CHAPTER XII. CONCLUDING SUMMARY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 263

APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 267

APPENDIX B. THE PROBLEM OF EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 287

BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 293

A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 295

EGYPT AS A WORLD INFLUENCE

A CHARACTERISATION OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY

WRITTEN SPECIALLY FOR THE PRESENT WORK

BY DR. ADOLF ERMAN

Professor of Egyptology in the University of Berlin; Director of the Berlin Egyptian Museum; Member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, Berlin, etc.

The countries that laid the foundation of our civilisation are not of those through which traffic passes on its way from land to land. Neither Babylon nor Egypt lies on one of the natural highways of the world; they lie hidden, encircled by mountains or deserts, and the seas that wash their shores are such as the ordinary seafarer avoids rather than frequents.

But this very seclusion, which to us, with our modern ideas, seems a thing prejudicial to culture, did its part toward furthering the development of mankind in these ancient lands; it assured to their inhabitants a less troublous life than otherwise falls to the lot of nations under primitive conditions. Egypt, more particularly, had no determined adversary, nor any that could meet her on equal terms close at hand. To west of her stretched a desert, leading by interminable wanderings to sparsely populated lands. On the east the desert was less wide indeed, but beyond it lay the Red Sea, and he who crossed it did but reach another desert, the Arabian waste. Southward for hundreds of miles stretched the barren land of Nubia, where even the waterway of the Nile withholds its wonted service, so that the races of the Sudan are likewise shut off from Egypt. And even the route from Palestine to the Nile, which we are apt to think of as so short and easy, involved a march of several days through waterless desert and marshy ground. These neighbour countries, barren as they are, were certainly inhabited, but the dwellers there were poor nomads; they might conquer Egypt now and again, but they could not permanently injure her civilisation.

Thus the people which dwelt in Egypt could enjoy undisturbed all the good things their country had to bestow. For in this singular river valley it was easier for men to live and thrive than in most other countries of the world. Not that the life was such as is led in those tropic lands where the fruits of earth simply drop into the mouth, and the human race grows enervated in a pleasant indolence; the dweller in Egypt had to cultivate his fields, to tend his cattle, but if he did so he was bounteously repaid for his labour. Every year the river fertilised his fields that they might bring forth barley and spelt and fodder for his oxen. He became a settled husbandman, a grave and diligent man, who was spared the disquiet and hardships endured by the nomadic tribes. Hence in this place there early developed a civilisation which far surpassed that of other nations, and with which only that of far-off Babylonia, where somewhat similar local conditions obtained, could in any degree vie. And this civilisation, and the national characteristics of the Egyptian nation which went hand in hand with it, were so strong that they could weather even a grievous storm. For long ago, in the remote antiquity which lies far beyond all tradition, Egypt was once overtaken by the same calamity which was destined to befall her twice within historic times--she was conquered by Arab Bedouins, who lorded it over the country so long that the Egyptians adopted their language, though they altered and adapted it curiously in the process. This transplantation of an Asiatic language to African soil is the lasting, but likewise the only, trace left by this primeval invasion; in all other respects the conquerors were merged into the Egyptian people, to whom they, as barbarians, had nothing to offer. There is nothing in the ideas and reminiscences of later Egyptians to indicate that a Bedouin element had been absorbed into the race; in spite of their language the aspect they present to us is that of the true children of their singular country, a people to whom the desert and its inhabitants are something alien and incomprehensible. It is the same scene, _mutatis mutandis_, that was enacted in the full light of history at the rise of Islam; then, too, the unwarlike land was subdued by the swift onset of the Bedouins, who also imposed their language on it in the days of their rule; and yet the Egyptian people remains ever the same, and the people who speak Arabic to-day in the valley of the Nile have little in common with the Arabs of the desert.

Long before the period at which our historical knowledge begins, these Egyptian husbandmen had laid the foundations of their civilisation. They still went unclad and delighted to paint their bodies with green pigment; their ruler still wore a lion’s tail at his girdle and a strange savage-looking top-knot on his head; his sceptre was still a staff such as may be cut from the tree; but these staves already ruled a wide domain full of townships large and small. And in each of these there were already nobles, responsible to the king for the government thereof, looking with reverence toward his “great house,” and paying him tribute of their corn and cattle. And in the midst of the clay huts in every place stood a large hut, with wattled walls, the entrance adorned with poles; no other than the sanctuary of their god. Already they carved his image in wood and carried it round the town at festivals. Manifold are the accomplishments which the Egyptians have acquired by this time. They fashion the flint of the desert into knives and weapons of the utmost perfection of workmanship, they make cords, mats, and skiffs out of the rushes from the marsh-land, they are acquainted with the art of manufacturing tiles and earthen vessels from the clay of the soil. They carve in wood and ivory, and their carvings have already a peculiar character wholly their own. Moreover, they have prepared the way for the greatest of their achievements and have learned to record their ideas by drawing small pictures; the character is still for the most part pictographic, but even now certain particular pictures are used to denote sounds.

On this primitive period of the Egyptian nation we can only gaze from afar; we do not meet it face to face until the time when the two kingdoms, into which the country had hitherto been divided, were united for the first time by King Menes; this may have taken place after the middle of the fourth millennium. The union must have given a strong impulse to the life of the nation, and but a few generations after the days of King Menes the monuments that have come down to us exhibit most of the features characteristic of Egyptian civilisation in the later centuries. The might of Egypt waxes apace; a few centuries more--at the period we are in the habit of speaking of as the Old Kingdom--and its development has progressed so far that nothing now seems beyond its strength. The gigantic buildings of the IVth Dynasty, whose great pyramids defy the tooth of time, bear witness to this. How proudly self-conscious must the race have been which strove thus to set up for itself a perpetual memorial! And if this passion for the huge is relinquished in succeeding centuries, it is merely a token of the further development of the nation; it has wearied of the colossal scale, and turns its attention to a greater refinement of life, the grace of which still looks forth upon us from the monuments of the Vth Dynasty.

Thus, even under the Old Kingdom, Egypt is a country in a high state of civilisation; a centralised government, a high level of technical skill, a religion in exuberant development, an art that has reached its zenith, a literature that strives upward to its culminating point,--this it is that we see displayed in its monuments. It is an early blossom, put forth by the human race at a time when other nations were yet wrapped in their winter sleep. In ancient Babylonia alone, where conditions equally favourable prevailed, the nation of the Sumerians reached a similar height. Any one who will compare these two ancient civilisations of Babylonia and Egypt cannot fail to see that they present many similarities of custom; thus in both the seal is rolled upon the clay, and both date their years according to certain events. The idea that some connection subsisted between them, and that then, as in later times, the products of both countries were dispersed by commerce through the world about them, is one that suggests itself spontaneously. But substantial evidence in support of this conjecture is still lacking and will probably ever remain so.

The great age of the Old Kingdom ends in a collapse, the body politic breaks up into its component parts, and the level of civilisation in the provinces sinks rapidly. But it rises again no less rapidly, when, at the close of the third millennium B.C., Egypt is once more united under a single sovereign.

The Middle Kingdom, as we customarily call this epoch, is a second season of efflorescence; indeed, it is the time upon which the Egyptians of succeeding generations looked back as the classic period of their literature; and many centuries later, boys at school were still patiently copying out the wise lessons which the first king of the period imparted to his son, or the adventures of his contemporary, Sinuhe, and thereby learning the elegance of style in which the Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom were such adepts. This, moreover, is the epoch in which, so far as we know, the Egyptian arms were first carried to remoter lands; at this time Nubia became an Egyptian province, and the gold of its desert thenceforth belonged to the Pharaohs. The memory of this extension of the sway of Egypt survived among the Egyptians of later days, embodied in the semi-mythical figure of the great King Sesostris. When legend reports that this monarch likewise subjugated distant lands to the north, we have now no means of judging how much truth there may be in the tale. But this we can see, that at that time Egypt maintained commercial relations with the countries of the Mediterranean; for their dainty vases are found in Egyptian rubbish heaps of the period, and may have been imported into the Nile valley then, as later, as vessels for containing delicate foreign oils.

These palmy days of the second period of Egyptian history lasted for barely two hundred years, and then a time of political decadence again set in, and Egypt for some centuries passes almost out of sight. One thing only do we know of its fortunes during this interval, namely, that it once more fell a prey to barbarian conquerors. The Hyksos--presumably a Bedouin tribe from the Syrio-Arabian desert--long reigned in Egypt as its lords. But the sway of these barbarians was naturally lax, and while the foreign great king abode in his camp on the Delta, Egyptian princes ruled as his vassals in the great cities of Egypt. And when, as was inevitable, the might of the barbarians waned, the might of these dynasts increased, till one of them, who ruled in the little city of Thebes in distant Upper Egypt, rose to such a height of power as to gain the mastery, not only over the other princes, but ultimately over the Hyksos themselves. About the year 1600 B.C. we find Egypt free once more, and under the sceptre of this same upper Egyptian line which has rendered the names of Thebes, its city, and Amen, its god, forever famous. The New Kingdom, the greatest age that the Nile Valley ever saw, has dawned.

The power of the kingdom waxed apace beyond its borders. Tehutimes I and his son, the indefatigable warrior, Tehutimes III, subdued a region that extended northward to northern Syria and southward to the Sudan; Egypt became the neighbour of the kingdom of Mitani [or Mitanni] on the Euphrates, of the rising power of Assyria, of ancient Babylonia. The two ancient civilisations which had been developing for thousands of years in Mesopotamia and the valley of the Nile were thus brought into direct contact, and we shall hardly be wrong in saying that during these centuries a great part of the civilised world whose heirs we are, met together in a common life. A brisk trade must have developed as a result of this new relation of country to country. The countries of the Mediterranean, where the so-called Mycenæan civilisation was then in its prime, had their part in it, as is proved by the discovery of numerous Mycenæan vessels in the tombs and ruins of the New Kingdom, and no less by the productions of Egyptian technical art which have been brought to light from the seats of Mycenæan civilisation.

The effect of these altered relations upon Egypt is easy to see. Vast wealth pours into the country and enables the Pharaohs to erect the gigantic fabric of the Theban temples. But at the very time when the spirit of ancient Egypt finds its most splendid transfiguration in these buildings, it begins to suffer loss and change. The old simple garb no longer beseems the lords of so great an empire; it must give place to a costlier. The antiquated literary language handed down from days of old is gradually superseded by the vulgar tongue. And if the Egyptians had up to this time looked proudly down upon all other nations as wretched barbarians, they must have found this narrow-minded view untenable when once they had met face to face the equally ancient civilisation of Babylonia and the vigorous growth of Syrian and Mediterranean cultures. The sons of Egypt’s Asiatic vassals attend her king, their daughters sit in his harem; Syrian mercenaries form one regiment of his bodyguard, foreign captives work on the edifices he builds. His officers, military and civil, have all made some stay on Asiatic soil, and his “letter-scribe” can read and write the cuneiform characters of Babylonia. The commerce which led foreign merchants to Egypt must have acted no less powerfully; they brought in silverware, wood of various kinds, horses and oxen, wine, beer, oil, and unguents, and carried away in return the manifold products of Egyptian industry and Egyptian crafts. In the long result not only does their traditional fear of foreigners pass away, but Asiatic fashions actually come into vogue among cultured Egyptians. They coquet with foreign Canaanitish phrases, and think it permissible to offer up prayer to Baal [Bel] Astarte, and other gods of alien peoples. Asiatic singing-girls set the lyre of their native land in place of the old Egyptian harp, and many an intellectual possession may have migrated into Egypt with their songs.

It is far harder to gauge in detail the effect of Egyptian supremacy on Asia and Europe. We can see from the discoveries made in these countries what a quantity of small Egyptian wares in glass and faience, silver and bronze, was exported during this period, and we may further conclude that this was the time when the industrial art of Syrio-Phœnicia acquired its Egyptianised style. Similarly we may conjecture that it was then that our civilisation adopted all those things which were undoubtedly invented or perfected on Egyptian soil, and which we meet with even in the very oldest Greek and Etruscan times--the forms of household furniture, of columns, statues, weapons, seals, and many other things which still play their part in our daily life, though we are all unconscious of their Egyptian origin. At that period, when Egypt held the first place in Asia and Europe, a stream of Egyptian influence must have flowed out upon the whole world--a stream of which we still can guess the force only from these traces it has left.

As for the most precious lore that other nations might have learned from the Egyptians, we have no information concerning it whatever; though it is certain that their intellectual riches, their religion and poetry, their medical and arithmetical skill, can have been no less widely spread abroad than these productions of their technical dexterity. If, for example, our religion tells us of an immortality of the soul more excellent than the melancholy existence of the shades, the conception is one first met with in ancient Egypt; and Egyptian, likewise, is the idea that the fate of the dead is determined by the life led upon earth. These conceptions come to us by way of the Jewish religion. But may not the Jews have obtained them from Egypt, the land that bore its dead so heedfully in mind? The silent paths by which such thoughts pass from nation to nation are, it is true, beyond all showing. Or, if much in the gnomic poetry of the Hebrews reminds us strikingly of the abundant proverbial literature of Egypt, the idea of seeking its origin in the Nile Valley is one that occurs almost spontaneously. Here, too, of course, we have no proof to offer; connections of the kind can be no more than guessed at.

Thus the first part of the New Kingdom, or what we are in the habit of calling the XVIIIth Dynasty, is one of those periods which are pre-eminent as having advanced the progress of the world. To Egypt herself this co-operation with other nations might have brought a new and loftier development, had she been able really to assimilate the influx of new ideas. But of this the old nation was no longer capable; it had not vigour enough to shake off the ballast wherewith its thousands of years of existence had laden it.

About 1400 B.C. one of the Pharaohs--it was Amenhotep IV--did indeed make a serious attempt to break with custom and tradition and adapt the faith and thought of his people to the new conditions. He tried to create a new religion, in which only one god should be worshipped--the Sun, a divinity which could be equally adored by all peoples within his kingdom. And it sounds strangely un-Egyptian when the hymns to this new god insist that all men, Syrians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians, are alike dear to him; he has made them to differ in colour and speech, and has placed them in different lands, but he takes thought for all alike.

But this attempt of the fourth Amenhotep came to naught, and the spirit of ancient Egypt triumphed over the abominable heretic. And with this triumph the fate of Egypt was sealed. True, in the next century, under the Sethos and the Ramses she enjoyed a period of external splendour, to which the great temples of Karnak, Luxor, and Medinet Habu still testify. But it was an illusory glory. Egypt was outworn and exhausted; she could no longer maintain her political ascendency, her might falls to pitiable ruin while younger and more vigorous nations in anterior Asia take the place that once was hers. And therewith begins the long and mournful death struggle of the Egyptian nation. The chief authority passes from the hands of the kings to those of the priests, from them to the commanders of the Syrian mercenaries; and then Egypt falls a prey to the Ethiopian barbarians, with whom the Assyrians next dispute it. For five long centuries the wretched nation is whelmed beneath these miseries, and yet, so far as we can see, they work no change in it; it is, in truth, exhausted utterly.

Once more, after the fall of the Assyrian empire, the political situation changes in Egypt’s favour, and Psamthek I and his successors won back wealth and power for her. But the aged nation had no longer the skill to take wise advantage of propitious fortune; it had no thoughts of its own, nor could it find fitting form for its new splendour. The Egyptians rested content with imitating in whimsical fashion, in all things, the Old Kingdom, the earliest period of their national glory, and the contemporaries of Neku and Apries [Uah-ab-Ra] took pleasure in feigning themselves the subjects of Cheops, in bearing the titles of his court, and writing in a language and orthography which had been in use two thousand years before. Learned antiquarianism is the distinguishing feature of this latest Egyptian development.

The end of the sixth century brought fresh calamities upon the land. Cambyses conquered it, and it became a Persian province. And although, after many a vain attempt at revolt, it shook off the foreign yoke for awhile, about 400 B.C., yet in a few decades it again fell into the hands of the Persians. Since those days Egypt has never had a ruler of her own blood; she has been the hapless spoil of any who chose to take her.

Alexander the Great was the first to whom the country fell, and at his death it became the heritage of his general, Ptolemy. In his family it was handed down, to become at length a province of the Roman Empire in the year 30 B.C. Throughout its length and breadth there is but one spot that thrives during this period, the new port of Alexandria, founded by the great king in the barren west of the Delta; this becomes a metropolis of the Greek world, and its merchants and manufacturers extend their trade by land and sea to every quarter. But this same Alexandria was ever something of an alien in Egypt, and the rest of the country took no part in the busy life that ran its round there; it grew corn and flax and wine and supplied them to the Roman world, it throve, but less for its own profit than that of the empire. Greek culture made its way but slowly there, and even in the great cities of the interior the Greek language and the Greek religion were never strong enough to displace the native idiom and the old faith. They influenced it by degrees, much as the European culture of to-day influences the ancient civilisation of the far East, but even as the Chinese remain Chinese in spite of railroads and the telegraph, so the Egyptians of the Græco-Roman period clung tenaciously to their own ways. They held fast all points of the national customs they only half understood; above all, they held to their ancient faith. And yet by that time the religion of Egypt was as degenerate and debased as it could possibly be. As is apt to be the case with antiquated beliefs, its mere singularities had flourished at the expense of its wholesome side; cats, snakes, and crocodiles had now become the most sacred of beings in the eyes of the vulgar, and every kind of superstition was rampant. The depositaries of this religion were the members of a stereotyped hierarchy that had long lost touch with the outer world; they worshipped their gods according to the old tradition, used the ample wealth of the temples to build them new shrines in the old style, and enjoyed their fat benefices under the benevolent protection of the foreign government.

Thus the Egypt of this later day had long been empty of all vital force; it continued to exist, but only because the aged nation had lost the power of adapting itself to the new world. And yet this decrepit Egyptian character, with its dead religion, cast a singular spell over the sated spirit of the Roman world. The worship of Isis and Serapis spread far and wide; everywhere Egyptian sorcerers found a willing public for their superstitions. Roman tourists visited the ancient land, gazed in amazement at its wonders, while at home the nobles built themselves villas in the Egyptian style and adorned them with statues from Memphis. Even the most highly educated looked upon Egypt as a holy land, where everything was full of mystery and marvel, and piety and the true worship of the gods had their dwelling place from of old. And even after the fashionable predilection for things Egyptian had passed away, this notion of the mysterious and sacred land of Egypt remained fixed in men’s minds, and was handed on from generation to generation. Whenever ancient Egypt is mentioned in later days it suggests ideas of mystery, symbolism, and esoteric wisdom. And so anything to which it is desired to lend an air of mystery claims derivation preferably from Egypt, the secret lodges of the eighteenth century no less than the spiritualists and quacks of our own day. Ancient Egypt has acquired this reputation, and though, now that we know it better, we perceive that it is but little in accordance with her true character, all our researches will not be able to dispel the illusion of two thousand years. In the future, as in the past, the feeling with which the multitude regards the remains of Egyptian antiquity will be one of awestruck reverence. Nevertheless, another feeling would be more appropriate, a feeling of grateful acknowledgment and veneration, such as one of a later generation might feel for the ancestor who had founded his family and endowed it with a large part of its wealth. For though we are seldom able to say with certainty of any one thing in our possession that it is a legacy we have inherited from the Egyptians, yet no one who seriously turns his attention to such subjects can now doubt that a great part of our heritage comes from them. In all the implements which are about us nowadays, in every art and craft which we practise now, a large and important element has descended to us from the Egyptians. And it is no less certain that we owe to them many ideas and opinions of which we can no longer trace the origin, and which have long come to seem to us the natural property of our own minds.

This legacy of ideas, no less than of technical dexterity and artistic form, which the Egyptians have bequeathed to us, constitutes the service they have done to the human race. They cannot vie with the Greeks in intellectual gifts, and they never possessed the force that determines the course of history; but they were able to develop their capabilities earlier than other nations, and thus secured for the world the substantial groundwork of civilisation.

Thirty centuries have passed since ancient Egypt accomplished this, her real mission for the world; since then she has hardly done more than till her soil in its service. Silently her existence has flowed on, and all the catastrophes which have befallen her since Roman times have not been able to stir her to fresh vigour. Christianity spread in Egypt early, but the philosophic labours accomplished there in connection with it are the work of the educated Hellenistic classes, not of the Egyptians proper. What these last added to Christianity, the anchoretic and monastic life, cannot be counted among its advantages. And when, in the fifth century, the Egyptians broke away from the Catholic Church, the barbarian element to which the nation succumbed thenceforward finally triumphed. The tie that had bound the Egyptians to European civilisation was severed, and the Arab conquest had only to set the seal to this divorce.

This same Arab conquest, which, in the course of centuries, went so far as to rob the ancient nation of its ancient language, and imposed a new faith upon the great majority of its inhabitants, was powerless to inspire it with new life. Outwardly Egypt has become Arab, but the Egyptians had but a very small share in the intellectual life of the Arab Middle Ages, a share probably not much larger than that which they had taken in Alexandrian culture.

Once again, in our own days, the opportunity of rousing itself afresh is offered to the Egyptian nation. It is once more linked with Europe, and its prosperity has advanced with astounding rapidity. From all sides new influences stream in upon the ancient people, and we would fain indulge in the hope that now at length it might awake to new life. But, unhappily, this hope has but little prospect of fulfilment, and all things will but run again the course they ran long ago in Græco-Roman days. The foreigner will prosper in Egypt and invest it with a tinge of his own civilisation, the work of European civilisation will inspire an Egyptian here and there with a profound sympathy. But the nation itself will remain untouched, it will rise up no more, it has lived itself out and its intellectual capabilities are exhausted. In time to come, the Egyptian nation will probably do no more for the human race than diligently provide it with cotton and onions, as it does to-day.

EGYPTIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE

A PRELIMINARY SURVEY COMPRISING A CURSORY VIEW OF THE SOURCES OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY, THE SWEEP OF EVENTS, AND A TABLE OF CHRONOLOGY

Until somewhat recently it has been customary to think of Egyptian history as constituting a single uniform period. Before our generation it was quite impossible for any one to realise the extreme length of time which this history involves; or if a certain few did realise it, a consensus of opinion among the many forbade the acceptance of their estimate. Now, however, limitations of time are no longer a bugbear to the historian, and we are coming to realise the full import of the fact that when one speaks of historic Egypt he is referring to an epoch at least four thousand years in extent. Prior to the nineteenth century discoveries, the historian had only the most meagre supply of material dealing with any epoch prior to that age of the Trojan War which marked the extreme limits of the historic view in Greece; but now we understand that the men who built the Pyramids in Egypt were at least as far removed from Homer as Homer is removed from us: and it is but the expression of an historical platitude to say that a vast stretch of Egyptian history must lie back of the Pyramids; for no one any longer supposes that a people recently emerged from barbarism could have created such structures.

Throughout classical times very little was known of the history of Egypt, except what was contained in the fragmentary remains of Manetho and the more lengthy descriptions of Herodotus and Diodorus. There were other references, of course, but for anything like a comprehensive knowledge of the history of the country it would have been necessary to understand the Egyptian language and decipher the hieroglyphics; and no person throughout classical times had such understanding.

There were practically no additions to the world’s knowledge of ancient Egyptian history from classical times till about the beginning of the nineteenth century. The stimulus to the new knowledge that was then acquired came about chiefly through the Egyptian expedition of Napoleon. The French expedition included various scientists who made a concerted effort to study the antiquities, and to transport as many of them as might be to Paris. In the latter regard the expedition failed, as in some more important particulars, through the interference of the British, with the result that some of the most important antiquities, including the since famous Rosetta stone, found their way to the British Museum. A large amount of material, however, was transported to Paris, and gave occupation to the savants of France for about a generation before the final publication of results in a monumental work.

But before this publication, thanks to the efforts of Thomas Young in England, and Champollion in France, the hieroglyphics had been deciphered, and at last the almost inexhaustible word treasures of Egypt were made available as witnesses for history. Very naturally, a large number of explorers entered the field, and from that day till this there has been no dearth of Egyptologists either in the field of exploration or of interpretation. Prominent among these in the first half of the century were the pupils of Champollion, the Italians, Rossellini and Salvolini. But the most important work, perhaps, was done by the German, Lepsius, who came to be recognised as the foremost Egyptologist of his time, and whose _Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien_ is still one of the most monumental works on the subject. In England, Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson took up the study of Egyptian life in particular, and deduced from the inscriptions of the monuments and from the pictures a comprehensive understanding of Egyptian manners and customs. The various workers at the British Museum, beginning with Birch and continuing with Renouf and with E. A. Wallis Budge, have added an ever increasing complement to our knowledge of Egyptian archæology.

The country of Champollion has been ably represented in more recent time by Mariette and Maspero; while in Germany, Dümichen, Meyer, and Wiedemann have worked and written exhaustively, the former with special reference to archæology, the two latter with reference to history. But no one else perhaps has given quite such attention to the language of old Egypt as Professor Adolf Erman. The field that Wilkinson occupied earlier in the century has also been entered by Professor Erman, and the most recent and authoritative studies of Egyptian manners and customs are those that he has deduced from the papyri and the monumental inscriptions. Wilkinson depended largely upon pictorial representations for his information, but Erman has been able to go beyond these to the subtler and sometimes more illuminative written records.

As to the early history of Egypt, no one else has made such exhaustive studies as Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie, whose publications cover a wide range, from the most technical to the relatively popular. For a strictly popular presentation of the subject, however, the works of George Ebers, of Baron Bunsen, and of Amelia B. Edwards should be consulted, together with the books of Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson and the works of Professor Adolf Erman.

A more comprehensive account of these writers and their labours, together with reasonably complete bibliographies of the entire subject, will be found at the close of the history of Egypt. The character of the materials with which the Egyptologists have worked in creating a new history of one of the oldest civilisations, will be revealed as we proceed.

The Egyptians of history are probably a fusion of an indigenous white race of northeastern Africa and an intruding people of Asiatic origin. In the Archaic period independent kings ruled in the Delta region (Kings of the Red Crown) and in Upper Egypt (Kings of the White Crown). Under King Menes the two crowns were probably first united, and the Dynastic period begins. According to Egyptian traditions the pre-dynastic ages were filled with dynasties of gods and demigods, who were perhaps primeval chiefs or tribal leaders. Monuments of the pre-dynastic period are earthenware vases, jars, sculptured ivory objects, and flint implements.

The dynasties which formed the foundation of all classifications of Egyptian history are based upon the lists of the Egyptian priest Manetho, who wrote a history of Egypt in the time of the Ptolemies. The original work of Manetho has not come down to us, and it is quite impossible to restore it _in extenso_ from the fragmentary excerpts that are preserved. The writings of Josephus and of Eusebius are our chief sources for Manetho’s lists, but Josephus copied the lists only in part, and Eusebius seemingly knew them only at second or third hand, when, it is suspected, they had been somewhat perverted in the interests of Hebrew chronology. Nevertheless, the dynasties of Manetho as we now know them probably do not very radically differ from the original lists. Beyond question these are based upon authentic Egyptian documents, but there is a good deal of confusion and much difference of opinion among Egyptologists, as to whether some of the dynasties were not contemporaneous; and for many periods the lists are only provisional.

It is notable, however, that the somewhat recent discoveries of original Egyptian lists, such as the so-called Turin Papyrus and the dynastic lists of Karnak and Abydos, tend to corroborate the lists of Manetho, and show that he was an historian of very great merit. It is convenient also to regard the grand divisions of Egyptian history noted by Manetho, namely, the Old Memphis Kingdom, comprising the first ten dynasties; the Middle Kingdom or Old Theban Kingdom, comprising the XIth to the XVIIth Dynasties; and the New Theban Kingdom, comprising the remaining dynasties.[1]

As to the dates employed in the following chronology, a word of explanation is necessary. Neither Manetho’s lists nor any other available sources enable us at present to supply exact dates for the earlier periods of Egyptian history with any precision. Authorities differ as to the early period to the extent of more than three thousand years. Thus Champollion gives the date 5867 B.C. for the beginning of the Ist Dynasty, while Wilkinson supplies for the same event the date 2320 B.C. Later authorities are pretty fully agreed that such a date as that of Wilkinson is much too recent. Meyer fixes upon 3180 B.C. as the minimum date, and no doubt he would very willingly admit that the probable date is much more remote. For our present purpose it has been thought well to adopt an intermediate date, as in some sense striking an average among divergent opinions. The dates of Brugsch, which agree rather closely with those of Mariette and Petrie, have in the main been followed here, with certain modifications made necessary by recent discoveries, chiefly with reference to synchronism with known dates of the Assyrian empire and other countries. It will be understood, therefore, that all the earlier dates of this chronology are accepted as merely approximative, the approximation becoming closer and closer as we come down the centuries. At the middle of the XVIIIth Dynasty the dates cannot be more than twenty years out of the way, while from the XXIInd onward the probable error is very small indeed, vanishing entirely with the accession of Psamthek I of the XXVIth Dynasty.

For present purposes it is undesirable to give a complete list of the names of Egyptian kings. Fuller details as to monarchs and events will be given elsewhere in our text. But the purposes of our preliminary view are better subserved by confining attention to the more important Pharaohs, and to the principal events that give picturesqueness and interest to Egyptian history.

We take up now the synoptical view of the successive dynasties. Such a survey will, it is believed, furnish the reader with the best possible preparation for the full comprehension of the more detailed presentation that is to follow.

THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM

IST DYNASTY, 4400-4133 B.C.

4400 B.C. Accession of =Menes=. Ist Dynasty founded. Tradition ascribes to him the foundation of Memphis, the capital of the Old Memphite Kingdom, whither it was moved from This or Thinis; and states that he was killed by a hippopotamus in a campaign against the Libyans.

_Monument._--A tomb discovered by De Morgan (1897) is believed to be that of King Menes, or of his wife Nit-hotep.

4366 =Teta.=--Second king, said to have written a work on anatomy.

_Monument._--A papyrus bought in Thebes by Ebers refers to a pomatum made for Teta’s mother, Shesh.

4266 =Hesepti= (=Semti=).--Fifth king. Several passages in the Book of the Dead refer to him. King Senta of the IInd Dynasty owned a medical work which once belonged to Semti.

_Monument._--His tomb has been discovered by Amélineau at Abydos. It contained among other things an ebony tablet representing the king dancing before Osiris. (Now in the British Museum.)

4233 =Merbapen.=--Sixth king.

_Monument._--Tomb at Abydos, discovered by Amélineau.

4200 =Semen-Ptah= (=Semsu=).--Seventh king. Manetho says: “In his reign a terrible pestilence afflicted Egypt.”

IIND DYNASTY, 4133-3900 B.C.

4133 =Neter-b’au.=--First king. Manetho says: “During his reign a chasm opened near Bubastis and many persons perished.”

_Monument._--Tomb discovered by Amélineau in 1897 at Abydos.

4100 =Ka-ka-u.=--Second (?) king; establishes or expands the worship of Apis; also of Mnevis and the Mendesian goat.

4066 =Ba-en-neter.=--Third (?) king; establishes the right of female succession.

IIIRD DYNASTY, 3900-3766 B.C.

3900 =Neb-ka.=--First or third king. According to Manetho a revolt of the Libyans in which they submitted “on account of an unexpected increase in the moon,” took place in this reign.

3866 =Zeser= (=T´er-sa=).--Second or fourth king. Builder of the Step Pyramid of Saqqarah. Dr. Budge says of this: “It is certainly the oldest of all the large buildings which have successfully resisted the action of wind and weather, and destruction by the hand of man.”

_Monuments._--The Step Pyramid; the Great Sphinx of Gizeh.

Rapid development of civilisation during the first three dynasties.

IVTH DYNASTY, 3766-3566 B.C.

3766 =Sneferu.=--First king. He wars against the robber-like tribes of the desert. He is said, on a monument of the XIIth Dynasty, to have founded Egyptian dominion in the peninsula of Sinai, which he conquered for its mineral wealth.

_Monuments._--A number of carved stones, a bas-relief at Wady Magharah showing him smiting an enemy.

3733 =Khufu= or =Cheops=.--Builder of the Great Pyramid, Khut--“The Horizon.”

3666 =Khaf-Ra.=--Builder of the pyramid Ur,--“The Great.”

3633 =Men-kau-Ra.=--Builder of the pyramid Her,--“The Supreme.” He enlarges it after it is built. He afterward builds another pyramid at Abu Roash, and was probably buried there.

A peaceful dynasty. Brilliant age of art and literature.

VTH DYNASTY, 3566-3300 B.C.

3566 A new house from Elephantine “of priestly character” founded by =Us-kaf=.

3533 =Sahu-Ra.=--One of the most renowned rulers of the Old Memphis Kingdom. Wars in Sinai.

_Monument._--Pyramid Khaba, at Abusir.

3433 =Usen-en-Ra.=--First Pharaoh to adopt a second cartouche with his private name, An. He holds the rule over the peninsula of Sinai.

_Monuments._--The pyramid Menasu; a victory tablet at Wady Magharah; two statues, etc.

3366 =Tat-ka-Ra= (=Assa=).--He continues to wage war with even greater activity in the peninsula of Sinai.

_Monuments._--The oldest papyri of authentic date belong to this reign. They are: “The Papyrus of Accounts” found at Saqqarah and the “Proverbs of Ptah-hotep.”

Ptah-hotep was probably the uncle and tutor of the king, under whose patronage the work was given to the world.

3333 Close of dynasty and first period of Egyptian history with King =Unas=.

_Monument._--Pyramid Nefer-asu, at Saqqarah.

No great monuments in this dynasty. An age of decline. The art of building shows a great falling off from that of the IVth Dynasty. Methods are careless; decoration becomes formal, coarse, and flat.

_Monument of Vth Dynasty._--The Palermo stele, containing, among others, names of some of the pre-dynastic kings of Lower Egypt.

VITH DYNASTY, 3300-3000 B.C.

3300 A new line of vigorous Memphite kings founded by =Teta=.

_Monument._--Pyramid Tat-asu at Saqqarah, one of the first and worst despoiled by plunderers.

3233 =Pepi Ist.=--Most important ruler of this dynasty. He has left more monuments than any other ruler before the XIIth Dynasty. Great and successful wars against the Aamu and Herusha, inhabiting the desert east of the Delta. War against the people of Terebah, a country of doubtful location, probably in western Asia.

_Monuments._--The long inscription on the tomb of Una, Pepi’s general, is our source of the history of this reign. Pyramid Men-nefer, at Saqqarah; the red granite sphinx of Tanis; statuettes, etc.

3066 Queen =Men-ka-Ra=.--The Nitocris of Herodotus. The early part of this dynasty is characterised by foreign conquest and exploration, but toward the end internal troubles have brought the kingdom to a state of disorganisation. Architecture rapidly declines.

VIITH, VIIITH, IXTH, AND XTH DYNASTIES, 3000-2700 B.C.

3000-2700 A long era of confusion. Rapid decay of the Memphite power in the VIIth and VIIIth Dynasties, while that of Thebes is rising. The Delta invaded and occupied by Syrian tribes, which drive the capital from Memphis south to Heracleopolis. A great wall is built across the Isthmus of Suez to keep the invaders out. Dynasties IX and X at Heracleopolis in constant conflict with the Theban princes, in which the latter gradually attain their independence and establish the XIth (First Theban) Dynasty. For about a century the Xth and XIth Dynasties probably reign contemporaneously.

_Monuments._--Mainly scarabs.

THE OLD THEBAN (MIDDLE) KINGDOM

XITH DYNASTY, 2700-2466 B.C.

2700 Beginning of the Old Theban (Middle) Kingdom. =Antef I= (?), first of nine (?) kings. They are all buried at the foot of the Western Mountain of the Theban Necropolis.

_Monument._--The coarsely carved coffin of Antef I, rudely painted in red, blue, and yellow. (Now in the Louvre.)

2600 =Mentuhotep II= (=Neb-taui-Ra=).

_Monuments._--A tablet at Konosso relating his conquest of thirteen tribes; inscriptions in the quarries of Hammamat.

2550 =Metuhotep III.=--The greatest king of the dynasty, judging from the number of his monuments. A patron of art. His worship continues till a late day.

_Monuments._--Pyramid Khut-asu, at Thebes; sandstone tablet at Silsilis; tablets at Assuan; a temple at Thebes.

2500 =Sankh-ka-Ra.=--Last king of dynasty. The first voyage to Punt and Ophir under the leadership of Hannu takes place in his reign.

_Monuments._--Inscriptions at Hammamat recording the voyage to Punt; a statue found at Saqqarah.

XIITH DYNASTY, 2466-2250 B.C.

2466 The power of Thebes is now firmly established, and the country enters upon a period of greatness with =Amenemhat I=, the first king, who shows remarkable vigour. Expedition against the Libyans, Herusha, Mazau, and Sati (Asiatics).

_Monuments._--The great temple of Amen at Thebes; statues; inscriptions; the papyrus containing the famous “Instructions to his Son”; and the memoirs of Sineh (Sinehat or Sinhue).

2446 =Usertsen I.=--Took charge of foreign campaigns in his father’s reign. Asserts his power in the Sinaitic peninsula. Warlike expedition to Nubia as related on the Tomb of Ameni. Enlarges temple at Karnak. Order re-established in the land.

_Monuments._--Obelisk of Heliopolis; a portrait bust and statues; the tomb of Ameni.

2400 =Amenemhat II.=--Works the mines of Sarbut-el-Khadem. Manetho says he was slain by his chamberlains.

2370 =Usertsen II.=

_Monuments._--A curious and unusual temple at Illahun; a bust of Queen Nefert; the tomb of Khnum-hotep with historical records.

2340 =Usertsen III.=--A famous name. The conqueror of Ethiopia after many campaigns. He makes the conquest secure by fixing the frontier of Egypt above the Second Cataract and building the fortresses of Semneh and Kummeh. Afterward revered as the founder of Ethiopia.

_Monuments._--A papyrus containing a long hymn to the king; statues; pyramid at Dahshur; tomb of Princess Set-hathor, which contained some remarkable jewellery.

2305 =Amenemhat III.=--Constructs Lake Mœris as a storage reservoir for the Nile overflow. Also the Labyrinth palace. These are his _monuments_.

2265 =Amenemhat IV.=--The dynasty begins to decline.

2255 Queen =Sebek-neferu-Ra=, sister of Amenemhat IV.

The XIIth Dynasty a great age for art and literature. Immense activity in building. The literary style is the model for future ages. Valuable historic records on the tombs.

THE XIIITH, XIVTH, XVTH, XVITH, AND XVIITH DYNASTIES, 2250-1635 B.C.

2250-1635 A period the length of which is unknown, and which has been variously estimated at from four hundred to nearly a thousand years. (See Chapter III, pages 120, 121.) The XIIIth Dynasty reigns at Thebes, and =Sebekhotep I= is its first king. Before its close the Hyksos invaders have gained rapidly in power, and the new dynasty (XIVth) is driven to Xoïs in the western Delta. The Hyksos establish their rule, and the later kings of the XIVth are probably provincial governors with a short tenure of office, retained by the Hyksos for purposes of internal government. The XVth Dynasty is that of the great Hyksos kings, =Salatis=, =Bnon=, =Apachnan=, =Aphobis=, =Annas=, =Asseth=, and marks the climax of their power. Their principal towns are Ha-Uar (Avaris), Pelusium, and Tanis. They adopt the customs, language, and writings of the Egyptians. Their chief god is Sutekh, “the Great Set,” to whom they build a great temple at Tanis. The XVth Dynasty is in part contemporaneous with the XIVth and XVIth Egyptian; in the latter the provincial governors gradually have their tenure of power lengthened. The XVIIth is of both Hyksos and Egyptians, in which the former begin to lose their power.

_Monuments._--Many statues, inscriptions, implements of war, etc.

1800 A new house from the south gradually regains Egypt from the Hyksos. Its principal kings are named =Seqenen Ra=. =Seqenen Ra III= marries Aah-hotep, a princess of pure Egyptian blood. By the time her son by a former marriage, Aahmes I, comes to the throne, the Hyksos have been driven and confined to the district around Avaris, where they prepare to make a final stand.

1730 Descent of the Hebrews into Egypt.

THE NEW THEBAN KINGDOM

XVIIITH DYNASTY, 1635-1365 B.C.

1635 =Aahmes I.=--Founds the New Theban Kingdom. Defeats and drives the Hyksos from Avaris; pursues them into Asia. Campaign against Nubia, whose people again need repelling. Rebuilds temples in the principal cities. Thebes embellished. Marries Nefert-ari.

_Monuments._--Coffins and mummies of the king and queen; statues; jewellery from coffin of Aah-hotep.

1610 =Amenhotep I.=--Campaign against Cush and Libya. Historical records on the tomb of Admiral Aahmes.

_Monuments._--His coffin and mummy; temple at Thebes; statues.

1590 =Tehutimes I.=--Penetrates into Asia as far as the Euphrates. Campaign in Libya.

_Monuments._--Coffin and mummy; obelisks, pylons, and pillars at Karnak; many statues, etc.; tomb of Admiral Aahmes.

1565 =Tehutimes II.=

_Monuments._--Coffin and mummy; part of temples of Deir-el-Bahari and Medinet Habu; statues.

1552 Queen =Hatshepsu=, a reign of peaceful enterprise. Mining industries developed, also potteries and glass works. Sends expedition of discovery to Punt.

_Monuments._--The Great Temple of Deir-el-Bahari; statues; a sculptured account of the voyage to Punt; furniture; a draughtboard and draughtmen, etc.

1530 =Tehutimes III.=--Begins his independent reign. The Great Conqueror of Egyptian history. Southern Syria had rebelled some time before and, 1529, he begins operations at Zaru. Second year of independent reign, battle of Megiddo in campaign against the Ruthennu. In the following years campaigns in Syria, fifteen in all; cities reduced and the Kharu, Zahi, Ruthennu, Kheta and Naharaina made tributary. Great activity in temple building. The influence of Syrian culture now begins to be felt in Egypt. Art and manners lose their distinctive characteristics, and a decline sets in.

_Monuments._--Coffin and mummy; obelisks; part of temple at Karnak, etc.; numerous statues and relics of all kinds, and very full annals.

1500 =Amenhotep II.=--Campaign in Asia to check revolt among his vassals.

_Monuments._--Portrait statues; obelisks and columns at Karnak.

1470 =Tehutimes IV.=--Continues work of keeping together the empire of Tehutimes III. Marries a Mitannian princess.

_Monuments._--Statues, scarabs, fine private tombs.

1455 =Amenhotep III.=--With the exception of one campaign in fifth year in Egypt, rests secure in his supremacy abroad. Trade and art are developed at home. Close relations between Egypt and Syria. Marries Thi, perhaps of Syrian origin (mother of Amenhotep IV), also Gilukhipa (or Kirgipa), daughter of the king of Mitanni (Naharain). He becomes the ally of the king of Mitanni. He also seems to have married a daughter of the king of Kardunyash (Babylon).

_Monuments._--Very numerous. The Avenue of Sphinxes between Karnak and Luxor; temple of Mentu at Karnak; great temple of Luxor; the famous colossi of the Nile; tomb of Amenhotep the architect and administrator, etc.

1420 =Amenhotep IV= (=Khun-aten=).--Early in this reign the king and court renounce the national religion, and substitute a strictly monotheistic worship of Aten, the sun’s disk,--a conception that tallies marvellously with modern knowledge of the sun as a source of power and energy. The whole movement shows an intellectual stride of tremendous proportions. In the hymns of the new sun-god we seem to have the first trace of the idea of the brotherhood of man. War is no longer glorified. The king changes his name to Khun-aten (“Splendour of the Sun’s disk”), and builds a new capital.

_Monuments._--Palace and tomb at Tel-el-Amarna; temple of Aten; statues, including one perfect statuette now in the Louvre; the great hymn to Aten. To this and the former reign belongs the correspondence in the Babylonian language and the cuneiform character. These tablets were discovered at Tel-el-Amarna, whither Amenhotep IV carried them from Thebes. They deal principally with the relations of the kings of Egypt with those of Babylonia and Assyria, concerning the marriages of Mesopotamian princesses, etc.; troubles and loss of power in northern Syria and Palestine.

1400 =Saa-nekht.=

1390 =Tut-ankh-Amen.=

1380 =Ai.=

1368 =Hor-em-heb.=--Suppresses the solar religion; reconquers Ethiopia.

_Monuments._--His private tomb; numerous steles, etc.

The XVIIIth Dynasty is a period in which the progress of the world pre-eminently advanced.

XIXTH DYNASTY, 1365-1235 B.C.

1365 =Ramses I.=--The power of the Kheta begins to make itself felt.

1355 =Seti I.=--Wars with the Shasu, Kharu, and Kheta. Capture of Kadesh and defeat of the Kheta. Wars with the Libyans. Patron of art.

_Monuments._--Hall of Columns at Karnak; temple of Osiris at Abydos; the Memnonum at Gurnah; the Tablet of Abydos.

1345 =Ramses II=, the Great.--The Pharaoh of the Oppression. A noted builder. Fierce war with the Kheta and their allies breaks out (year V). Battle of Kadesh. Continual warfare and victories in the land of Canaan. Treaty of peace with the Kheta. Subjugates small tribes of Ethiopia and Libya. Semitic influence is felt in the customs and language.

_Monuments._--Northern court of temple of Ptah at Memphis. New temples at Abydos and Memphis. Temples and statues at Abu Simbel--on the knee of one of the statues, some Greek mercenaries of Psamthek I cut an inscription in archaic Greek. It is the most ancient piece of non-Semitic alphabetical writing extant. The Ramesseum; the poem of Pentaur; treaty with the Kheta, etc.; the Tablet of Saqqarah.

1285 =Meneptah.=--The Libyans and their allies invade Egypt and are repulsed. Battle of Proposis (year V). The Pharaoh of the Exodus (_circa_ 1270). To this king belonged the papyrus containing the “Tale of the Two Brothers.”

1250 =Seti II.=--A troubled reign at Pa-Ramessu, worried by a claimant to the throne, =Amenmes=, who reigned as rival king, probably at Thebes.

_Monuments._--Fine sepulchre and a small temple.

XXTH DYNASTY, 1235-1075 B.C.

1235 =Set-nekht.=--Succeeds his father Seti II. Siptah-Meneptah succeeds his father Amenmes, as rival king. The kingdom is now practically in a state of anarchy. The power rests chiefly with the nomarchs, and one of them, Arisu, a Phœnician, becomes their leader and seizes the throne. Set-nekht drives him out and restores the monarchy.

1225 =Ramses III= (sometimes reckoned as the founder of the XXth Dynasty).--Succeeds to a united Egypt but a disorganised empire. The provinces have ceased to pay tribute. The king begins a reconquest of foreign territory. Defeats Libyans in the west (year V) and the great confederation of tribes in the east (year VIII). A land and sea war. Great naval battle near Pelusium. Second campaign against Libyans (year XI). Eastern provinces and tributary states recovered. The harem conspiracy. Later years peaceful. Mining and trade encouraged. The last of the great kings of Egypt.

_Monuments._--The Turin and Harris papyri; effigies of conquered kings; temples, etc.; the account of the harem conspiracy.

1195-1075 The successors of Ramses III have short reigns. There were some military expeditions but no great wars. The kingdom is maintained, but the power of the high priests comes more and more into prominence, until in the reign of =Ramses IX= it begins to exceed that of the Pharaohs. The structure of the kingdom begins rapidly to decay. =Ramses XIII=, last king of dynasty.

XXIST DYNASTY, 1075-945 B.C.

1075 =Her-Hor.=--High priest of Amen of Thebes, attains to royal power. The Ramessides are banished.

A new house arises at Tanis. Its chief, Se-Amen, soon overthrows the dominion of the high priests, and Her-Hor’s son (=Piankhi=) and grandson (=Painet´em I=) have uncontrolled power as high priests only in the neighbourhood of Thebes. The land is governed simultaneously by the Tanites and the high priests. The Ramessides attempt to regain the throne in the Thebaid. The Tanites crush this rebellion, and Men-kheper-Ra, one of the family, is made high priest at Thebes. Solomon marries the daughter of the Tanite king, probably =Pasebkhanu II=. The army has since the time of Seti I been composed chiefly of Libyan mercenaries, out of which a separate class has now been developed. The chief authority gradually passes from the Tanites and high priests to the commanders of these mercenaries, and one of them, Shashanq of Bubastis, by some means gains the crown of Egypt. The high priests and their adherents retire to Ethiopia and found a new kingdom whose capital is at Napata.

XXIIND DYNASTY, 945-750 B.C.

945 =Shashanq I.=--Rules at Bubastis. The high-priesthood of Amen is given to princes of the reigning family.

_Monuments._--The hall of the Bubastites at Karnak; inscriptions, etc.

925 Shashanq invades Judah, captures and sacks Jerusalem.

920-750 Under Shashanq’s successors, the high places in the government and army are filled with members of the royal family, who found princedoms for themselves, and the Pharaoh becomes a nominal ruler. Egypt is a land of petty kings, into which condition of affairs the kings of Ethiopia (Napata) now intrude.

XXIIIRD AND XXIVTH DYNASTIES, 750-728 B.C.

800 In the reign of =Shashanq III=, Thebes falls into the hands of the Ethiopians. Their conquests gradually extend to Hermopolis under their king, =Piankhi=. At the same time Tefnekht, Prince of Saïs, subjects the western Delta and Memphis, comes in contact with Piankhi, but ends by giving the Ethiopian his allegiance. Piankhi’s power over Egypt not complete, for the XXIIIrd Dynasty of three kings (=Uasarken III= among them) seems to have ruled in the Delta, probably at Bubastis, and is succeeded by the XXIVth Dynasty, composed of Tefnekht’s son, =Bakenranf=, who is conquered by Piankhi’s grandson, Shabak.

_Monuments._--The memorial stele of Piankhi, with account of his reign.

XXVTH DYNASTY, 728-655 B.C.

728 =Shabak.=--Ethiopian rule over Egypt complete. He puts his sister Ameniritis and her husband to rule over Egypt. A uniform and strict dominion is not practised; the local princes still retain their power. Shabak advises Hoshea of Israel to withhold tribute from Shalmaneser IV. First connection of Egypt with the Sargonides.

717 =Shabatak.=

704 =Tirhaqa.=--Joins Syrian coalition against the Assyrians.

701 The Assyrian king, Sennacherib, invades Palestine. Tirhaqa hastens to Hezekiah’s assistance. Sennacherib compelled by pestilence to retire. 673, The Assyrian monarch, Esarhaddon, marches as far as the Egyptian frontier, but withdraws. 670, Esarhaddon appears again, and captures and destroys Memphis. Tirhaqa flees to Nubia. The whole country surrenders to Esarhaddon, who reorganises the government with a native prince over each nome. Neku of Saïs is the chief one. 668, Esarhaddon abdicates. Tirhaqa attempts to win back the country; retakes Memphis. 667, Asshurbanapal sends an army and defeats Egyptians. Conspiracy of several Egyptian princes to restore Tirhaqa. They are taken and punished. 664, Tirhaqa dies; =Tanut-Amen=, his stepson (son of Shabak), succeeds. Is beaten by Assyrians at Kipkip. Thebes is sacked. End of Ethiopian rule.

664-655 The country is ruled by petty princes. In the Delta there are twelve of these who form the Dodecarchy. Psamthek of Saïs becomes the leader. He throws off the Assyrian yoke with the help of Carian and Ionian mercenaries, and declares himself Pharaoh.

XXVITH DYNASTY, 655-527 B.C.

655 (Sometimes dated from 666-4)--=Psamthek I= makes his rule legitimate by marrying an Ethiopian princess, Shepenapet. Invasion of Syria. Capture of Ashdod after a long siege. Commercial treaties with the Greeks. Two hundred thousand of his Egyptian and Libyan soldiers desert to Ethiopia through jealousy of the mercenaries. He restores Thebes.

610 =Neku II.=--Endeavours to reconstruct the canal between Nile and Red Sea, attempted by Seti I. and Ramses II. By his orders Phœnician navigators circumnavigate Africa. Attempts to recover Egypt’s rule in the east, and marches into Syria. 608, Encounters Josiah at Megiddo. The king of Israel is slain in the battle. Neku marches toward the Euphrates. 605, Defeat of Neku by Nebuchadrezzar at Carchemish. End of Egyptian rule in Egypt.

594 =Psamthek II.=--Makes an expedition against the king of Ethiopia.

589 =Uah-ab-Ra.=--Allies himself with Zedekiah and king of Phœnicia against Nebuchadrezzar, who afterward invades Egypt. The coalition is unsuccessful, but his fleet helps Tyre to hold out for thirteen years. Goes to war with the Greeks of Cyrene, and is defeated. His troops fear he will destroy and replace them by mercenaries; they revolt and choose Aahmes, an officer, to be king.

570 =Aahmes II.=--Defeats Uah-ab-Ra and strangles him; marries the daughter of Psamthek II, to legitimise his pretensions. He encourages commercial relations with Greeks. Allies himself with Crœsus against Cyrus of Persia. Cambyses attacks Egypt on death of Cyrus.

526 =Psamthek III.=--In his second year he was defeated by Cambyses at Pelusium and Memphis. Egypt a Persian province, 525-405 B.C.

XXVIITH DYNASTY, 525-405 B.C.

525 The Persian Cambyses tolerates the religion, maintains temples, and does all he can to conciliate the people. Leaves Egypt in charge of the first satrap Aryandes. Cambyses, in his rage, after an unsuccessful expedition against Napata, orders destruction of temples, etc.

521 Darius I.--Works hard to conciliate the people.

488 Egyptians revolt and expel Persians. Set up a native ruler, =Khabbosh=, who holds out for three years.

485 The Persian Xerxes I.--Reconquers Egypt and appoints Achæmenes, his brother, governor.

464 Artaxerxes I.

460 Inarus, King of Libya, aids Egyptians to rise against Persia. Battle of Papramis. Memphis captured, but Persians regain supremacy.

424 Xerxes II. Darius II. Continued endeavours of Egyptians to throw off Persian yoke.

XXVIIITH DYNASTY, 405-399 B.C.

405 =Amen-Rut.=--A native prince in revolt against Persia, on death of Darius II becomes practically independent. At his death the government passes to the prince of Mendes.

XXIXTH DYNASTY, 399-378 B.C.

399 =Nia-faa-urut I.= 393 =Haker.= 380 =Psa-mut.=--Ally themselves with enemies of Persia.

379 =Nia-faa-urut II.=

XXXTH DYNASTY, 378-340 B.C.

378 =Nectanebo I.=--Defeats Persians and Greeks at Mendes. This victory secures peace for some years. Revival of art.

364 =Tachus.=--Wars with Persia.

361 =Nectanebo II.=--The Persians again invade Egypt, at first unsuccessfully.

XXXIST DYNASTY, 340-332 B.C.

340 Ochus (Artaxerxes III).--Defeats Nectanebo at Pelusium. Nectanebo flees to Napata. Ochus proves a cruel governor.

332 Alexander the Great appears at Pelusium. The Persians surrender without a struggle. Beginning of Greek dominion.

FOOTNOTES

[1] [For a full discussion of Egyptian chronology, see Appendix B.]