 
 
 Gen. xii. 1-10. 
 E 
 
 f Gen. xli. 54. 
 
66 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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."* Besides the superinten- 
 dents 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 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 transported was carried either in sacks or 
 baskets. From the cakes which have come down, 
 the Egyptians appear to have principally eaten barley 
 bread. Another 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 Usertesen I. 
 associated his successor, Amenemha II. in the gov- 
 ernment, 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 fron- 
 tiers. On the North the king had not advanced 
 farther than the peninsula of Sinai, where the mines 
 
 * Gen. xli. 34, 35. 
 
MIDDLE EMPIRE. 
 
 6/ 
 
 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 Khnumhetp, 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 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, Amenemha 
 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 
 employed in the mining operations at the Sarabit-el- 
 Khadim in the peninsula of Sinai and Magarah. 
 Although works were carried on at the Wady Ma- 
 garah till the forty-fourth year of the reign of 
 Amenemha II., the veins of turquoise and copper 
 having become exhausted at that spot, the explora- 
 tions 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 depicted arriv- 
 ing at his court and ushered into his presence. So 
 
68 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 colors, 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 lyre by means 
 of a plectrum. Four women, wearing fillets round 
 their hair, garments reaching below the knee, and 
 anklets, but without sandals, accompany 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 different from the sixty- 
 six of the family of Jacob which came down to 
 Egypt ; and other tribes and nations, as the Midian- 
 ite merchants to whom Joseph was sold, and carried 
 him to Egypt as a slave, came to that country. But 
 the scene so strongly recalls the arrival of the family 
 of Jacob in Egypt, with a scene such as the entrance 
 of the Hebrews into Egypt probably presented at 
 the time. Khnumhetp receives the foreigners ac- 
 companied 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 papy- 
 
MIDDLE EMPIRE. 
 
 69 
 
 rus, 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 that of the Jews, 
 and their dress differs from the Egyptian. The men 
 wear each a single garment of divers colors 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 
 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 appellation of the 
 Semitic races, and there is no indication of the par- 
 ticular 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 
 forbade 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 necessity to hold 
 Ethiopia under his sway. Like his predecessors, 
 
7 o 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Usertesen still continued to work the quarries of 
 basalt at Ruhannu or Hammamat, to which an archi- 
 tect 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 honor. His 
 successor, Amenemha III., was not distinguished by 
 any foreign conquests, but seems to have undertaken 
 the great construction of the Lake Mceris, 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 of the Nile. It has 
 been already shown from the monuments of his pre- 
 decessors, 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 inunda- 
 tion. Should the water of this greatest and most 
 mysterious of the rivers of the ancient world attain 
 too great an outpour, instead of fertilizing with their 
 unctuous deposit the desert which girdled them, they 
 destroyed the labors 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 con- 
 sequence to the teeming population clustered on the 
 banks of the father of the gods and the hidden or 
 
MIDDLE EMPIRE. 
 
 71 
 
 mysterious water of Egypt. Impelled by these con- 
 siderations, Amenemha III. began the construction 
 of a gigantic lake on the West of Egypt ; it was fed 
 by a canal from the Nile, diverted the superfluous 
 water of an excessive Nile, so as to regulate its over- 
 flow, and hoarded those of a deficient Nile to spend 
 them as required on the neighboring land. Besides 
 its use for irrigation it also contained an immense 
 quantity of fish, from which the Egyptian govern- 
 ment 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 
 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 pre- 
 sided equally over the copper and turquoise veins of 
 the neighborhood. The commissioners and officials 
 sent to the district, recorded on the rocks their 
 valuable services ; that they had pierced the hill and 
 thrown light on 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 mate- 
 rial 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 
 
72 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 subsequent 
 period, and that the bed was consequently 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-east 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 lowlands 
 of the neighboring districts. 
 
MIDDLE EMPIRE. 
 
 73 
 
 Besides finishing the Lake Mceris, the same mon- 
 arch 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 i 
 edifice which he built was the Labyrinth, consisting r 
 of a number of small chambers communicating with 
 one another. According to Herodotus it contained 
 600 chambers, or rather passages, 300 of which were 
 above the level of the ground and as many below. 
 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 cele- 
 brated one of Gnossus in Crete, in which king Minos 
 kept the monster called the Minotaur, half man, half 
 bull. This Cretan work consisted of a series of 
 meandering passages, in which the 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 construc- 
 tion of this singular building, which, with the pyra- 
 mids 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 
 
74 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 archi- 
 tects, to obtain from the quarries the stones of requi- 
 site size. In the time of Herodotus, who visited 
 Egypt in the reign of Darius, or about b. c. 445, the 
 Lake Mceris, its pyramids, and its Labyrinth, were 
 still existing, although they are now an almost indis- 
 tinguishable 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 hypocthral, 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, 4500, above and below. The 
 subterraneous chambers or crypts Herodotus did 
 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 Sebakthe crocodile god, of Crocodilopolis 
 or Crocodile Town. These great reptiles were ex- 
 ceedingly tame, and wore ear-rings, and the Labyrinth 
 seems to have been their sepulchre, although the 
 principal pits in which the mummies of the crocodile 
 are found are at Manfalut. The courts of the Laby- 
 rinth had colonnades and entrances into the various 
 chambers. The whole was surrounded by an outer 
 
MIDDLE EMPIRE. 
 
 75 
 
 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 subterrane- 
 ous 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 co- 
 lossal 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 
 Amenemha IV. and his sister, whose mummies were 
 perhaps 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 
 prenomen or divine name was Maenra or Mara, it is 
 of course just possible, although the explanation given 
 before is considered better than 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 improve- 
 ment of their people and public works of a greater 
 utility. 
 
 In the reign of Amenhetp IV. the mines at the 
 
76 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 dili- 
 gently, and that the produce of his labor 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 workmen 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 
 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 
 
MIDDLE EMPIRE. 
 
 77 
 
 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 dynas- 
 ties. Statues and tablets of some of these monarchs 
 have been found at San or Tanis, Harabat-el-Mad- 
 founeh or Abydos. These monarchs of the thir- 
 teenth dynasty held Egypt from Nubia to the Med- 
 iterranean as sole monarchs. Sebakhetp IV. like 
 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 regis- 
 tered on the rocks of the island of Shel at Assouan 
 and Konosso. A statue of Sebakhetp 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 proba- 
 ble 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 Shep- 
 herd kings are said to have easily subjected the 
 country, burnt the towns, devastated the temples, 
 ill-treated the Egyptians, and reduced their wives 
 and children to slavery. The name of Hyk-shos 
 appears to mean " ruler," hyk of "Shepherds," or 
 "Nomads," SJiasu; 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 
 
73 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 circumstances 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 Rasekenen was only 
 king of Upper Egypt. The lepers were in Heliop- 
 olis, 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 Raa- 
 pepi chose the god Sutech as his lord, and was not 
 the follower of any other god in the whole country. 
 He built him a temple existing forever." Subse- 
 quently it is stated the Shepherd king sent a herald 
 or an ambassador to demand workmen and materials 
 
MIDDLE EMPIRE. 
 
 79 
 
 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 subsequent reign present at the siege 
 of Avaris, it is evident operations had not com- 
 menced. 
 
 The arrival of Joseph in Egypt has been placed by 
 some in the reign of Apepi II., and some considera- 
 tions are very favorable 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 rulers Set or Saites to Rameses II. , 
 and the opinion generally entertained by Egyptolo- 
 gists, 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 Jo- 
 seph, 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 na- 
 tive dynasty, which expelled from the soil of Egypt 
 
So 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the hated Hyk-shos, their traditions and antecedents. 
 This will be reconsidered when the period of the 
 Exodus comes under consideration. The tomb of 
 the Ra-sekenen or Sekenenra, 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 indi- 
 viduals who lived at the period just before and at the 
 commencement of the eighteenth dynasty, are repe- 
 titions 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 noo B. C. to 1600 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 Amosis, 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 
 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- 
 
 F 8l 
 
82 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 accord- 
 ance 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 valor, 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 di- 
 rection of the fortress, and, embarking him on his 
 vessel, carried him off. For this deed of valor 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 * 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 
 monarch turned his attention to Ethiopia, probably 
 on account of some revolt or incursion which the 
 
 * Joshua xix. 6. 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 83 
 
 negroes from time to time made on the Southern 
 frontiers of Egypt. He prepared an expedition 
 against Khcnthanncfer or " The Port of Good Re- 
 turn," 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 politics 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 labors 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 expulsion 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 elsewhere. Aahmes, in the twenty- 
 second year of his reign, opened the limestone quar- 
 ries at Mokattam, for the repairs of the "Temple of 
 
84 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Millions of Years," or the Palace of the Hepha- 
 isteum, dedicated to the god Ptah, at Memphis, 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 suc- 
 ceeded to the crown. The principal officer of his 
 reign was probably 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 medi- 
 tated 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 pre- 
 sented to the monarch. In his pursuit of the cattle 
 and men, the great attraction for these facile inva- 
 sions 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 *5 
 
 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, be- 
 sides 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 ene- 
 mies. In this reign the horse is 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 ad- 
 vanced on the land of Khenthannefer. His con- 
 quests 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 0 of North latitude. 
 Ivory, gold, slaves and cattle, appear to have been 
 the chief attractions which invited the Egyptian 
 
86 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 Ruten or Syrians, who are mentioned 
 for the first time in Egyptian history. Thothmes also 
 approached Naharaina or Mesopotamia, slaughtered 
 several of their troops in battle and brought back 
 numerous prisoners. In this expedition Aahmes, at 
 the head of the troops, manifested his usual valor, 
 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 dura- 
 tion 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 assumed male attire ; 
 and probably one of those revolting 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 Barbarica or Arabia. 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 87 
 
 The expedition was of a peaceful nature, 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 Uaiur, or Red Sea, and returned laden with gums, 
 scents, incense trees, ebony, ivory, gold, emeralds, 
 stibium, cynocephali and baboons, panther skins, 
 horns, and work-people. 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 pre- 
 pared a cosmetic which 
 breathed a divine odor, 
 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 in- 
 habitants were, how- 
 ever, despised by the 
 Egyptians, and termed, 
 "ignorant" or "no 
 men," probably from 
 their unwarlike nature. 
 
 Arabian Queen in the Reign cf 
 Hasheps. 
 
 On the arrival of the con- 
 
88 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT 
 
 voyat Thebes the Arabians were received with honor, 
 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 so important a part in the 
 history of the power and wealth of Solomon, 
 when Sheba came with camels 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 degree 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 obe- 
 lisks of Syenitic granite in honor of her father. They 
 were placed at the doorway of the second court. 
 These triumphal columns of Egypt were inscribed 
 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; 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 89 
 
 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 Ma- 
 jesty," it states, "gave two gilded obelisks to her 
 father Amen, that her name should remain perma- 
 nent, always, and for ever in this temple. Each was 
 made of a single stone of red granite, without joint 
 or rivet. Her Majesty began the work in the fifteenth 
 year of her reign, the 1st day of the month Mechir, 
 of the sixteenth year, and finished it on the last day 
 of the month Mesore, 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 commencement of the queen's 
 reign fell in the interval of the seven months men- 
 tioned 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 monu- 
 ments. 
 
 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 
 
90 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 which sullied the throne of the Ptolemies happened 
 at this remote period. Hasheps at first, probably to 
 conciliate public opinion, associated Thothmes III., 
 then a youth, with herself upon the throne. The 
 dedication 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 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 apogee 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 91 
 
 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 Heroopolis, the Egyptian Garu 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 Gaha or Gaza ; the date of the 
 month is not mentioned, but it was the day of the 
 anniversary of the festival of the coronation. On 
 the 5 th of the same month he marched from the town 
 of Gaza to meet the enemy. On the 16th day of 
 the same month he arrived at the town of Jaham, 
 and marched thence towards Maketa or Mageddo, 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 
 or Gafta, and led to the north of Mageddo. The con- 
 federated kings in alliance against Egypt were the 
 princes of Kharu or Syrians and the prince of Kaiesh 
 or Kadytis ; and on the 19th 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 
 
9 2 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 south of Mageddo, on the bank of the river or Lake 
 Kaner. On the 2 2d of the month Pashons, three 
 days after, the king engaged the enemy. " His ma- 
 jesty," 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 ex- 
 ploits 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 Mageddo. His 
 majesty was in the centre. Behold how his majesty 
 attacked them. They fell," it continues to say, 
 " prostrate in the neighborhood of Magarah through 
 sheer terror j 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 Mageddo. 
 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 confederated Syrian and Mesopotamian princes 
 the troops returned to take the spoil, entered into 
 the fortress of Mageddo, and appear to have either 
 entrenched it with a palisade, or made another pa- 
 lisaded camp of wood in the neighborhood. The 
 chiefs of the neighboring country tendered their sub- 
 mission 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 93 
 
 fleet. Amongst the captured spoil was the chariot 
 of the king, and his brass armor, 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 num- 
 ber 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 sil- 
 ver, chains, statues and other furniture, brazen vessels 
 and garments. As far as Egypt was concerned, the 
 victory at Mageddo 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 mentioned 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 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 Phoenicia, also fell before his march. He 
 
94 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 "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 quan- 
 tity 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. Al- 
 though 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 approached 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 commissa- 
 riat. From thence Thothmes marched to the towns 
 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 parti- 
 cular 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 95 
 
 same year another place, named Hansatu, on the 
 Lake Nesrana, was captured in an instant, and all 
 the booty carried off. It amounted to 490 persons, 
 twenty horses, and thirteen chariots with their har- 
 ness. Hansatu must consequently have been an in- 
 significant city or a small garrisoned fort. Indeed 
 the inscriptions do not disclose 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 cat- 
 tle, 4622 goats, which seem to have abounded in 
 that region, hundredweights of iron, lead, armor, 
 and rare plants, which were interesting to the Egyp- 
 tian monarch or introduced into Egypt. The sta- 
 tions apparently 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 re- 
 turn to Egypt the king was met by the Kanebti,* 
 probably some of the neighboring 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 
 
 * Probably the " pillars" of the Egyytian state or principal offi- 
 cers. Compare Judges xx. 2 ; 1 Samuel xiv. 38 ; Isaiah xix. 13. 
 
96 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 be- 
 tween 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 ap- 
 proached 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 
 neighborhood 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 Thoth- 
 mes soon afterwards passed into the land of Naha- 
 raina, or Mesopotamia, it is hardly possible that the 
 Nahr-el-Kelb lay in the line of march. It is, how- 
 ever, the pass leading to Northern Syria, and the 
 Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, and Romans, tra- 
 versed it on their passage between Egypt, Asia 
 Minor, and Mesopotamia. It would appear that 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 97 
 
 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 be- 
 yond 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 em- 
 pire. 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 pre- 
 cious stones, or their imitations. They were as cele- 
 brated at this period as the vases of Sidon w r ere at a 
 later date; and the Tahai, as already mentioned, 
 were situated to the North of Palestine. 
 
 Besides the vases, chariots, which the Egyptians 
 required 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 herds brought by the Egyptians. The 
 zebu or the humped buffalo, and the horse, are 
 
 G 
 
9 8 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 principally mentioned ; asses came but seldom, and 
 there were rarer animals, offered as curiosities to the 
 Egyptian monarchs to stock their parks. Some un- 
 important 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 
 Singura, 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 
 color was often moulded into a small shape, and 
 specimens 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 2100 grs. troy. The tribute of 
 another country, supposed to be the Khita, but pos- 
 sibly the Rutennu, came in the same year to the king 
 on his return from the campaign 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 contributed 
 a tribute of the like kind. In the thirty-fourth year 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 99 
 
 of his reign the king entered on his ninth expedi- 
 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 tri- 
 bute 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 coun- 
 try, was provided with all necessary things for its main- 
 tenance, 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 Kush or Ethiopia, brought its cattle, 275 in 
 number, ivory and ebony, and theUauat 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 
 
IOO 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 cut in pieces, falling on one another in their flight, and 
 the land was spoiled again. Chariots, armor, and 
 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 other tribute 
 from Ethiopia. Fragments only remain of the tributes 
 of his thirty-seven years, when Kharuand 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 
 balsam, cattle, forty-six asses and one deer, tables of 
 cedar and ivory, fragrants 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 IOI 
 
 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 
 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 
 Asi, 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 ap- 
 proached 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 ap- 
 
102 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 pointed 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 Anau- 
 kasa, Iunamaa, and Hurantalu, were charged with 
 supplying 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 ap- 
 pointed 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 
 vestments. 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 in- 
 stituted. The captives that were taken in these 
 wars, reduced to slavery, were employed on the 
 public works like convicts 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 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-colored bear known 
 as the Ursus Syriacus, found in the ranges of the 
 Taurus, and a young Asiatic elephant, colored red, 
 besides tusks of the same animal. As the elephant 
 is not found nearer than India, and about eight cen- 
 turies later, although brought as tribute to Shal- 
 maneser, was not well known to the Assyrians, who 
 represented it with the ears of a horse, it is evident 
 that the Ruten extended their rule to the very con- 
 fines of India. The tribute of Kefa or Phoenicia, 
 and its dependent colonies "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 tribute 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 colors, 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 brutus 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 
 
104 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 cynocephalus, 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 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 Ethio- 
 pia 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 Mesopo- 
 tamia. 
 
 There is however one monument which describes 
 in poetical language the exploits and extent 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 navi- 
 gated the sea and the great rivers of Mesopotamia, 
 had conquered the Aamu or Asiatics, and taken Ka- 
 
NEW EMPIRE. I05 
 0 
 
 desh 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 Archi- 
 pelago, 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 thy majesty 
 like a comet, which warms by its fire and throws 
 forth its vapor." In similar strains the great con- 
 queror is compared to the bull, the lion, the croco- 
 dile, 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 Kara- 
 
io6 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 kamasha or Carchemish, In his first campaign against 
 Kadesh he had made two officers of the enemy prison- 
 ers, 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 honorable distinction to mark the 
 person of the monarch or the services of his officers. 
 Amenemheb had accompanied the king to the land 
 of Nii, apparently India or its confines, and was there 
 present at the hunt of 120 elephants, which the king 
 chased 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 
 attacked 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. 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 I07 
 
 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 
 Elephantine, 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 ex- 
 cept a few stones have disappeared. The capital of 
 the dynasty, however, " Thebes with its hundred 
 gates," was most favored by the monarch. In the 
 Karnak quarter he built a small temple to Ptah, and 
 the so-called granite sanctuary. The tombs in Li- 
 byan 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 re- 
 corded in these sepulchres, as also the vast sum of 
 36,692 tens 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 bib- 
 lical 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 
 
io8 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 sister, one of the twenty-fifth year of his sole domi- 
 nion, an officer records that he had come at the head 
 of his troops to convey that which was agreeable to 
 the monarch, the products of the lands of the gods 
 of mafka, turquoise or copper. A fragment of a pa- 
 pyrus in the British Museum has the account of an 
 historical incident not elsewhere found. It records 
 the betrayal of a fortress of the Juima 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 garrison 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- 
 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 sis- 
 ter ; she was probably of the family, but it is uncer- 
 tain 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 IO9 
 
 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 pri- 
 soners, 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 
 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 pri- 
 soners, recur the names of Nubia, the Shasu or 
 Arabs, and Phoenicians, which he had to reconquer. 
 His reign was short, but its exact duration is uncer- 
 tain. Tablets of the fourth and seventh year of his 
 reign are found at the Sarabit-el-Khadim. 
 
 His successor, ThothmesIV., is chiefly known in 
 connection 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 
 
IIO 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 rock, for it appears from the chapel in its neighbor- 
 hood, and an inscription already cited in the fourth 
 dynasty, to have been a work of a more remote 
 antiquity. 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 favor of that god. It has been re- 
 marked 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 or some easy con- 
 quests, 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 
 succeeded by Amenhetp III., or Amenophis, consid- 
 ered 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 account of some triumphs over the negroes in his 
 fifth year, inscribed on a tablet engraved on the 
 rocks in the neighborhood 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 dis- 
 tance, 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, 110 boys, 250 negresses, 
 55 judges, 175 of their children, 740 in all, besides 
 the usual trophies of 312 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" in- 
 stead 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 
 of government in Egypt, but it may have been the 
 result 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-colored, the tint of the 
 Japhetic races on the monuments. The scarabaei 
 which record their marriage state that her father's 
 name was Iuaa, and her mother's Tuaa. This strange 
 and probably foreign woman exerted at a later pe- 
 
112 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 riod 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 con- 
 structed a great lake or basin, 3000 cubits long and 
 600 cubits broad, or about 5000 feet by 1000 feet, 
 English measure. On the 16th of the month he 
 celebrated a festival, and brought into it the boat of 
 the solar disk, called Aiennefru, "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 recognized the 
 solar disk or orb specially worshipped by the Ethio- 
 pians, and the mother of Amenophis was of that 
 race. In it some have seen the Hebrew Adonai or 
 " Lord," and the Syrian Adonis. To this new form 
 of worship, allied with that of the sun, Amenophis 
 inclined, but it was necessary to introduce it by de- 
 grees, and at the close of his reign the attempt to 
 change the capital and religion of the country was 
 unsuccessfully made. 
 
 In the same year there is a tablet recording certain 
 endowments of the temple of Karnak, and invoking 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 113 
 
 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 particularly attracted his atten- 
 tion. 
 
 A monument of the thirtieth year of his reign re- 
 presents 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 
 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 
 
 H 
 
ii4 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 which he placed before 
 the palace of Luxor, re- 
 presenting 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 
 IV., who had been ap- 
 pointed in the lifetime 
 of his father, became an heretical fanatic of the worst 
 sort. He carried the worship of the "disk," or 
 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 
 
 Khuenaten adoring the Sun's disk. 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 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 crea- 
 tive power of the deity and the creator and ruler of 
 time. Amenhetp endeavored 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 prostration 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 Kharu 
 or Khalu of the North, the people of the East, the 
 isles of the Mediterranean, and Kush, 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 substi- 
 tuted in the latter days of Amenophis IV., for his 
 original appellation, was succeeded after a short reign 
 by another monarch, who had married a queen bear- 
 ing the name of Atenmerit. They might have flour- 
 ished for a short time only, as the next monarch Ai, 
 
nS 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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, and not finished. 
 
 His successor was Tutankhamen, whose name was 
 given to him in honor of the Theban god. It may 
 perhaps be conjectured that this monarch did not 
 immediately succeed, but it is clear that his place in 
 the dynasty is at its close. It is, however, remarka- 
 ble that Kush or Ethiopia continued in his reign to be 
 administered by Hui and Amenhetp, the same princes 
 who are mentioned 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-colored, accompanied by their 
 queen drawn in a bullock car. Besides the oxen, 
 horses, and other animals, the negroes bring many 
 objects which show a high refinement, and prove the 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 117 
 
 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 furni- 
 ture as offerings to Egypt. The reigns of the mon- 
 archs who succeeded Amenophis 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 isle 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 valor, oh good king, 
 
u8 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 has defeated the nations. Pharaoh is my sun!" 
 Horus destroyed the edifices of the heretic monarchs 
 at Thebes, and built with the stones the fourth gate- 
 way of the temple at Karnak, in honor 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 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 connect- 
 ed with marriage with the previous family. Perhaps 
 the wife Of Horus survived that monarch, for she is 
 represented on the monument under the form of a 
 female sphinx, showing that she exercised sover- 
 eignty 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 
 
NEW EMI'IRE. 
 
 II 9 
 
 tomb of Rameses is in the Biban-el-Molook at 
 Thebes, and the paintings represent him adoring the 
 •visual sepulchral deities, especially Turn or the 
 setting sun, lord of Heliopolis, and demiurgos or 
 creator of beings, who promises the sun to come 
 forth like the sun in heaven, and be like that lumi- 
 nary. Rameses had no time to recover the lost 
 power and territories of Egypt, and the task de- 
 volved on his son and successor Seti I. The first 
 year of this monarch represents 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 
 Anion at Karnak, in a series of pictures representing 
 his successive campaigns. In the first of these the 
 monarch is in the country of the Remenen or Ar- 
 menia ; 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 
 attacked 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 surprised 
 them like a strong lion, and made a slaughter of 
 them in their valley. They lay on the ground in 
 
120 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 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, which 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 121 
 
 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 
 Garu or Galu the monarch 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 god- 
 dess Mut, and their son Khonsu, a lunar god. The 
 prisoners ask favor 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 hiero- 
 glyphic 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 Iones, or 
 Ionians, as the Greeks were always called by the 
 Egyptians, the Eastern Shepherds, the Khita or 
 Hittites, Naharaina or Mesopotamia, the Ruten just 
 
122 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 cited, the Punt or Arabs of 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 Hams 
 or ancient Edessa. These people, like the Hyk-shos, 
 were attached to the worship 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 neighboring countries, Bar or Baal, the 
 local god of Tyre prevailed, and his worship was 
 attended to by that of Astaruta, the Ashtaroth 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 123 
 
 Western neighbors 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 
 which accompanies the scene, representing Seti in his 
 chariot defeating their host, it is stated that "he stood 
 in the pass of the annihilated 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 Psekis, opposite the town of Apollinopolis 
 Magna or Edfu. Seti constructed a sanctuary for 
 the local gods, and made a tank or well for the sup- 
 
124 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 ply 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 expression 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 to 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 Sy- 
 rians, and Kush or Ethiopia, and another dated in 
 the ninth year of his reign at Assouan, the monu- 
 ments he had made. At Sesebi 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-Meluk, discovered by the 
 traveller Belzoni, and which contained his alabaster 
 sarcophagus, now in the Sloane 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 monuments. 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 "5 
 
 Seti was succeeded by Rameses II., one of the most 
 remarkable of Egyptian kings for his personal ex- 
 ploits, the magnificence of his monuments, and the 
 duration of his reign. From his popular appella- 
 tion, 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 di- 
 rected 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 pre- 
 sence of Rameses, Amenemapt, prince-viceroy of 
 Ethiopia, accompanied by the tributaries and tri- 
 butes of that country, lions, gazelles, B Oxen, pan- 
 thers, 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 cam- 
 paign against the Khita in his fifth year. It com- 
 menced 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 de- 
 scribed 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, conu 
 
126 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 ap- 
 proached 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 Egyp- 
 tian 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 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 
 meantime 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 127 
 
 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, Tara- 
 kennas, 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 obstruct- 
 ing 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 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 
 
128 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 dust. What to thy heart are these Asiatics ? Anion 
 brings low those who know not God, his face is not 
 white for millions of them." " Then/' it adds to- 
 wards 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 however 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 
 possession of the Canaanites, not having yet fallen 
 into the hands of the Philistines, which it sub- 
 sequently did about the commencement of the 
 twentieth dynasty. In his twenty-first year Rameses 
 concluded an extraditionary 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 pre- 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 129 
 
 vious 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 in- 
 cursions 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 difference 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 Beitou- 
 alli the Asiatic campaigns of the king appear to have 
 been directed against the Amorites, the Canaan ites, 
 and his Libyan ones, and Kharu or Syrians, against 
 the Tahennu and Mashuash or Maxyes. In this he 
 is accompanied by his dog, named Antcemnekht, or 
 " Anaitis in her strength.' ' When seated on his 
 throne the king is accompanied by a lion named 
 Smcemnekhtef. All things in Egypt were named, not 
 1 
 
i 3 o 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 only favorite 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 
 flattering 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, "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 com- 
 mand 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 
 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. 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 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-Garu, or citadel of Heroopolis, 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."* 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 up out of the land." This agrees with the 
 great wall of Sesostris or Rameses, evidently made at 
 
 Exodus i. 2. 
 
132 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 a time when Egypt was not too able to resist the at- 
 tacks 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 favorable 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 neighbors, 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. 
 
 *33 
 
 the crude 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 
 A\ 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 
 the ceiling of the Ramesseum, 
 Rameses placed an astronomical 
 projection of the heavens, pro- 
 bably intended to represent his 
 genethlion or horoscope. In the accompanying in- 
 scription, 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 
 
 Brick of sun-dried 
 clay and straw stamped 
 with one of the names 
 of Rameses II. 
 
134 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 anniversary of the royal coronation, and carrying in 
 procession the statues of his ancestors of 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, 
 afterwards 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 last known from the monuments is 
 Shaemuas, who for a long time was governor of Mem- 
 phis, and who died in the fifty-fifth year of the reign 
 of his father. His mummy was found in the Sera- 
 peum at Memphis, in one of the chambers of the 
 mummies of the hill Apis, there buried ; but the rea- 
 son 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 their identity with 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 135 
 
 years. The rich tombs in the valley of Gournah, and 
 the sepulchre of the monarch himself, attest the wealth 
 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 religion. The Asiatic element evidently 
 prevailed in the Delta, or 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 Shsemuas, 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 Exo- 
 dus, it will be at once seen from the political events of 
 the time, how suspicious he was likely to have shown 
 
i 3 6 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 himself towards subjects on his Eastern frontier, whose 
 fidelity he probably suspected, whose numbers and 
 power he feared, and whose affections his father had 
 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 Gehl-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 Kahaka, 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 137 
 
 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 
 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 assem- 
 bled 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 Paarisheps. Menephtah harangued his host, 
 and assigned the post of honor to the mercenaries. 
 The god Ptah appeared to him in a dream and fore- 
 told 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, 
 
138 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 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 men- 
 tion the departure of Egyptian officers from Tanis or 
 Pelusium to Paarisheps, apparently to meet the 
 coming war. 
 
 In this campaign the name of the Achaians first 
 appears applied to the Greeks, called before Hanebu 
 or Ionians, and does not recur. It has been recog- 
 nized as the genuine name of the Greeks in the Ho- 
 meric times, and to have been so for a period not 
 longer than 140 years. The Achaioi do not re-ap- 
 pear in the great confederation of the Khita against 
 Rameses II. in which were included the Mysians, 
 Lycians, and Dardanians, nor do the Sicilians and 
 other Italian people ; after that they disappear from 
 history. Hence the wars of Rameses and Meneph- 
 tah have been considered to be contemporaneous 
 with the war of Troy, and to mark Homer's period 
 in synchronous history. The Khita have been sup- 
 posed also to be the Ketaioi of the Odyssey,* and 
 the Exodus and the Trojan War to have occurred, if 
 
 * W. E. Gladstone in the Contemporary Review, 1874. 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 139 
 
 not exactly at the same time, yet closely after one 
 another. 
 
 Menephtah continued the construction of Para- 
 messu, 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 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 He- 
 
 Portrait of Menephtah, the supposed Pharaoh of the Exodus. 
 From a statue. 
 
140 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 brews after their departure from the land of bondage. 
 Lately a new theory has been started about the place 
 from 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 so 
 northern a point the Israelites could have reached 
 the peninsula of Sinai, instead of directing their ad- 
 vance 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 as- 
 serted that the name of the ancient Zoan was Para- 
 messu or the city of Ramses, the Pharaonic appellative 
 of Zoan, and that Zoan was the later Tanis of the 
 Greek. In accordance with this theory, the Egyp- 
 tian Pithom is asserted to be the Succoth of the He- 
 brew narrative. The third station of the Hebrew 
 line of march, Etham, is conjectured 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 wri- 
 ters, and the modern Tel-es-Semout. Then they en- 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 camped 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 
 existing, according to the hypothesis, that the Egyp- 
 tian army perished in pursuit of the retreating He- 
 brews as they crossed between the Lake Serbonis or 
 "Serbonian Bog," and the waters of the Mediterra- 
 nean, 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 from thence to Elim, 
 the Egyptian Aalim or "Fish Town," which lies to 
 the north of the Red Sea. This ingenious hypothe- 
 sis 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 Me- 
 nephtah, when this Eastern frontier appears to have 
 been denuded of cities, and scarcely occupied by 
 the Egyptians, but left to the Herusha or "Inhabit- 
 ants of the Desert," as the tribes on this confine 
 were called. The difficulties, however, of reconcil- 
 ing 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 Egyp- 
 tian names, have caused this brilliant discovery of 
 the supposed direction of the Exodus not to be uni- 
 versally admitted by those who have studied the an- 
 tiquities of Egypt or Biblical geography.* 
 
 * Brugsch-Bey's lecture before the International Congress of 
 
142 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 con- 
 tested, or his rule preceded by another king. 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 con- 
 queror. 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 in- 
 troduction of the name of that god, and the substi- 
 tution in its place of Osiris, was subsequent to his 
 reign. Details are unfortunately 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 
 chasing Set or Typhon, after it had been adopted by 
 one 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 Aphro- 
 ditopolite name. Kush was under his power, and 
 Seti, a prince of that country, accompanied by Bai, 
 
 Orientalists, 17 September, 1874. Academy, 26 September, 1874, 
 P. 352. 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 H3 
 
 offers his homage to Seti. He was buried in the 
 Biban-el-Molook, or really in the tombs of the kings 
 at Thebes; but his tomb was treated with ignominy 
 and appropriated 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 massacreing 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 com- 
 panion 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 by what means the confusion 
 arose, or if it was consequent on the death or usurpa- 
 tion of Siphtah, in whom some recognize Arsu the 
 Syrian. The return of tranquillity was brought about 
 by the gods, who, in order to restore the equilibrium 
 of the country, placed Setnekht 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 recognize what 
 had been subverted ; each saw the brother of those 
 who had been immured ; he restored the temples and 
 
144 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the divine offerings, so that honors were rendered to 
 the divine orders according to their rights ; he pro- 
 moted me to be heir apparent on the throne of Seb." 
 His name is found at the Sarabit-el-Khadim at Sinai. 
 After this pacification of Egypt and a reign, the 
 length of which is unknown, Setnekht died, and was 
 buried in the tomb of Siphtah in the Biban-el- 
 Molook. 
 
 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 eleva- 
 tion to the crown his first task was to reorganize the 
 kingdom. This he did by distributing and reorgan- 
 izing the castes, officers, chiefs, and army throughout 
 the country. Amongst the soldiers were the Sharu- 
 tana or Sardinians, and the Kanakas, a tribe or 
 nation of the Libyans. Besides these, his plans 
 embraced the regulation of slaves and other laborers 
 or servants, and the administration or temples. 
 This was necessary after the overthrow of the gov- 
 ernment which had happened in the Delta. The 
 disposition and organization of the foreigners estab- 
 lished 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 145 
 
 coming frori their isles, the Tsakkaru and the 
 Pulesta. "The Sharutana or Sardinians, and Uas- 
 hasha 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 importance, 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 reappearance 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 mas- 
 ters of the Fayoum. Rameses attacked and drove 
 them back, after a fearful battle, in which there 
 were heaps of the slain Mashausha, who were con- 
 federated with the Libyans in the fifth year of 
 his reign. In this campaign, signalized 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 
 
 K 
 
146 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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." * 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 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 
 
 * Judges i. 6, 7. 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 147 
 
 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 P^ameses 
 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 Jeroboamf. The naval battle is the 
 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 
 
 * 1 Sam. vi. 7-12. 
 
 t Judges xiv. 5 ; 1 Samuel xvii. 34 ; 2 Samuel xxiii. 20 ; 1 Kings 
 xiii. 24. 
 
148 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 expedi- 
 tion 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 ^Egean as well as Crete and the 
 shores of Caria, the Teucrians occupying the north- 
 ern coasts of Asia Minor, and the Tursha or Tur- 
 seni, 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. 
 
 The European nations of this period were only 
 partially provided with defensive armor, such as the 
 helmet and the shield. The Sardinians may have 
 worn the breast-plate, but no greaves, as mentioned 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 149 
 
 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 
 monuments 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 monu- 
 ments 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 halyards, 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 
 struggle, apparently when taken prisoner, and his son 
 Mashashar surrendered unconditionally to Rameses. 
 The Libyans lost 4227 killed or taken prisoners, of 
 
HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 which last 538 were women, which naturally suggests 
 that these were, in fact, migratory movements of 
 Libyan people defeated by their neighbors, 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 incorporated with Egypt, and supplied merce- 
 nary 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.* 
 Their princes were hereditary, and carried on war 
 in person. Their names will continue to appear in 
 history. These victories had so assured the tran- 
 quillity of Egypt that the scribe exclaims at the end 
 of one inscription : " The earth is like a birth with- 
 out pains ; let the woman go forth when she likes, 
 let her adorn herself according to her inclinations, 
 and boldly walk where she choose," 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, "f 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 Numidia 
 and Mauritania, but their names cannot be identi- 
 
 * See Nahum iii. 9 ; Daniel xi. 43 ; 2 Kings xvi. 8 ; Ezek. xxvii. 
 10; xxx. 5. 
 f Isaiah xxiii. 10. 
 
OLD EMPIRE. 
 
 fied with those otherwise recorded. Besides re- 
 cruiting 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 foun- 
 dries of Ataka* he had sent also ships, which re- 
 turned laden with bricks or ingots of brass of the 
 color of gold. To the goddess Athor he had dedi- 
 cated her temple of the Sarabit-el-Khadim bring- 
 ing thence quantities of mafka, supposed to be the 
 turquoise. This temple still continued 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 de- 
 scribed as receiving their daily sustenance from the 
 Pharaoh, in return for their labor, as if the land 
 entirely belonged to the monarch. f Rameses had 
 also carried on war against the Ethiopians, and con- 
 quered the Taraui and the Amari. The works of Ra- 
 
 * Perhaps the Athak of i Samuel xxx. 30; xiii. 20, 21. 
 f See Gen. xlvii. 
 
152 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 meses are of great beauty and extent, and the Harris 
 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 Rampsindus. 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 con- 
 temporaries. 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, Ra- 
 meses was buried in a stone sarcophagus placed in a 
 large and magnificent tomb in the Biban-el-Molook. 
 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 valor of David with the luxury of Solomon. The 
 domestic repose of Rameses was disturbed by a con- 
 spiracy in the palace in which the intrigues of Pen- 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 *53 
 
 huiban, an officer of the court played an important 
 part. He made use of magical figures of wax, 
 written charms or incantations, talismans, 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 ex- 
 amined 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 interroga- 
 tion, and the punishment of death was inflicted on 
 the most culpable, amongst whom were Penhuiban, 
 his accomplice Penbakakamen, and one Pentaur, a 
 scion of royalty. In some instances the extreme 
 penalty of death was commuted for one hardly less 
 merciful, the cutting off the nose and ears of of- 
 fenders, 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, 
 
 G2 
 
154 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 has its date unfortunately torn off, so that it is un- 
 certain when it happened, probably indeed towards 
 the close of the reign of this illustrious monarch. 
 
 His son Rameses IV. mounted the throne after 
 him, 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. Con- 
 sequent probably upon some revolution, Rameses V. 
 succeeded as a 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 monu- 
 ment of his reign is his tomb, constructed in the 
 Biban-el-Molook. 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 Uaut, 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 Pva- 
 meses VIII., were insignificant monarchs. A royal 
 scribe, named Horus, formerly a slave in the town 
 of Mendes, has just recorded his reign in a sepul - 
 chral tablet, dedicated to the deities Onouris, Osiris, 
 and Horus. According to some he was followed on 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 155 
 
 the throne by Meritum, the seventh son of Rameses 
 III., and succeeded by the equally unimportant 
 Rameses IX. The reign of Rameses IX. was dis- 
 turbed 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, 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 com- 
 prised 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 mem- 
 bers 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 particularly 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 subjected 
 to the interrogatory in prison, and the commission 
 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 
 
1 5 6 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 spoliation, perhaps afterwards discovered, were bas- 
 tinadoed or put to death. After his nineteenth 
 year this Rameses, the successor of Rameses VII., 
 associated his son in the government of the coun- 
 try. 
 
 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 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 revolution 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 Nut, contains an account of 
 the principal 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 par- 
 tially covered with curtains, is placed on a boat ter- 
 minating 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 157 
 
 priests carry it upon their shoulders.* 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 an- 
 nual revenues or tributes, and that the lands had 
 obediently rendered them; each of the chiefs or 
 princes vieing with one 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 colors, 
 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 ad?nata hakhodesh.^ 
 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 solemnized, although it is 
 unfortunate the ceremonies necessary for an Egyptian 
 marriage are unknown. On the 2 2d of the month 
 
 * Like the arks of the Moabites, Amos v. 26. 
 f Zechariah ii. 12. 
 
i 5 8 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Epiphi, of the fifteenth year of his reign, when 
 Rameses was in the Thebaic! , an envoy of Bakhtan 
 came with presents to the king. "1 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 mys- 
 teries or magic, the rekh-get-amon* " those acquainted 
 with hidden words," to be sent for, and when they 
 had come — "Show me," he said, "a man of intelli- 
 gent heart and skilful with his fingers, one of your 
 number." They pointed out the royal scribe, Te- 
 temhebi, 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 
 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 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 occu- 
 pied seventeen 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 Benta- 
 
 * These are the chartummin of Exodus. 
 
NEW EftfPIRE, 
 
 !59 
 
 resh 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 inhabi- 
 
 Departure of the Ark of the God Khons to the land of Bakhtan. 
 
 tants are thy slaves. I return whence I came to 
 satisfy thee for thy journey. Would your sanctity 
 order that a festival should be made in my honor by 
 the king of the Bakhtan." The god accorded the re- 
 quest by the mouth of the prophet who accompanied 
 him, and the king, alarmed at the interview between 
 
i6o 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 performed, 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 manifestation 
 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, 
 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 nine- 
 teenth Mechir, in the thirty-third year of the mon- 
 arch's reign. Bakhtan is supposed to be either 
 Bagestan or Ecbatana, and the inscription shows the 
 intimate relations which existed between the Egyp- 
 tian 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 dy- 
 nasty, at this time effete or extinct.* The high- 
 
 * There is an official letter of the seventeenth year of his reign 
 addressed to his son Painehsi. 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 161 
 
 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. 
 
 L 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FROM THE TWENTY-FIRST DYNASTY TO THE CONQUEST. 
 
 From about 1 100 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 ex- 
 isting in Egypt at the time, as it is difficult to recon- 
 cile 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 government in his own 
 family, and was succeeded by his grandson Paine- 
 tem, who was married to a princess named Rake- 
 maa, of the Ramessid line, and thus acquired a 
 162 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 I6 3 
 
 kind of legitimate title to the throne. But some 
 difficulty pervades the exact knowledge of this 
 part of the history of Egypt, and the same or an- 
 other 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 gar- 
 rison. It was from Egypt at this period that Solo- 
 mon and the contemporary kings of the Khita and 
 Syrians imported chariots and horses, at the rate of 
 600 pieces of silver for a chariot and 150 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 w r as the Sheshanka 
 of the Egyptians, Shishak of the Hebrews, and 
 Sesonchosis of the Greeks. His family was of 
 Libyan or Semitic origin, and descended from Psu- 
 
164 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 sennes. The names of his descendants, as will be 
 subsequently seen, identify them with the great 
 Chaldean families which reigned over Assyria and 
 Babylonia. It is in this reign that the web of Egyp- 
 tian and Hebrew history again becomes interwoven. 
 Jeroboam, one of the officers of Solomon, revolted 
 against him. Designated by the prophet Ahijah* as 
 the future king of Israel, Solomon sought to kill him, 
 Jeroboam fled to the court of Shishak for protection, 
 as Hadad the son of the king of Edom had previ- 
 ously 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, re- 
 turned and was elected king of Israel, while Reho- 
 boam 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."}" 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. 
 
 * 1 Kings xi. 14-40. 
 
 f 1 Kings xiii. 25-26. 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 I6 5 
 
 Amongst the cities which can be recognised in the 
 hieroglyphic legends are Rabboth, Taanach, Sunem, 
 Rehob, Hapharaim, Adoraim, Mahanaim, Gibeon, 
 Beth-Horon, Kedemoth, Ajalon, Megiddo, and 
 Judah Maluk, "the royal city of Judah," or Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 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-fourth of 
 the month Choiak of his fifteenth year. The muti- 
 lated 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 
 
i66 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 to some more operations, and the festivals and offer- 
 ings made in honor 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, 
 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 fifteenth 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 I6 7 
 
 gifts he made to the temple of Anion 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 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 mes- 
 senger came to inform the king that Tafnekht, com- 
 mander of the foreign troops, chief or monarch of the 
 nome Menouthes, had revolted and made himself 
 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 Bubastis, 
 
i68 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 
 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. 
 
 Surrender of Nimrod and other Princes to Piankhi. 
 
 Envoys were sent by Nimrod to treat with Piankhi. 
 After them Nimrod "sent his wife, a queen by mar- 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 169 
 
 riage and birth, named Nestennest, to offer homage 
 to the king's wives, concubines, daughters and sisters, 
 and to prostrate herself in the female apartments be- 
 fore 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 
 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 surren- 
 dered, 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 
 considerable portion of the northern confederation, 
 surrendered. From Memphis Piankhi proceeded to 
 
17 o 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Heliopolis, 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 * and said, "I have set 
 my seal, let no other king whatever enter therein." 
 The prince Uasarkan then came to the king, who 
 proceeded to Kaken, and Petesis surrendered, in- 
 vited Piankhi to his palace, and gave up all his trea- 
 sures, declaring with an oath that none had been re- 
 served 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 con- 
 queror, 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 unclean food, was ad- 
 mitted. With a rich booty, amongst which 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 
 
 *Cf. Daniel vi. 17, also the apocryphal Bel and the Dragon 14. 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 171 
 
 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 re- 
 volted princes or the assaulted cities. Although it is 
 usual to consider that the invasions of Piankhi pre- 
 ceded 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 
 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 Petoubustes was the first mon- 
 arch. 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 as- 
 signed 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 contemporaries of the Ethiopians and the 
 twenty-fourth dynasty, which consisted of a single 
 king named Bakenranef or Bokchoris, native of 
 
172 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 Sais, and son of Tafnekht or Tnephachthes. He is 
 stated to have been feeble in body, but wise, intelli- 
 gent, 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 my- 
 thological 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 in the thirty-seventh year of Sheshank IV., 
 showing that Bokchoris succeeded that king at 
 Memphis. Notwithstanding his wisdom he was una- 
 ble to resist the arms of the Ethiopians, who ad- 
 vancing under their king Sabaco, took Bokchoris 
 captive, and burnt him alive, about B.C. 715. From 
 this period the contemporaneous history of Assyria 
 is known from the Cuneiform 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 pre- 
 ponderance of Assyria appears fixed in the neighbor- 
 hood of Egypt, which it prepared to attack. Shal- 
 maneser approached the frontiers of Egypt, attacked 
 the kingdom of Israel, and took Samaria in the 
 ninth year of Hoshea. The general of the Assyrian 
 king reproached Hoshea for resting on the staff* of 
 this bruised reed, even Egypt, on which if a man 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 173 
 
 lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it, so is 
 Pharaoh king of Egypt and all who trust on him." * 
 It was in vain that Hoshea applied to So,| 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 recognized monarchs of the twenty-fifth or Ethio- 
 pian 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 
 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 
 
 eight years. The SUC- Clay seal of Shabaka or Sabaco. 
 
 cessor of Shabaka, named Found at Xineveh - 
 Shabatuk, the Sebichos of the Greek list and Sibahi 
 
 *2 Kings xviii. 21. f Ibid. 4. 
 
174 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 recognized 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. 
 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.* 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 con- 
 
 * Athenaeum, June 20, 1874, P- 829. 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 175 
 
 quest 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 Xiku or Necho, king of Mem- 
 phis and Sais, the principal monarch, Sarru-etiq-dairi, 
 king of Zianu or Tanis, Pasankhuru, king of Natku, 
 Pakruru, king of Pisabtu, Pukhuniniapi, king of 
 Khatkiribi or Athribis, Xakh-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 Lycopo- 
 lis, Lamentu, king of Khimuni, Chemmis, or Pano- 
 polis, Ispimagu, king of Taini or Thynis, Mantumi- 
 ankhu or Mentuemankh, king of Nia or Thebes. It 
 is remarkable that a similar kind of government pre- 
 
176 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 vailed under the Mamelukes in 1783: Egypt being 
 then led by twenty-four beys, who all met at Cairo 
 under a president, called the Sheik-el-Belled. A 
 pasha from the Porte also resided in the country, in 
 order to receive the tribute, but did not directly in- 
 terfere 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 endeavored, at the head of an army, to re- 
 gain 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 the As- 
 syrian 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 j 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 Ethio- 
 pians were defeated with great loss, and Tirhakah, 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 177 
 
 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 Na- 
 pata or Gebel Barkal. After these great successes As- 
 surbanipal returned to Assyria, having taken the ne- 
 cessary precaution of leaving Assyrian garrisons 
 in the principal cities to secure his conquest. But 
 the Egyptian vassals were tired of their depen- 
 dency on Egypt, 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 favor by the Egyptians than the As- 
 syrian monarch. The revolt broke out, but was 
 speedily quelled by the Assyrian generals, who 
 promptly seized the leaders ; and Necho, who had 
 been raised to power by Assurbanipal, was sent 
 bound with chains to Nineveh, to expiate the con- 
 sequences of his unsuccessful attempt to free the 
 country from a foreign conqueror. While these 
 events were in progress Tirhakah had not been idle ; 
 entering Egypt he had regained Thebes, and having 
 defeated the Assyrian generals in Upper Egypt, ad- 
 vanced on Memphis. The success of Tirhakah 
 alarmed the Court of Assyria, and Assurbanipal im- 
 mediately liberated Necho from his chains, and sent 
 
 M 
 
178 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 Tirha- 
 kah, 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 Ma- 
 netho, 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 as- 
 cended 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 marched 
 upon Memphis, and appears to have defeated the 
 Assyrians and taken Memphis, driving the Assyrians 
 once more from the valley of the Nile. The Assy- 
 rian 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 invest- 
 ing force. Then he marched to Egypt, passing 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 179 
 
 through Aphek on the frontier of Samaria, and sup- 
 plied 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 receiving 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 Assy- 
 rian 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.* 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 government 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 
 Gebel Barkal seems to have been Nutmiamen, 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 ser- 
 
 * Nahum iii. 8-10. 
 
i8o 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 pents or cobra di capella 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 interpre- 
 tation of the vision. The explanation of one of the 
 prophets was couched in these words, "Thoupos- 
 sessest 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 proceeded 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 coro- 
 nation was performed by the priests. From thence 
 he marched and sailed to Elephantine, 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. Pur- 
 suing 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 
 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 181 
 
 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 Nigri- 
 tic conqueror, gave battle to his hosts, and received 
 a signal defeat. Pakrur the king of Pasupti, and 
 apparently the chief of the confederation, proffered 
 submission to the conqueror, but as Nutmiamen 
 either then or subsequently fortified Mnu or Hermo- 
 polis, it is probable that his success 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 ap- 
 pear 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 neighbors. 
 
 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* 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 Ne- 
 cho, 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 
 married the princess Shepenaput, daughter of Piankhi, 
 a king descended in the male line from the unfor- 
 
 * Rev. Ant. 1868, vol. xvii. p. 329. 
 
HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 tunate Bokchoris. According to the Greek accounts, 
 the twenty tributaries of 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 neighbor. 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 eleven 
 princes of the dodekarchy, and when Psammetichus 
 had fulfilled, by pouring water out of his brazen hel- 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 I8 3 
 
 met, 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 ad- 
 miration 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 depen- 
 dencies caused Gyges to take the part of Psamme- 
 tichus against the Assyrian power in Egypt, and 
 Gyges sent a contingent of Greeks, principally Carians 
 and Ionians, 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 favor of Psammetichus, and the 
 Assyrian garrisons left Egypt for ever. The battle, 
 which decided the fate of Egypt, took place at Mo- 
 memphis the modern Menouf, and Psammetichus 
 rewarded his foreign troops with permanent places of 
 
HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 occupation called " The Camps," in the neighbor- 
 hood of Bubastis. From them arose a class which 
 acted at a later period as dragomans to the Greeks 
 who visited Egypt. The preference accorded by 
 Psammetichus to his foreign troops, who in the Syrian 
 war formed a kind of body-guard, so enraged the 
 Egyptians 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 Philse, the works of Psam- 
 matichus 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 I8 5 
 
 reign. The first mummied bull deposited in this 
 gallery died in the fifty-second year of his reign. 
 These bulls were buried with great honor 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 j the principal 
 and favorite material was basalt, especially a green 
 variety. There is great suppleness and vigor in 
 the limbs, but not that vigorous display of anato- 
 mical details visible in the older works of painting 
 
HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 and sculpture. It was an age of revival, the older 
 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 dejnolic, 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 I8 7 
 
 beauty excited the admiration of posterity. But in 
 all respects Psammetichus must be considered one 
 of the noblest of the Egyptian monarchs, combining 
 shrewd political knowledge wiuh 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 Xitakar 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 labor, and 120,000 laborers 
 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 sue- 
 
i88 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 
 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 Jehoiakim. 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 I8 9 
 
 power of the Babylonians, whose triumph is cele- 
 brated in the prophecies of Jeremiah. Like his 
 father, Psammetichus, the Pharaoh Necho renewed 
 or embellished the different temples of Egypt; and 
 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 
 stele fix the duration of the reigns of his immediate 
 predecessor and successor. Sais, the seat of the 
 dynasty, shared with Memphis the honors 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 Philse, 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 
 
190 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 domi- 
 nation of Babylonia, revolted for a third time, and 
 their king Zedekiah made an alliance with the Pha- 
 raoh, 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 subse- 
 quently distributed themselves throughout Egypt, 
 chiefly in the cities of the Delta. Subsequently 
 Apries made an alliance with Adiacras king of the 
 Libyans, and attacked the Greek settlement of 
 Cyrene, which became menacing to its neighbors. 
 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 rumor that it 
 had been sacrificed to the ambition of Apries. It 
 was in vain that he sent Amasis an Egyptian com- 
 mander 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 con- 
 juncture, Apries sent Patarbemis, another Egyptian, 
 to bring Amasis captive into his presence. The task 
 was too great, for Patarbemis returned unsuccessful 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 I 9 I 
 
 to the court. Apries, furious at the want of success, 
 then cut off the ears and nose of Patarbemis, a cruel 
 and ignominious punishment inflicted as already de- 
 scribed on traitors. The revolt then became general, 
 and Apries in vain with his army of Greek mercena- 
 ries attacked Amasis. Defeated in the battle of 
 Momemphis, he was led captive to his former palace 
 at Sais, and well treated by the conqueror. The 
 nation however clamored 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 him- 
 self 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 pur- 
 suit of pleasure rather than ambition, and his eleva- 
 tion to the throne was more the result of accident 
 than design. His reign continued the policy of his 
 predecessors. 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 
 
IQ2 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 
 praetorian guard, encamped in the neighborhood of 
 Memphis, was too strong to be ignored, and Aahmes 
 not only favored 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- 
 borhood of Memphis, the Northern capital. Either 
 from inclination or policy, the Egyptian monarch 
 particularly 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, ac- 
 cording 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 unmistakable evidence of Egyptian in- 
 fluence at a remote period. Aahmes married at least 
 three, and apparently four wives during his lifetime. 
 Of these, the most important was Ankhnas, the 
 daughter of Psammetichus II. Her fine sarcophagus 
 of black marble covered with hieroglyphic inscrip- 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 193 
 
 tions, the prayers of the queen, and the responses 
 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 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 Psam- 
 metichus L 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 sepulchre is unknown, although the satirist Juve- 
 nal 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 valor of the Persian troops which had al- 
 ready 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, 
 
 N 
 
i 9 4 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 which traversed Palestine and the Arabian desert. 
 From the Arabian king it received the necessary sup- 
 ply of water carried in jars on the backs of camels, for 
 the Arabian monarch had formerly been engaged in 
 hostilities with Aahmes. Psammetichus offered battle 
 on the Pelusiac branch of the river, and after a terri- 
 ble 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 
 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 a useless incumbrance and a dynastic 
 danger ; he was accused of conspiracy against Cam- 
 byses 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 195 
 
 found on the monuments of Egypt. Psammetichus 
 was the last of the independent monarchs of Egypt, 
 as although 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 Amasis, publicly 
 burnt it, having treated it with the greatest dishonor 
 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 precincts, and levelled the construc- 
 tions 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 ; he 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 
 
196 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 pub- 
 lic rejoicings for those at his own defeat, he wreaked 
 his vengeance on the magistrates, 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 
 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 orifices 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 197 
 
 reduced 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 j he built or 
 repaired the temple of Amon in the Oasis of El Khar- 
 geh, 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 
 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 
 
HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 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 
 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, com- 
 pelled 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 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 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 mo- 
 narchs 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 domes- 
 tic revolutions Darius II., the son of Xerxes, ascended 
 the throne and reigned for nineteen years, till B. c. 
 425. Recent discoveries at El Khargeh 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 unfor- 
 tunate 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 monu- 
 ments 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 
 
200 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 the Athenians, the absence of contemporary monu- 
 ments is not so important as it otherwise would 
 have been. A second Amyrtaios is the only king 
 of the twenty-eighth or Saite line, and he was suc- 
 ceeded 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 document. 
 Naifaarut reigned only seven years, in the fourth of 
 which he aided the manning and victualling of a La- 
 cedaemonian 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 
 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 Nektanebes or Nekhterebes of the 
 Greeks. This monarch gave the command of his 
 fleet to Chabrias, but that officer was recalled at the 
 remonstrances 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 
 
NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 201 
 
 the Persian fleet entered the Pelusiac branch of the 
 Nile and disembarked. Dissensions arose between 
 Iphikrates, the Greek, and Pharnabazos, the Persian 
 general ; irreparable time and advantages were lost. 
 Nekhtherheb concentrated an army at Mendes, and 
 defeated the Persians, who retired from Egypt. In 
 his reign of nineteen 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 Rosetta. 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 founded at 
 Cairo, show the admirable finish which prevailed at 
 this period. A beautiful sarcophagus of this mon- 
 arch 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 appa- 
 rently 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 
 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 on his arrival. The 
 
202 
 
 HISTORY OF EGYPT. 
 
 energy of Ochos, the successor of Artaxerxes, how- 
 ever, restored once more the Persian rule in Egypt. 
 Sidon, notwithstanding its Egyptian garrison, was 
 taken, and the Persians, reinforced by Greek merce- 
 naries, commenced the siege of Pelusium. Nekh- 
 tenebef, 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 Bu- 
 bastus surrendered, and Nekhtenebef, afraid of 
 offering further resistance, did not even sustain the 
 siege of Memphis, but fled with his treasurer to 
 Ethiopia, B.C. 340, after a reign of nineteen years. 
 
 From this period Egypt became a satrapy of Per- 
 sia, 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 con- 
 quest. 
 
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 ✓ ScRJBfJ Ef^.^^M ST ^g"8( Co. 
 > > 654:: Br 07tdw ay, N ; .Y. ; - 
 OV/N/V A/V/V/V/X/N ✓ 
 
 One vol. 12mo, beautifully bound in extra cloth, black and gilt, $1.50. 
 
 " No more refreshing volumes could be carried into the country or to the sea-shore, to 
 fill up the niches of time that intervene between the pleasures of the summer holidays." 
 —Boston Post. 
 
 " Mr. Stoddard's work appears to be done well nigh perfectly. There is not a dull 
 page in the book." — N. Y. Evening Post. 
 
 Sent Post-paid, upon Receipt op Price, by 
 
 SCRIBNER. ARMSTRONG & CO-, New Ycrk. 
 
BHIH 
 
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