chapter 1.

"It has been maintained by some that the immigration was from the south, the Egyptians having been a colony from Ethiopia which gradually descended the Nile and established itself in the middle and lower portions of the valley; and this theory can plead in its favour, both a positive statement of Diodorus, and the fact, which is quite certain, of an ethnic connection between the Egyptians and some of the tribes who now occupy Abyssinia (the ancient Ethiopia). But modern research has shown quite unmistakably that the movement of the Egyptians was in the opposite direction. ... We must look, then, rather to Syria or Arabia than to Ethiopia as the cradle of the Egyptian nation. At the same time we must admit that they were not mere Syrians or Arabs, but had, from the remotest time whereto we can go back, distinct characteristics, whereby they have a good claim to be considered as a separate race."

_G. Rawlinson, History of Ancient Egypt, chapter 3._

"So far as our knowledge reaches, the northern edge of Africa, like the valley of the Nile as far as the marshes at the foot of the Abyssinian hills, was inhabited by nations who in colour, language, and customs were sharply distinguished from the negro. These nations belong to the whites: their languages were most closely allied to the Semitic. From this, and from their physical peculiarities, the conclusion has been drawn that these nations at some time migrated from Asia to the soil of Africa. They formed a vast family, whose dialects still continue in the language of the Berbers. Assisted by the favourable conditions of their land, the tribe which settled on the Lower Nile quickly left their kinsmen far behind. Indeed the latter hardly rose above a pastoral life. The descendants of these old inhabitants of the valley of the Nile, in spite of the numerous layers which the course of centuries has subsequently laid upon the soil of the land, still form the larger part of the population of Egypt, and the ancient language is preserved in the dialect of the Copts."

_M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 1, chapter 1._

EGYPT: The Old Empire and the Middle Empire.

The following are the Egyptian Dynasties, from the first Pharaoh, Mena, to the epoch of the Hyksos, or Shepherd kings, with the dates and periods assigned to each by Brugsch:

The First Dynasty; of Thinis: B. C. 4400-4166. The Second; of Thinis: 4133-4000. The Third; of Memphis: 3966-3766. The Fourth; of Memphis: 3733-3600. The Fifth; of Elephantine: 3566-3333. The Sixth; of Memphis: 3300-3066. The Seventh to the Eleventh (a confused and obscure period): 3033-2500. The Twelfth; of Thebes: 2466-2266.

_H. Brugsch-Bey, History of Egypt under the Pharaohs, appendix A._

"The direct descendants of Menes [or Mena] form the First Dynasty, which, according to Manetho, reigned 253 years. No monument contemporary with these princes has come down to us. ... The Second Dynasty, to which Manetho assigns nine kings, lasted 302 years. It was also originally from This [or Thinis], and probably related to the First. ... When this family had become extinct, a Dynasty, originally from Memphis, seized the throne, forming the Third, and to it a duration of 214 years is attributed. ... With the Fourth Dynasty, Memphite like the Third, and which reigned 284 years, history becomes clearer and monuments more numerous. This was the age of the three Great Pyramids, built by the three kings, Khufu (the Cheops of Herodotus), Shafra (Chefren), and Menkara (Mycerinus). ... The Fifth Dynasty came originally from Elephantine, at the southern extremity of Upper Egypt, and there possibly the kings generally resided, though at the same time Memphis was not deprived of its importance. ... On the death of the last king of the Fifth Dynasty, a new family, of Memphitic origin according to Manetho, came to the throne. ... Primitive art attained its highest point under the Sixth Dynasty. ... But, from the time of the civil commotions in which Neit-aker [the Nitocris of Herodotus] perished, Egyptian civilization underwent a sudden and unaccountable eclipse. From the end of the Sixth Dynasty to the commencement of the Eleventh, Manetho reckons 436 years, and for this whole period the monuments are absolutely silent. Egypt seems then to have disappeared from the rank of nations; and when this long slumber ended, civilization commenced a new career, entirely independent of the past. ... {751} Thus ends that period of nineteen centuries, which modern scholars know as the Old Empire. ... Thebes did not exist in the days of the glory of the Old Empire. The holy city of Amen seems to have been founded during the period of anarchy and obscurity, succeeding, as we have said, to the Sixth Dynasty. Here was the birthplace of that renewed civilization, that new monarchy, we are accustomed to call the Middle Empire, the middle age in fact of ancient Egypt--a middle age anterior to the earliest ages of all other history. From Thebes cane the six kings of the Eleventh Dynasty. ... We again quote the excellent remarks of M. Mariette: 'When, with the Eleventh Dynasty, we see Egypt awake from her long slumber, all old traditions appear to be forgotten; the proper names used in ancient families, the titles of functionaries, the style of writing, and even the religion--all seem new. This, Elephantine, and Memphis, are no longer the favourite capitals. Thebes for the first time becomes the seat of sovereign power. Egypt, moreover, has lost a considerable portion of her territory, and the authority of her legitimate kings hardly extends beyond the limited district of the Thebaid. The study of the monuments confirms these general views; they are rude, primitive, sometimes coarse; and when we look at them we may well believe that Egypt, under the Eleventh Dynasty, again passed through a period of infancy, as she had already done under the Third Dynasty.' A dynasty probably related to, and originally from the same place as these first Theban princes succeeded them. ... This Twelfth Dynasty reigned for 213 years, and its epoch was one of prosperity, of peace at home and glorious achievements abroad. ... Although the history of the Twelfth Dynasty is clear and well known, illustrated by numerous monuments, there is, nevertheless, no period in the annals of Egypt more obscure than the one closing with the Thirteenth Dynasty. It is one long series of revolutions, troubles, and internal dissensions, closed by a terrible catastrophe, the greatest and most lasting recorded in Egyptian history, which a second time interrupted the march of civilization on the banks of the Nile, and for a while struck Egypt from the list of nations."

_F. Lenormant and E. Chevallier, Manual of Ancient History of the East, book 3, chapter 1-2._

ALSO IN: _C. C. J. Bunsen, Egypt's Place in Universal History, volume 2._

See, also, MEMPHIS, and THEBES, EGYPT.

EGYPT: The Hyksos, or Shepherd-Kings.

According to the Manethouian account which the Jewish historian Josephus has preserved to us by transcribing it, the Egyptian Netherlands were at a certain time overspread by a wild and rough people, which came from the countries of the east, overcame the native kings who dwelt there, and took possession of the whole country, without finding any great opposition on the part of the Egyptians. They were called Hyksos, which Josephus interpreted as meaning Shepherd-kings. "Hyk," he explained, meant King, in the holy language, and "sos," in the dialect of the people, signified Shepherd. But Dr. Brugsch identifies "sos" with the name "Shasu," which the old Egyptians gave to the Bedouins, whose name became equivalent to Shepherds. Hence Dr. Brugsch inclines to the ancient opinion transmitted by Josephus, that the Hyksos were Arabs or Bedouins--the Shasu of the Egyptian records, who hung on the northeastern frontier of Egypt from the most ancient times and were always pressing into the country, at every opportunity. But many objections against this view are raised and the different theories advanced to account for the Hyksos are quite numerous. Canon Rawlinson says: "The Egyptians of the time of Herodotus seem to have considered that they were Philistines. Moderns have regarded them as Canaanites, Syrians, Hittites. It is an avoidance rather than a solution of the difficulty to say that they were 'a collection of all the nomad hordes of Arabia and Syria' [Lenormant], since there must have been a directing hand. ... On the whole, therefore, we lean to the belief that the so-called Hyksos or Shepherds were Hittites."

_G. Rawlinson, History of Ancient Egypt. chapter 19._

"It is maintained on good authority that the Hyksos, or Shepherd-Kings, had secured possession of the eastern frontier of Lower Egypt immediately after the close of the Twelfth Dynasty; that at this time the Thirteenth and the Fourteenth Dynasties ruled contemporaneously, the former in Upper, the latter in Lower Egypt; one was illegitimate, the other the illegitimate line; but authors are not in accord as to their right of priority. It is supposed that, while Egypt claimed the Thirteenth Dynasty as her own, the Hyksos usurped the mastery over the Fourteenth Dynasty, and governed through the agency of its kings, treating them meanwhile as vassal chiefs. These local kings had cities from which they were unable to escape, and were deprived of an army of defence. Such was the state of the country for 184 years, when the Fourteenth Dynasty died out, and when the Fifteenth Dynasty, constituted of six successive Hyksos kings, took the reins of government into their own hands. Lieblein, whose views we are now endeavouring to express, assigns as the date of the invasion of the Hyksos 2108 years B. C. ... It is not improbable that the well-known journey of Abraham to Egypt was made during the early period of the reign of the Shepherd-Kings; whilst the visit of Joseph occurred near the close of their power."

_E. Wilson, The Egypt of the Past, chapter 5._

"'The Shepherds possessed themselves of Egypt by violence,' writes Mariette-Bey, 'but the civilization which they immediately adopted on their conquest was rather Egyptian than Asiatic, and the discoveries of Avaris (San) prove that they did not even banish from their temples the gods of the ancient Egyptian Pantheon.' In fact the first shepherd-king, Solatis himself, employed an Egyptian artist to inscribe ... his title on the statue of a former legitimate Pharaoh. 'They did not disturb the civilization more than the Persians or the Greeks, but simply accepted the higher one they had conquered.' So our revered scholar Dr. Birch has summed up the matter; and Professor Maspero has very happily described it thus: 'The popular hatred loaded them with ignominious epithets, and treated them as accursed, plague-stricken, leprous. Yet they allowed themselves very quickly to be domesticated. ... Once admitted to the school of Egypt, the barbarians progressed quickly in the civilized life. The Pharaonic court reappeared around these shepherd-kings, with all its pomp and all its following of functionaries great and small. The royal style and title of Cheops and the Amenemhas were fitted to the outlandish names of Jannes and Apapi. The Egyptian religion, without being officially adopted, was tolerated, and the religion of the Canaanites underwent some modifications to avoid hurting beyond measure the susceptibility of the worshippers of Osiris.'"

_H. G. Tomkins, Studies on the Times of Abraham, chapter 8._

{752}

In a late Italian work ("Gli Hyksos") by Dr. C. A. de Cara, "he puts together all that is ascertained in regard to them [the Hyksos], criticises the theories that have been propounded on their behalf, and suggests a theory of his own. Nothing that has been published on the subject seems to have escaped his notice. ... His own view is that the Hyksos represented a confederacy of various Asiatic tribes, under the leadership of the northern Syrians. That their ruling class came from this part of the world seems to me clear from the name of their supreme god Sutekh, who occupied among them the position of the Semitic Baal."

_A. H. Sayce, The Hyksôs (Academy, September 20,1890)._

"Historical research concerning the history of the Hyksos may be summed up as follows:

I. A certain number of non-Egyptian kings of foreign origin, belonging to the nation of the Menti, ruled for a long time in the eastern portion of the Delta.

II. These chose as their capitals the cities of Zoan and Avaris, and provided them with strong fortifications.

III. They adopted not only the manners and customs of the Egyptians, but also their official language and writing, and the order of their court was arranged on Egyptian models.

IV. They were patrons of art, and Egyptian artists erected, after the ancient models, monuments in honour of these usurpers, in whose statues they were obliged to reproduce the Hyksos physiognomy, the peculiar arrangement of the beard und head-dress, as well as other variations of their costume.

V. They honored Sutekh, the son of Nut, as the supreme god of their newly acquired country, with the surname Nub, 'the golden.' He was the origin of all that is evil and perverse in the visible and invisible world, the opponent of good and the enemy of light. In the cities of Zoan and Avaris, splendid temples were constructed in honour of this god, and other monuments raised, especially Sphinxes, carved out of stone from Syene.

VI. In all probability one of them was the founder of a new era, which most likely began with the first year of his reign. Down to the time of the second Ramses, four hundred years had elapsed of this reckoning which was acknowledged even by the Egyptians.

VII. The Egyptians were indebted to their contact with them for much useful knowledge. In particular their artistic views were expanded and new forms and shapes, notably that of the winged sphinx, were introduced, the Semitic origin of which is obvious at a glance. ...

The inscriptions on the monuments designate that foreign people who once ruled in Egypt by the name of Men or Menti. On the walls of the temple of Edfû it is stated that 'the inhabitants of the land of Asher are called Menti.' ... In the different languages, ... and in the different periods of history, the following names are synonymous: Syria, Rutennu of the East, Asher, and Menti."--"Since, on the basis of the most recent and best investigations in the province of ancient Egyptian chronology, we reckon the year 1350 B. C. as a mean computation for the reign of Ramses, the reign of the Hyksos king, Nub, and probably its beginning, falls in the year 1750 B. C., that is, 400 years before Ramses II. Although we are completely in the dark as to the place King Nub occupied in the succession of the kindred princes of his house, yet the number mentioned is important, as an approximate epoch for the stay of the foreign kings in Egypt. According to the statement in the Bible, the Hebrews from the immigration of Jacob into Egypt until the Exodus remained 430 years in that land. Since the Exodus from Egypt took place in the time of Meneptah II., the son of Ramses II.--the Pharaoh of the oppression--the year B. C. 1300 may be an approximate date. If we add to this 430 years, as expressing the total duration of the sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt, we arrive at the year 1730 B. C. as the approximate date for the immigration of Jacob into Egypt, and for the time of the official career of Joseph at the court of Pharaoh. In other words, the time of Joseph (1730 B. C.) must have fallen in the period of the Hyksos domination, about the reign of the above-mentioned prince Nub (1750 B. C)."

_H. Brugsch-Bey, Egypt under the Pharaohs (edition of 1891, by.M. Brodrick), pages 106-109, and 126._

See JEWS: THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL IN EGYPT.

ALSO IN: F. C. H. Wendel, History of Egypt, chapter 4.

EGYPT: About B. C. 1700-1400. The New Empire. The Eighteenth Dynasty.

"The dominion of the Hyksos by necessity gave rise to profound internal divisions, alike in the different princely families and in the native population itself. Factions became rampant in various districts, and reached the highest point in the hostile feeling of the inhabitants of Patoris or the South country against the people of Patomit or North country, who were much mixed with foreign blood. ... From this condition of divided power and of mutual jealousy the foreign rulers obtained their advantage and their chief strength, until King Aahmes made himself supreme."

_H. Brugsch-Bey, Egypt under the Pharaohs (edition of 1891, by M. Brodrick)._

"The duration of the reign of this first Pharaoh of the New Empire was twenty-five years. He was succeeded by his son Amenhotep I. and the latter by his son Thothmes I. "The reign of Thothmes 1. ... derives its chief distinction from the fact that, at this period of their history, the Egyptians for the first time carried their arms deep into Asia, overrunning Syria, and even invading Mesopotamia, or the tract between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Hitherto the furthest point reached in this direction had been Sharuhen in Southern Palestine. ... Syria was hitherto almost an undiscovered region to the powerful people which nurturing its strength in the Nile valley, had remained content with its own natural limits and scarcely grasped at any conquests. A time was now come when this comparative quietude and absence of ambition were about to cease. Provoked by the attack made upon her from the side of Asia, and smarting from the wounds inflicted upon her pride and prosperity by the Hyksos during the period of their rule, Egypt now set herself to retaliate, and for three centuries continued at intervals to pour her armies into the Eastern continent, and to carry fire and sword over the extensive and populous regions which lay between the Mediterranean and the Zagros mountain range. There is some uncertainty as to the extent of her conquests; but no reasonable doubt can be entertained that for a space of three hundred years Egypt was the most powerful and the most aggressive state that the world contained, and held a dominion that has as much right to be called an 'Empire' as the Assyrian, the Babylonian or the Persian. {753} While Babylonia, ruled by Arab conquerors, declined in strength, and Assyria proper was merely struggling into independence, Egypt put forth her arm and grasped the fairest regions of the earth's surface." The immediate successor of Thothmes I. was his son, Thothmes II., who reigned in association with a sister of masculine character, queen Hatasu. The strong-minded queen, moreover, prolonged her reign after the death of this elder brother, until a younger brother, Thothmes III. displaced her. The Third Thothmes was the greatest of Egyptian conquerors and kings. He carried his arms beyond the Euphrates, winning a memorable victory at Megiddo over the confederated kings of the Syrian and Mesopotamian countries. He left to his son (Amenhotep II.) "a dominion extending about 1,100 miles from north to south, and (in places) 450 miles from west to east." He was a great builder, likewise, and "has left the impress of his presence in Egypt more widely than almost any other of her kings, while at the same time he has supplied to the great capitals of the modern world their most striking Egyptian monuments." The larger of the obelisks now standing in Rome and Constantinople, as well as those at London and New York were all of them produced in the reign of this magnificent Pharaoh. The two obelisks last named stood originally, and for fourteen centuries at the front of the great temple of the sun, in Heliopolis. They were removed by the Roman Emperor, Augustus, B. C: 23, to Alexandria, where they took in time the name of Cleopatra's Needles,--although Cleopatra had no part in their long history. After nineteen centuries more of rest, these strangely coveted monuments were again disturbed, and transported into lands which their builder knew not of. The later kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty seem to have, none of them, possessed the energy and character of Thothmes III. The line ended about 1400 B. C. with Horemheb, who left no heirs.

_G. Rawlinson, History of Ancient Egypt, chapter 20._

ALSO IN: _H. Brugsch-Bey, Egypt under the Pharaohs chapter 13._

_H. H. Gorringe, Egyptian ·Obelisks._

EGYPT: About B. C. 1500-1400. The Tell el-Amarna Tablets. Correspondence of the Egyptian kings with Babylonia, Assyria, Armenia, Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine.

"The discovery made in 1887 by a peasant woman of Middle Egypt may be described as the most important of all contributions to the early political history of Western Asia. We have become possessed of a correspondence, dating from the fifteenth century B. C., which was carried on during the reigns of three Egyptian kings, with the rulers of Babylon, Assyria, Armenia, Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, during a period of great activity, when revolutions which affected the whole history of the east shore lands of the Mediterranean were in progress; and we find in these tablets a contemporary picture of the civilisation of the age. ... The Tell Amarna tablets represent a literature equal in bulk to about half the Pentateuch, and concerned almost exclusively with political affairs, They are clay tablets, varying from two inches to a foot in length, with a few as large as eighteen inches, covered with cuneiform writing generally on both sides, and often on the edges as well. The peasantry unearthed nearly the complete collection, including some 320 pieces in all; and explorers afterwards digging on the site have added only a few additional fragments. The greater number were bought for the Berlin Museum, while eighty-two were acquired for England, and the rest remain either in the Boulak Museum at Cairo; or, in a few instances, in the hands of private collectors. ... Tell Amarna (apparently 'the mound of the tumuli ') is an important ruined site on the east bank of the Nile, about a hundred and fifty miles in a straight line south of Cairo. Its Egyptian name is said to have been Khu-en-aten, 'Glory of the Sun-disk.'"

_The Tell Amarna Tablets (Edinburgh Review, July, 1893)._

"The collection of Cuneiform Tablets recently found [1887] at Tell el-Amarna in Upper Egypt, consisted of about three hundred and twenty documents, or portions of documents. The British Museum possesses eighty-two ... the Berlin Museum has one hundred and sixty, a large number being fragments; the Gizeh Museum has sixty; and a few are in the hands of private persons. ... In color the Tablets vary from a light to a dark dust tint, and from a flesh-color to dark brick-red. The nature of the clay of which they are made sometimes indicates the countries from which they come. The size of the Tablets in the British Museum varies from 8¾ inches x 4-7/8 inches to 2-1/8 inches x 1-11/16 inches; the longest text contains 98 lines, the shortest 10. ... The greater number are rectangular, and a few are oval; and they differ in shape from any other cuneiform documents known to us. ... The writing ... resembles to a certain extent the Neo-Babylonian, i. e., the simplification of the writing of the first Babylonian Empire used commonly in Babylonia and Assyria for about seven centuries B. C. It possesses, however, characteristics different from those of any other style of cuneiform writing of any period now known to exist; and nearly every tablet contains forms of characters which have hitherto been thought peculiar to the Ninevite or Assyrian style of writing. But, compared with the neat, careful hand employed in the official documents drawn up for the kings of Assyria, it is somewhat coarse and careless, and suggests the work of unskilled scribes. One and the same hand, however, appears in tablets which come from the same person and the same place. On some of the large tablets the writing is bold and free; on some of the small ones the characters are confused and cramped, and are groups of strokes rather than wedges. The spelling ... is often careless, and in some instances syllables have been omitted. At present it is not possible to say whether the irregular spelling is due to the ignorance of the scribe or to dialectic peculiarities. ... The Semitic dialect in which these letters are written is Assyrian, and is, in some important details, closely related to the Hebrew of the Old Testament. ... The documents were most probably written between the years B. C. 1500 to 1450. ... They give an insight into the nature of the political relations which existed between the kings of Western Asia and the kings of Egypt, and prove that an important trade existed between the two countries from very early times. ... A large number of the present tablets are addressed to 'the King of Egypt,' either Amenophis III. or Amenophis IV. Nearly all of them consist of reports of disasters to the Egyptian power and of successful intrigues against it, coupled by urgent entreaties for help, pointing to a condition of distraction and weakness in Egypt. ... The most graphic details of the disorganized condition, and of the rival factions, of the Egyptian dependencies lying on the coastline of Phoenicia and Northern Palestine, are to be gathered from a perusal of the dispatches of the governors of the cities of Byblos, Beyrut and Tyre."

_The Tell el-Amarna Tablets in the British Museum, introduction._

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"In the present state of cuneiform research I believe it to be impossible to give a translation of the Tell el-Amarna texts which would entirely satisfy the expert or general reader. No two scholars would agree as to any interpretation which might be placed upon certain rare grammatical forms and unknown words in the Babylonian text, and any literal translation in a modern language would not be understood by the general reader on account of the involved style and endless repetition of phrases common to a Semitic idiom and dialect. About the general meaning of the contents of the greater number of the letters there can be no doubt whatever, and it is therefore possible to make a summary of the contents of each letter, which should, as a rule, satisfy the general reader, and at the same time form a guide to the beginner in cuneiform. Summaries of the contents of the Tell el-Amarna tablets in the British Museum have been published in 'The Tell el-Amarna Tablets in the British Museum, with autotype facsimiles,' printed by order of the Trustees, London, 1892, and it is hoped that the transliteration, given in the following pages may form a useful supplement to that work." ...

No. 1. A Letter from Egypt--Amenophis III. to Kallimma (?) Sin, King of Karaduniyash, referring to his proposed marriage with Sukharti, the daughter of Kallimma-Sin, and containing the draft of a commercial treaty, and an allusion to the disappearance of certain chariots and horses.

No.2. Letters from Babylonia-Burraburiyash, King of Karaduniyash, to Amenophis IV., referring to the friendship which had existed between their respective fathers, and the help which had been rendered to the King of Egypt by Burraburiyash himself; the receipt of two manahs of gold is acknowledged and a petition is made for more.

No. 3. Burraburiyash, King of Karaduniyash to Amenophis IV., complaining that the Egyptian messengers had visited his country thrice without bringing gifts, and that they withheld some of the gold which had been sent to him from Egypt; Burraburiyash announces the despatch of a gift of lapis-lazuli for the Egyptian princess who was his son's wife. ...

No. 30. Letter from Abi-milki, governor of Tyre, to the King of Egypt, reporting that he believes Zimrida will not be able to stir up disaffection in the city of Sidon, although he has caused much hostility against Tyre. He asks for help to protect the city, and for water to drink and wood to burn, and he sends with his messenger Ili-milki five talents of copper and other gifts for the King of Egypt. He reports that the King of Danuna is dead and that his brother reigns in his stead; one half of the city of Ugarit has been destroyed by fire; the soldiers of the Khatti have departed; Itagamapairi, governor of Kedesh, and Aziru are fighting against Namyawiza. If the King of Egypt will but send a few troops, all will be well with Tyre. ...

No. 43. Letter from the governor of a town in Syria to the King of Egypt, reporting that the rebels have asserted their independence; that Biridashwi has stirred up rebellion in the city of Inu-Amma; that its people have captured chariots in the city of Ashtarti: that the kings of the cities of Buzruna and Khalunni have made a league with Biridashwi to slay Namyawiza (who, having taken refuge in Damascus and being attacked by Arzawiya, declared himself to be a vassal of Egypt); that Arzawiya went to the city of Gizza and afterwards captured the city of Shaddu; that Itakkama ravaged the country of Gizza; and that Arzawiya and Biridashwi have wasted the country of Abitu.

No. 44. Continuation (1) of a letter to the King of Egypt, reporting that, owing to the hostilities of Abd-Ashirta, Khâya, an official, was unable to send ships to the country of Amurri, as he had promised. The ships from Arvad which the writer has in his charge, lack their full complement of men for war service, and he urges the king to make use of the ships and crews which he has had with him in Egypt. The writer of the letter also urges the King of Egypt to appoint an Egyptian official over the naval affairs of Sidon, Beyrut and Arvad, and to seize Abd-Ashirta and put him under restraint to prevent him obstructing the manning of the ships of war. ...

No. 58. Letter from the governor of a district in Palestine (?) to the governors of neighbouring states in the land of Canaan, informing them that he is about to send his messenger Akiya on a mission to the King of Egypt, and to place himself and every thing that he has at his disposal. Akiya will go to Egypt by the way of Canaan, and the writer of this letter suggests that any gifts they may have to send to Egypt should be carried by him, for Akiya is a thoroughly trustworthy man.

_C. Bezold, Oriental Diplomacy: Being the transliterated text of the Cuneiform Despatches, preface._

Under the title of "The Story of a 'Tell,'" Mr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, the successful excavator and explorer of Egyptian antiquities, gave a lecture in London, in June, 1892, in which he described the work and the results of an excavation then in progress under his direction on the supposed site of Lachish, at a point where the maritime plain of Philistia rises to the mountains of Judæa, on the route from Egypt into Asia. The chairman who introduced Mr. Petrie defined the word "Tell" as follows: "A Tell is a mound of earth showing by the presence of broken pottery or worked stone that it is the site of a ruined city or village. In England when a house falls down or is pulled down the materials are usually worth the expense of removing for use in some new building. But in Egypt common houses have for thousands of years been built of sun-dried bricks; in Palestine of rough rubble walling, which, on falling, produces many chips, with thick flat roofs of plaster. It is thus often less trouble to get new than to use old material; the sites of towns grow in height, and depressions are filled up." The mound excavated by Mr. Petrie is known as Tell el Hesy. After he left the work it was carried on by Mr. Bliss, and Mr. Petrie in his lecture says "The last news is that Mr. Bliss has found the long looked for prize, a cuneiform tablet. ... From the character of the writing, which is the same as on the tablets written in Palestine in 1400. B. C., to the Egyptian king at Tel el Amarna, we have a close agreement regarding the chronology of the town. Further, it mentions Zimrida as a governor, and this same man appears as governor of Lachish on the tablets found at Tel el Amarna. We have thus at last picked up the other end of the broken chain of correspondence between Palestine and Egypt, of which one part was so unexpectedly found in Egypt a few years ago on the tablets at Tel el Amarna; and we may hope now to recover the Palestinian part of this intercourse and so establish the pre-Israelite history of the land."

W_. M. F. Petrie, The Story of a "Tell" (The City and the Land, lecture 6)._

See, also, PALESTINE.

ALSO IN: _C. R. Conder, The Tell Amarna Tablets, translated._

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EGYPT: About B. C. 1400-1200. The first of the Ramesides. The Pharaohs of the Oppression and the Exodus,

"Under the Nineteenth Dynasty, which acquired the throne after the death of Har-em-Hebi [or Hor-em-heb] the fortune of Egypt maintained to some extent its ascendancy; but, though the reigns of some war-like kings throw a bright light on this epoch, the shade of approaching trouble already darkens the horizon." Ramses I. and his son, or son-in-law, Seti I., were involved in troublesome wars with the rising power of the Hittites, in Syria, and with the Shasu of the Arabian desert. Seti was also at war with the Libyans, who then made their first appearance in Egyptian history. His son Ramses II., the Sesostris of the Greeks, who reigned for sixty-seven years, in the fourteenth century B. C., has always been the most famous of the Egyptian kings, and, by modern discovery, has been made the most interesting of them to the Christian world. He was a busy and boastful warrior, who accomplished no important conquests; but "among the Pharaohs he is the builder 'par excellence.' It is almost impossible to find in Egypt a ruin or an ancient mound, without reading his name." ... It was to these works, probably, that the Israelites then in Egypt were forced to contribute their labor; for the Pharaoh of the oppression is identified, by most scholars of the present day, with this building and boasting Sesostris.

_F. Lenormant and E. Chevallier, Manual of the Ancient History of the East, book 3, chapter 3._

"The extreme length of the reign of Ramses was, as in other histories, the cause of subsequent weakness and disaster. His successor was an aged son, Menptah, who had to meet the difficulties which were easily overcome by the youth of his energetic father. The Libyans and their maritime allies broke the long tranquillity of Egypt by a formidable invasion and temporary conquest of the north-west. The power of the monarchy was thus shaken, and the old king was not the leader to restore it. His obscure reign was followed by others even obscurer, and the Nineteenth Dynasty ended in complete anarchy, which reached its height when a Syrian chief, in what manner we know not, gained the rule of the whole country. It is to the reign of Menptah that Egyptian tradition assigned the Exodus, and modern research has come to a general agreement that this is its true place in Egyptian history. ... Unfortunately we do not know the duration of the oppression of the Israelites, nor the condition of Lower Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty, which, according to the hypothesis here adopted, corresponds to a great part of the Hebrew sojourn. It is, however, clear from the Bible that the oppression did not begin till after the period of Joseph's contemporaries, and had lasted eighty years before the Exodus. It seems almost certain that this was the actual beginning of the oppression, for it is very improbable that two separate Pharaohs are intended by the 'new king which knew not Joseph' and the builder of Rameses, or, in other words, Ramses II., and the time from the accession of Ramses II. to the end of Menptah's reign can have little exceeded the eighty years of Scripture between the birth of Moses and the Exodus. ... If the adjustment of Hebrew and Egyptian history for the oppression, as stated above, be accepted, Ramses II. was probably the first, and certainly the great oppressor. His character suits this theory; he was an undoubted autocrat who ... covered Egypt and Lower Nubia with vast structures that could only have been produced by slave-labor on the largest scale."

_R. S. Poole, Ancient Egypt (Contemporary Review, March, 1879)._

ALSO IN: _H. Brugsch-Bey, Egypt Under the Pharaohs, chapter 14._

_H. G. Tomkins, Life and Times of Joseph._

See, also: JEWS: THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL IN EGYPT.

EGYPT: About B. C. 1300. Exodus of the Israelites.

See JEWS: THE ROUTE OF THE EXODUS.

EGYPT: About B. C. 1200-670. The decline of the empire of the Pharaohs.

From the anarchy in which the Nineteenth Dynasty came to its end, order was presently restored by the seating in power of a new family, which claimed to be of the Rameside stock. The second of its kings, who called himself Ramses III. and who is believed to be the Rhampsinitus of the Greeks, appears to have been one of the ablest of the monarchs of his line. The security and prosperity of Egypt were recovered under his reign and he left it in a state which does not seem to have promised the rapid decay which ensued. "It is difficult to understand and account for the suddenness and completeness of the collapse. ... The hieratic chiefs, the high priests of the god Ammon at Thebes, gradually increased in power, usurped one after another the prerogatives of the Pharaohs, by degrees reduced their authority to a shadow, and ended with an open assumption not only of the functions, but of the very insignia of royalty. A space of nearly two centuries elapsed, however, before this change was complete. Ten princes of the name of Ramses, and one called Meri-Tum, all of them connected by blood with the great Rameside house, bore the royal title and occupied the royal palace, in the space between B. C. 1280 and B. C. 1100. Egyptian history during this period is almost wholly a blank. No military expeditions are conducted--no great buildings are reared--art almost disappears--literature holds her tongue." Then came the dynasty of the priest-kings, founded by Her-Hor, which held the throne for more than a century and was contemporary in its latter years with David and Solomon. The Twenty-Second Dynasty which succeeded had its capital at Bubastis and is concluded by Dr. Brugsch to have been a line of Assyrian kings, representing an invasion and conquest of Egypt by Nimrod, the great king of Assyria. Other Egyptologists disagree with Dr. Brugsch in this, and Professor Rawlinson, the historian of Assyria, finds objections to the hypothesis from his own point of view. {756} The prominent monarch of this dynasty was the Sheshonk of Biblical history, who sheltered Jeroboam, invaded Palestine and plundered Jerusalem. Before this dynasty came to an end it had lost the sovereignty of Egypt at large, and its Pharaohs contended with various rivals and invaders. Among the latter, power grew in the hands of a race of Ethiopians, who had risen to importance at Napata, on the Upper Nile, and who extended their power, at last, over the whole of Egypt. The Ethiopian domination was maintained for two-thirds of a century, until the great wave of Assyrian conquest broke upon Egypt in 672 B. C. and swept over it, driving the Ethiopians back to Napata and Meroë.

_G. Rawlinson, History of Ancient Egypt, chapter 25._

ALSO IN: _H. Brugsch-Bey, Egypt under the Pharaohs, chapter 15-18._

_E. Wilson, Egypt of the Past, chapter 8._

See, also, ETHIOPIA.

EGYPT: B. C. 670-525. Assyrian conquest and restored independence. The Twenty-sixth Dynasty. The Greeks at Naucratis.

Although Syria and Palestine had then been suffering for more than a century from the conquering arms of the Assyrians, it was not until 670 B. C., according to Professor Rawlinson, that Esarhaddon passed the boundaries of Egypt and made himself master of that country. His father Sennacherib, had attempted the invasion thirty years before, at the time of his siege of Jerusalem, and had recoiled before some mysterious calamity which impelled him to a sudden retreat. The son avenged his father's failure. The Ethiopian masters of Egypt were expelled and the Assyrian took their place. He "broke up the country into twenty governments, appointing in each town a ruler who bore the title of king, but placing all the others to a certain extent under the authority of the prince who reigned at Memphis. This was Neco, the father of Psammetichus (Psamtik I.)--a native Egyptian of whom we have some mention both in Herodotus and in the fragments of Manetho. The remaining rulers were likewise, for the most part, native Egyptians." These arrangements were soon broken up by the expelled Ethiopian king, Tirhakah, who rallied his forces and swept the Assyrian kinglets out of the country; but Asshur-bani-pal, son and successor of Esarhaddon, made his appearance with an army in 668 or 667 B. C. and Tirhakah fled before him. Again and again this occurred, and for twenty years Egypt was torn between the Assyrians and the Ethiopians, in their struggle for the possession of her. At length, out of the chaos produced by these conflicts there emerged a native ruler--the Psammetichus mentioned above--who subjugated his fellow princes and established a new Egyptian monarchy, which defended itself with success against Assyria and Ethiopia, alike. The Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, of Sais, founded by Psammetichus, is suspected to have been of Libyan descent. It ruled Egypt until the Persian conquest, and brought a great new influence to bear on the country and people, by the introduction of Greek soldiers and traders. It was under this dynasty that the Greek city of Naucratis was founded, on the Canobic branch of the Nile.

_G. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies: Assyria, chapter 9._

The site of Naucratis, near the Canobic branch of the Nile, was determined by excavations which Mr. W. M. Flinders Petrie began in 1884, and from which much has been learned of the history of the city and of early relations between the Egyptians and the Greeks. It is concluded that the settlement of Naucratis dates from about 660 B. C.--not long after the beginning of the reign of Psammitichus--and that its Greek founders became the allies of that monarch and his successors against their enemies. "All are agreed that before the reign of Psammitichus and the founding of Naucratis, Egypt was a sealed book to the Greeks. It is likely that the Phoenicians, who were from time to time the subjects of the Pharaohs, were admitted, where aliens like the Greeks were excluded. We have indeed positive evidence that the Egyptians did not wish strange countries to learn their art, for in a treaty between them and the Hittites it is stipulated that neither country shall harbour fugitive artists from the other. But however the fact may be accounted for, it is an undoubted fact that long before Psammitichus threw Egypt open to the foreigner, the Phoenicians had studied in the school of Egyptian art, and learned to copy all sorts of handiwork procured from the valley of the Nile. ... According to Herodotus and Diodorus, the favour shown to the Greeks by the King was the cause of a great revolt of the native Egyptian troops, who left the frontier fortresses, and marched south beyond Elephantine, where they settled, resisting all the entreaties of Psammitichus, who naturally deplored the loss of the mainstay of his dominions, and developed into the race of the Sebridae. Wiedemann, however, rejects the whole story as unhistorical, and certainly, if we closely consider it, it contains great inherent improbabilities. ... Psammitichus died in B. C: 610, and was succeeded by his son Necho, who was his equal in enterprise and vigour. This King paid great attention to the fleet of Egypt, and Greek shipwrights were set to work on both the Mediterranean and Red Seas to build triremes for the State navy. A fleet of his ships, we are told, succeeded in sailing round Africa, a very great feat for the age. The King even attempted the task, of which the completion was reserved for the Persian Darius, the Ptolemies, and Trajan, of making a canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Herodotus says that, after sacrificing the lives of 120,000 men to the labour and heat of the task, he gave it up, in consequence of the warning of an oracle that he was toiling only for the barbarians. ... Necho, like his father, must needs try the edge of his new weapon, the Ionian mercenaries, on Asia. At first he was successful. Josiah, King of Judah, came out against him, but was slain, and his army dispersed. Greek valour carried Necho as far as the Euphrates. ... But Nebuchadnezzar, son of the King of Babylon, marched against the invaders, and defeated them in a great battle near Carehemish. His father's death recalled him to Babylon, and Egypt was for the moment saved from counter-invasion by the stubborn resistance offered to the Babylonian arms by Jehoiakim, King of Judah, a resistance fatal to the Jewish race; for Jerusalem was captured after a long siege, and most of the inhabitants carried into captivity. Of Psammitichus II., who succeeded Necho, we should know but little were it not for the archaeological record. Herodotus only says that he attacked Ethiopia, and died after a reign of six years. {757} But of the expedition thus summarily recorded we have a lasting and memorable result in the well-known inscriptions written by Rhodians and other Greek mercenaries on the legs of the colossi at Abu Simbel in Nubia, which record how certain of them came thither in the reign of Psammitichus, pushing up the river in boats as far as it was navigable, that is, perhaps, up to the second cataract. ... Apries, the Hophra of the Bible, was the next king. The early part of his reign was marked by successful warfare against the Phoenicians and the peoples of Syria; but, like his predecessor, he was unable to maintain a footing in Asia in the face of the powerful and warlike Nebuchadnezzar. The hostility which prevailed between Egypt and Babylon at this time caused King Apries to open a refuge for those Jews who fled from the persecution of Nebuchadnezzar. He assigned to their leaders, among whom were the daughters of the King of Judah, a palace of his own at Daphnae, 'Pharaoh's house at Tahpanhes,' as it is called by Jeremiah. That prophet was among the fugitives, and uttered in the palace a notable prophecy, (xliii. 9) that King Nebuchadnezzar should come and spread his conquering tent over the pavement before it. Formerly it was supposed that this prophecy remained unfulfilled, but this opinion has to be abandoned. Recently discovered Egyptian and Babylonian inscriptions prove that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Egypt as far as Syene. ... The fall of Apries as brought about by his ingratitude to the Greeks, and his contempt for the lives of his own subjects. He had formed the project of bringing under his sway the Greek cities of the Cyrenaica. ... Apries despatched against Cyrene a large force; but the Cyreneans bravely defended themselves, and as the Egyptians on this occasion marched without their Greek allies, they were entirely defeated, and most of them perished by the sword, or in the deserts which separate Cyrene from Egypt. The defeated troops, and their countrymen who remained behind in garrison in Egypt, imputed the disaster to treachery on the part of Apries. ... They revolted, and chose as their leader Amasis, a man of experience and daring. But Apries, though deserted by his subjects, hoped still to maintain his throne by Greek aid. At the head of 30,000 Ionians and Carians he marched against Amasis. At Momemphis a battle took place between the rival kings and between the rival nations; but the numbers of the Egyptians prevailed over the arms and discipline of the mercenaries, and Apries was defeated and captured by his rival, who, however, allowed him for some years to retain the name of joint-king. It is the best possible proof of the solidity of Greek influence in Egypt at this time that Amasis, though set on the throne by the native army after a victory over the Greek mercenaries, yet did not expel these latter from Egypt, but, on the contrary, raised them to higher favour than before. ... In the delightful dawn of connected European history we see Amasis as a wise and wealthy prince, ruling in Egypt at the time when Polycrates was tyrant of Samos; and when Croesus of Lydia, the richest king of his time, was beginning to be alarmed by the rapid expansion of the Persian power under Cyrus. ... In the days of Psammitichus III., the son of Amasis, the storm which had overshadowed Asia broke upon Egypt. One of the leaders of the Greek mercenaries in Egypt named Phanes, a native of Halicarnassus, made his way to the Persian Court, and persuaded Cambyses, who, according to the story, had received from Amasis one of those affronts which have so often produced wars between despots, to invade Egypt in full force."

_P. Gardner, New Chapters in Greek History, chapter 7._

ALSO IN: _W. M. F. Petrie, Naukratis._

See, also, NAUKRATIS.

EGYPT: B. C. 525-332. Persian conquest and sovereignty.

The kings of the Twenty-Sixth or Saite Dynasty maintained the independence of Egypt for nearly a century and a half, and even revived its military glories briefly, by Necho's ephemeral conquests in Syria and his overthrow of Josiah king of Judah. In the meantime, Assyria and Babylonia had fallen and the Persian power raised up by Cyrus had taken their place. In his own time, Cyrus did not finish a plan of conquest which included Egypt; his son Cambyses took up the task. "It appears that four years were consumed by the Persian monarch in his preparations for his Egyptian expedition. It was not until B. C. 525 that he entered Egypt at the head of his troops and fought the great battle which decided the fate of the country. The struggle was long and bloody [see PERSIA: B. C. 549-521]. Psammenitus, who had succeeded his father Amasis, had the services, not only of his Egyptian subjects, but of a large body of mercenaries besides, Greeks and Carians. ... In spite of their courage and fanaticism, the Egyptian army was completely defeated. ... The conquest of Egypt was followed by the submission of the neighbouring tribes. ... Even the Greeks of the more remote Barca and Cyrene sent gifts to the conqueror and consented to become his tributaries." But Cambyses wasted 50,000 men in a disastrous expedition through the Libyan desert to Ammon, and he retreated from Ethiopia with loss and shame. An attempted rising of the Egyptians, before he had quitted their country, was crushed with merciless severity. The deities, the temples and the priests of Egypt were treated with insult and contempt and the spirit of the people seems to have been entirely broken. "Egypt became now for a full generation the obsequious slave of Persia, and gave no more trouble to her subjugator than the weakest, or the most contented, of the provinces."

_George Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies: Persia,