XII. CONCLUDING SUMMARY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 263…

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.]

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I. THE EGYPTIAN RACE AND ITS ORIGIN

Egypt is a long Contree; but it is streyt, that is to seye narrow; for thei may not enlargen it toward the Desert, for defaute of Watre. And the Contree is sett along upon the Ryvere of Nyle; be als much as that Ryvere may serve be Flodes or otherwise that whanne it flowethe it may spreden abrood thorghe the Contree; so is the Contree large of Lengthe. For there it reyneth not but litylle in the Contree; and for that Cause, they have no Watre, but zif it be of that Flood of that Ryvere. And for als moche as it ne reyeneth not in that Contree, but the Eyr is alwey pure and clear, therefor in that Contree ben the gode Astronomyeres; for thei fynde there no Cloudes to letten hem.--The voyage and travile of Sir John Maundeville, Kt.

Two theories as to the origin of the Egyptians have been prominent, the one supposing that they came originally from Asia, the other that their racial cradle lay in the upper regions of the Nile, particularly in Ethiopia. Even to-day there is no agreement among Egyptologists as to which of these theories is correct. Among the earlier students of the subject, Heeren was prominent in pointing out an alleged analogy between the form of skull of the Egyptian and that of the Indian races. He believed in the Indian origin of the Egyptians.

One of the most recent authorities, Professor Flinders Petrie, inclines to the opinion that the Egyptians were of common origin with the Phœnicians, and that they came into the Nile region from the land of Punt, across the Red Sea. Professor Maspero, on the other hand, inclines to the belief in the African origin of the race; and the latest important anthropological theory, as propounded by Professor Sergi, contends for the Ethiopic origin of the entire Mediterranean race, of which the Egyptians are a part. According to this theory, a race whose primitive seat of residence was in the upper regions of the Nile spread gradually to the north, finally invading Asia by way of the Isthmus of Suez, and crossing to the peninsulas of southern Europe by way of Crete and Cyprus and Sicily, and perhaps also, after a long journey to the west along the Mediterranean coast of Africa, by way of the Straits of Gibraltar.

The true scientific status of the matter amounts merely to a confession of almost entire ignorance. The theory of Sergi, just referred to, finds a certain support in the data of cranial measurements, but it would be going much beyond warrantable conclusions to affirm anything like certainty for the inferences drawn from all the observations as yet available. The historian is obliged, therefore, to fall back upon the simple fact that for a good many thousands of years before the Christian era, a race of people of unknown origin inhabited the Nile Valley, and had attained a very high state of civilisation. Whatever the origin of this people, and however diversified the racial elements of which it was composed, the climatic conditions of Egypt had long since imposed upon the entire population an influence that welded all the diverse elements into a single racial mould, so that, as Professor Maspero points out, at the very dawn of Egyptian history the inhabitants of the entire land of Egypt constituted a single race, speaking one language and showing very little diversity of culture.

It is one of the standing surprises for the student of antiquity that the most massive structures ever built by man should be found in Egypt, dating from a period so remote as to be almost prehistoric. One finds it hard to avoid the feeling that there was a race sprung suddenly to a very high plane of civilisation, as if by a sheer leap from barbarism; but, of course, no modern student of the subject considers the matter in this light. It is uniformly accepted that a vast period of time lies back of the Pyramids, in which the Egyptians were slowly working their way upward. Professor Maspero estimates that for at least eight or ten thousand years the people had inhabited this land, all along developing their peculiar civilisation. Of course such an estimate makes no claim to historical accuracy; it is only a general conclusion based upon what seems a reasonable rate of progress.

The recent explorations in Egypt have endeavoured to penetrate the mysteries of what has hitherto been the prehistoric period, and these efforts have met with a certain measure of success. In the Fayum, Professor Petrie has made excavations that revealed the remains of a much earlier period than that of the first dynasties hitherto recognised. Among other interesting relics, sarcophagi were found containing mummified bodies in a marvellous state of preservation. One of these now exhibited at the British Museum in London shows the body of a man of full proportions lying on his side with knees folded up against his body. Unlike the mummies of the later Egyptian period, this ancient effigy has no wrappings of any kind, but so remarkable are the results of the processes of embalming to which it has been subjected, that the form of the various members, and the features even, have been preserved with marvellously little shrinkage or distortion. The skin is indeed dry and dark, yet its resemblance to the skin of a living person of a dark-hued race is so striking that one can hardly realise, in looking at it, that the corpse before him is the body of a person who lived perhaps eight or ten thousand years ago.

As to other remains found by the later explorations, among the most interesting and suggestive are flint implements chipped in the manner characteristic of the Palæolithic or rough stone age. We are guarded, however, against drawing too sweeping inferences from these antiquities by Professor Petrie’s assurance that the Egyptians continued to use such chipped flint implements throughout the period from the IVth to the Xth Dynasty. It has been doubted whether any of these stone implements can be regarded as of strictly prehistoric origin, or whether, indeed, any of the antiquities discovered in Egypt evidence an uncivilised stage of racial history. The latest opinion, however, is that the makers of the pottery and flint implements were the aborigines of the country, who were displaced by the invasion of the Egyptians of history.

The most important excavations of the last eight or ten years, carried on by Amélineau, Petrie, and De Morgan have had for their object the collection of remains of this pre-dynastic era.

We are not likely to hear more of the contention that the archaic objects found at Naqada and other places were the work of a “New Race” of invaders that had intruded somewhere in those dark ages between the VIth and XIth Dynasties, for this long and bitter controversy is now replaced by a state of complete agreement among the authorities that the people who could lay claim to the pottery and flint objects were the aborigines, living in Egypt when the Egyptians of history invaded the country.

In their possession of the country these aborigines were ousted by the race which gradually loomed upon the historic horizon and to whom it has long been the custom to assign Menes as the first king, treating the preceding periods as the time of the gods and demigods, to whose rule tradition assigns an epoch which varies from 1000 to nearly 40,000 years. But the indications are that within a few years there will be much light thrown on the period preceding King Menes. Just why this king should have been placed at the head of the Ist Dynasty now seems quite clear. He was the first “Lord of the Two Lands”--the united Upper and Lower Egypt.

It must be recognised by any one who would gain a clear idea of national existence, that the character of a race is enormously influenced by the physical and climatic features of its environment. There have been differences of opinion among students of the subject as to the amount of change that may be effected by altered surroundings. But whoever considers the matter in the light of modern ideas, can hardly be much in doubt as to the answer to any question thus raised.

If it be admitted that all the races of mankind sprang originally from a single source,--an hypothesis upon which students of the most diverse habits of thought are agreed,--then in the last analysis it would appear that we must look to such environing conditions as soil and climate for the causes of all the differences that are observed among the different races of the earth to-day. The man inhabiting equatorial regions has a dark skin and certain well-marked traits of character, simply because his ancestors for almost endless generations have been subjected to the influences of a tropical climate; and the light-skinned inhabitant of northern Europe owes his antagonistic characteristics to the widely different climatic conditions of high latitudes. And what is true of these extreme instances, is no less true of all intermediate races.

In a word, then, the Egyptian would not have been the individual that we know, had he not lived in the valley of the Nile. The Mesopotamian required the environment of the Tigris and Euphrates to develop his typical characteristics, and similarly with the Greek and Roman, and with the members of every other race.

But, in accepting this view, one must not be blinded to the fact that the changes wrought by environment in the character of a race, are of necessity extremely slow. The peculiar traits that give racial distinction to any company of people have not been attained except through many generations of slow alteration; and such is the conservative power of heredity that the characteristics thus slowly stamped upon a race are well-nigh indelible. How pertinacious is their hold is best illustrated in the case of the modern Jews, who retain their racial identity though scattered in all regions of the globe. With this illustration in mind, it cannot be matter for surprise that any race that remains in the same environment, and as a rule does not mingle with other races, shall have retained the same essential characteristics throughout the historic period. That such is really the historic fact regarding any particular race of antiquity, might not at first sight be obvious. It might seem, for example, that the modern Egyptian, who plays so insignificant a part in the world-history of the nineteenth century, must be a very different person indeed from his ancient progenitor, who maintained for many centuries the dominant civilisation of the world.

But it must not be forgotten that national standards are relative; in other words, that the status of a people depends, not alone upon the plane of civilisation of that people itself, but quite as much upon the relative plane of civilisation of its neighbours. When the Egyptians sank from power, it was not so much that they lost their inherent capacity for progress, as that other nations outstripped them in the race, and came presently to dominate and subjugate them, and thus to stamp out their ambition. In support of this view, note the fact that the Egyptians again and again, at intervals of many centuries, were able to rouse themselves from a lethargy imposed by their conquerors, and to regain for a time their old position of supremacy. But the best tangible illustration of the fixity of the character of a race is furnished by the modern historians, who have at the same time most profoundly studied the ancient conditions as recorded on the monuments, and, while doing so, have been brought in contact with the present inhabitants of the Nile Valley.

No other scholars of the present generation have made more profound investigations than Professor Petrie and Professor Erman, both of whom have been led to comment on the extraordinary similarity of manner and custom and inherent characteristics between the ancient and the modern Egyptians. Here is Professor Erman’s[g] verdict:

“The people who inhabited ancient Egypt still survive in their descendants, the modern Egyptians. The vicissitudes of history have changed both language and religion, but invasions and conquests have not been able to alter the features of this ancient people. The hundreds and thousands of Greeks and Arabs who have settled in the country seem to have been absorbed into it; they have modified the race in the great towns, where their numbers were considerable, but in the open country they scarcely produced any effect. The modern fellah resembles his forefather of four thousand years ago, except that he speaks Arabic, and has become a Mohammedan. In a modern Egyptian village, figures meet one that might have walked out of the pictures in an ancient Egyptian tomb. We must not deny that this resemblance is partly due to another reason besides the continuance of the old race. Each country and condition of life stamps the inhabitants with certain characteristics. The nomad of the desert has the same features, whether he wanders through the Sahara or the interior of Arabia; and the Copt, who has maintained his religion through centuries of oppression, might be mistaken at first sight for a Polish Jew, who has suffered in the same way. The Egyptian soil, therefore, with its ever constant conditions of life, has always stamped the population of the Nile Valley with the same seal.

“As a nation the Egyptians appear to have been intelligent, practical, and very energetic, but lacking poetical imagination; this is exactly what we should expect from peasants living in this country of toilsome agriculture. ‘In his youth the Egyptian peasant is wonderfully docile, sensible, and active; in his riper years, owing to want and care, and the continual work of drawing water, he loses the cheerfulness and elasticity of mind which made him appear so amiable and promising.’ This picture of a race, cheerful by nature, but losing the happy temperament and becoming selfish and hardened, represents also the ancient people.”

But, however freely it may be admitted that soil and climate put their seal upon a race, opinions will always differ as to just how the racial characteristics are to be interpreted. In the case of all Oriental nations the European mind has found such interpretation peculiarly difficult. The Egyptians are no exception to this rule, as we shall see.[a]

THE COUNTRY AND ITS INHABITANTS

The whole of North Africa is covered by a great desert, bordered only on the northwest by a considerable arable district, which at present forms the states of Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis. Except for this, if we set aside a single strip of coast land in the country between the two Syrtes (Tripolis, Leptis) and in Cyrenaica (Bengari), this whole territory is totally destitute of all higher civilisation. It forms the natural frontier of the Mediterranean world, beyond which not even ancient civilisation ever penetrated. The interior of Africa was practically unknown to the Greek and Roman world.

The formidable desert land, embracing more than three million square miles, contains a series of depressed levels in which springs are harboured, and vegetation, especially the date-palm, thrives. These are the oases. Here, and here only, are permanent human settlements possible. At the same time the oases form stations in the wearisome and difficult way through the desert, where the trader who wants to acquire goods in the countries on the other side is exposed not only to the dangers that threaten him from want of water, loss of his way, and sand-storms, but also to the attacks of vagrant robber hordes that traverse the desert in nomadic confusion.

East of the great desert, at a distance of a few days’ journey from the Arabian Gulf, lies a straggling fruitful valley, which in some sense may be regarded as an oasis of colossal dimensions. This is Egypt, the valley of the Lower Nile. On both sides it is bounded by desert land. On the west rises the plateau of the Libyan Desert, flat, absolutely barren, covered with impenetrable sand-banks. On the east a rocky highland of solid quartz and chalk rises in a gradual slope, at the back of which the crystalline masses of the so-called Arabian Mountains ascend to a height of about six thousand feet. In geological structure the two territorial districts are entirely different, but, although it is true that nomadic hordes can, at a pinch, keep body and soul together in the eastern desert, and that they are not entirely cut off from vegetation, from springs and cisterns in which the rainwater is gathered up from storm and tempest, civilisation is as much sealed to them as it is to the Libyan waste, through which it is impossible to penetrate, and which is habitable only in the oases.

Between the two deserts, occupying a breadth of from fifteen to thirty-three miles, lies the depression forming the valley of Egypt. It forms the bed which the river has dug for itself in the soft chalky soil with untiring activity. Formerly, thousands of years ago,--thousands indeterminate,--it poured through the country in riotous cascades, the traces of which are still clearly recognisable in many spots. Gradually the river cleaned out the whole bed and established a regular surface level. When the historical period begins, the creative career of the river has already long been completed; from this time forward, the Nile flows in manifold curves and with numerous tributaries through the wrinkled valley, which it floods to a considerable degree only in midsummer, when the Ethiopian snow melts and seeks an outlet. The fertile land extends precisely as far as the waters of the Nile penetrate, or are guided by the hand of man in the flood season; a sharp line of demarcation separates the black fertile land formed of the muddy deposit left by the river, from the gray-yellow of the bordering desert. The breadth of the fertile territory is variable; on an average it covers eight, rarely more than ten, miles. Only at the mouth of the Nile it expands to the wide marsh lands of the Delta, intersected by numerous swamps and lakes.

Also on the south the border-land of Egypt has a sharp natural line of demarcation. A little above the 24th degree of latitude, at Gebel Silsilis, the sandstone plateau joins right on the river, higher up covering the whole of Nubia. The narrow neck of river at Gebel Silsilis is the southern boundary of fertile Egypt. A significant saga rising from the Arabian name of the mountain range (Silsilis means “the chain”) tells how once upon a time the stream was cut off by a chain that connected the opposite mountains. About eight miles higher up, at Assuan (Syene) a mountain range of granite and syenite opposes the course of the river like a cross-rail. True, the river has broken through the hard stone, but it has not had the power to rub it away, as it has done with the chalk-stone of Egypt; in numerous rapids it forces a passage between neighbouring rocks and innumerable islands raised from its bed. Without doubt, however, the torrent has continued to make its bed deeper here also. We know from old Egyptian accounts of the Nile levels that about four thousand years ago, at the time of the XIIth Dynasty, the Nile at the fortresses of Semneh and Kumneh, above the second cataract, must have been at least eight metres higher than it is at the present day. This can be explained only by supposing that, since then, the river must have burrowed an equivalent depth in the rocks of the cataract district.

This “First Cataract,” which makes real navigation very nearly an impossibility,--a vessel can be steered through the rapids only with considerable difficulty and danger,--has always formed the southern boundary of Egypt. Above it, the Nile flows in a great curve through the Nubian sandstone plateau. At numerous places its way is blocked by hard stone material, through which it digs a bed in cataracts. The river valley has throughout no more than a breadth of from five to nine miles. The fertile land, which at the time of the old empire was pretty thickly wooded, confines itself, where it does not cease altogether, to a narrow seam on the banks, so that the inhabitants, in order to leave as little as possible of it unutilised, formed their villages on the barren, unfruitful heights above it. The whole stretch of 1000 miles from Khartum to the first cataract contains at the present day only 1125 square miles of laid-out land. South of the Tropic only, the country on the Red Sea is gradually becoming capable of fertilisation; for the most part, here it bears the character of the Steppes. Also in the Nile, therefore, Egypt is almost totally shut off from Africa. The campaign of the English against the Mahdi has again given us a vigorous picture of how wearisome and difficult is the connection here; of the dangers that a tropical sun, a deficiency of habitations, and the difficulties of communication offer to a small army that tries to advance here.

Egypt is the narrowest country in the world; embracing an expanse of 570 miles in length, it does not contain more than 12,000 square miles of fertile land, that is to say, it is not larger than the kingdom of Belgium. It is necessary to keep this fact clearly in view, especially as the maps accessible may only too easily convey quite a false impression, because they include the desert land within the boundary line of Egypt, and as a rule do not distinguish it by any sign from the fertile land. The ancient indigenous conception is in complete accordance with the geographical character of the land. Egypt, or Kamit, as the country is termed in the indigenous language (the name certainly signifies “the dark country”), is only the fertile valley of the Nile. Here only do the Egyptians dwell. The oases in the west and the “red country” (Tasherit) in the east, i.e. the naked, reddish, glimmering plateaus of the Arabian Desert, are reckoned as foreign with consistent regularity, and they are not inhabited by Egyptians. The true state of affairs is quite accurately portrayed in the oracle which decreed, “Egypt is all the country watered by the Nile, and Egyptians are all those who dwell below the town Elephantine and drink Nile water.”

Herodotus defines Egypt accurately as a “bequest of the river”; to the river alone it owes its fertility and its well-being. But for the flowing river, the sand of the Libyan Desert would cover that whole wrinkled valley, which, with the aid of the river, has become one of the most fertile and most thickly populated countries on the earth.

At the time in which our historical information begins, we find the Lower Nile Valley inhabited by a race which, after the precedent of the Greeks, we call Egyptians. Whence the word comes, we know not; we can only say that Aigyptos in the first instance denotes the river--almost without exception in the Odyssey it is thus. The word was then transferred to the country and its inhabitants, and the river received the name of Neilos (Nile), the origin of which is equally obscure. An indigenous name of the population did not exist; the Egyptians denoted themselves, in distinction from foreigners, simply as “men” (rometu). Their country, as we have already mentioned, they called Kamit, “Black Country”; the river was named Ha-pi. Semitic people called Egypt, we know not why, Mior or Musr (Hebrew Mizraim, the termination being a very common one with the names of localities). In its Arabian form, Masr, this word, at the present day, has become the indigenous name of the country and of its capital, which we call Cairo. From the name Egyptians, on the contrary, was developed the modern denotation of the Christian successors of the old indigenous population, the Copts.

Controversy has been abundant and vigorous with regard to the ethnographical place of the Egyptians. While philologists and historians assume a relation with the neighbouring Asiatic races, separating the Egyptians by a sharp line of distinction from the negro race, ethnologists and biologists, Robert Hartmann pre-eminent amongst them, have defined them as genuine children of Africa who stood in indisputable physical relation with the races of the interior of the continent. And certainly in the type of the modern Egyptian there are points of contact with the typical negro, and we shall not here dispute the validity of the possible contention that a gradual transition from the Egyptians to the negroes of the Sudan can be demonstrated, and that in the Nile Valley we never are confronted with an acute ethnological contrast.

We should note, however, that an acute contradiction in races is nowhere on earth perceptible. Everywhere may be found members to bridge over the gap, and the classification which we so much need does not ever start with the intermediate stages, but with the extremes in which the racial type finds its purest illustration.

Moreover, the type of the modern Egyptian cannot straightway determine the question as to the origin of the ancient Egyptian population, even if we do not take into account the difficult problem of how far climate and soil exercise a moderating influence upon a race. The inhabitants of the Lower Nile Valley at the time of the New Kingdom, and from that time forward in the whole course of history, have mingled so extensively with pure African blood, that it would have been a miracle if no assimilation had taken place. It is an undoubted fact that the Turks belong to the peoples resembling the Mongolians; but who will put the modern Osman in the same line with the Chinaman, or fail to recognise the assimilation to the Armenian, Persian, Semitic, Greek type? The same is true, for example, of the Magyars. A strictly analogous state of things is found in Egypt. It has been proved that, in the skull-formation of the modern Egyptian, the influence of the African element is more clearly discernible than in the days of the ancients. Moreover, a careful comparison leads to the conclusion that in ancient, as in modern Egypt, there are two coexistent types: one resembling the Nubian more closely, who is naturally more strongly represented in Upper Egypt than in Memphis and Cairo; and one sharply distinguished from him whom we may define as the pure Egyptian. Midway between these two stands a hybrid form, represented in numerous examples and sufficiently accounted for by the intermixture of the two races.

While the Nubian type is closer akin to the pure negro type and is indigenous in Africa, we must regard the purely Egyptian type as foreign to this continent; this directs us toward the assumption that the most ancient home of the Egyptian is to be sought in Asia. The Egyptians have depicted themselves, times out of number, on monuments, and enable us clearly enough to recognise their type.

For the most part, they are powerful, close-knit figures, frequently with vigorous features. Not infrequently, as Erman has sagaciously suggested, the heads have a “clever, witty expression just like what we are accustomed to meet with in cunning old peasants.” We have a recurrence of the same trait in several early Roman portraits. Side by side with this we have finely cut features: for instance, we are reminded of the almost effeminate expression in the head of Ramses II. The Egyptian type is altogether different from the negro type; the structure of the nose, for instance, is delicate for the most part, and there is no trace of prognathismus, or the protrusion of the lower part of the face.

On the monuments the colour of the skin in male Egyptians, who in ancient days went totally naked but for a loin cloth, is a red-brown. On the other hand, the women, who were clad in a long robe and were not equally exposed to the effects of air and sun, are painted in a lighter brown or yellow. In quite similar fashion the Greeks of old represented men on their vases as red and women as white. We should not forget that the art of depicting the finer shades of colours in paint had not yet been learnt.

Just as the Egyptians are distinguished from the population of the interior of Africa, so they have their nearest kinsmen in the inhabitants of the northern zone of the continent. West of them, on the coast lands on the Mediterranean as well as in the oases of the desert, dwell races which are comprehended by Egyptians under the term Thuhen. Following the precedent of the Greeks, we have transferred to all of them the name of the Libyans, that race which was settled in the territory of Cyrene, where the Greeks first learned of their existence. In Egyptian memorials we find them again under the name of Rebu (we should observe here, once for all, that neither Egyptian speech nor Egyptian writing has an L, and so in foreign words every R may be read as an L). The name Rebu, as the Greek form of the name tells us, was pronounced Lebu [Libu]. To the east of these Libyans proper, in the desert plateau of the country of Marmarica, dwell the Tuhennu, who spread as far as the borders of Egypt, and even also settled in the western portion of the Delta. Further westward, presumably in the neighbourhood of the Syrtes, we find the Mashauasha. The Greeks, especially Herodotus, have preserved for us a great number of other names. All these tribes, to which the dwellers in the oases also belong, are most closely related to one another, and form, together with the inhabitants of western North Africa, the Numidians and the Moors, a great group of nations, which we denote by the term Libyan or Moorish, or in modern terminology the group of Berber nations. The Libyans are light in colour; on the Egyptian monuments they are represented by a white-gray skin tint.

In the Moors the old type is to some extent still preserved. They are warlike, brave tribes, not without talent. But none of them, it is true, developed a high civilisation, although they adopted certain elements of civilisation from the Egyptians, and later on, in Mauretania, from the Carthaginians. According to the representations on the monuments, the custom of tattooing their arms and legs ruled amongst them; among the engraved signs we also meet with the symbol of Nit, the patron goddess of Saïs, whose population would appear to have consisted chiefly of Libyans.

As in the west, Libyans and Moors, to judge from their language, are connected with the Egyptians, so this is true in the south of a great number of tribes east of the Nile Valley. These are the ancestors of the modern Bedia tribes (i.e. of the Ababde, the Bischarin, and others, dwelling in the deserts and steppes east of the Upper Nile Valley), and of their relations the Falaschas, the Gallas, the Somali. Among them the country and people of Cush attained particular pre-eminence in antiquity; they were the southeastern neighbours of the Egyptians, who had their original settlements in the wastes and steppes of the mountain country east of the Nile. In the course of history they press forward against the negroes of the Nile Valley, the ancestors of the modern Nubians, and finally establish here a powerful empire.

The Hebrews and the Assyrians are accustomed to call this country Cush, and we too are in the habit of using this name Cushite instead of Egyptian. The Greeks call them Ethiopians. In the Christian era this name was adopted by a people living much farther south, the Semitic inhabitants of the great highlands of Habesh (Abyssinia), and this people and its language (Ge-ez) are therefore to-day called Ethiopian. But care must be taken not to transfer this term of modern usage in its modern significance to the circumstances of antiquity. The Ethiopia of antiquity is geographically about coterminous with modern Nubia.

A still more bewildering confusion has been engendered by the term Cushites. In the Old Testament, in the review of the races taking their departure from Noah, the name Cush has been transferred to Babylonia (Gen. x. 8; possibly also in the story of the Fall, ii. 13). This is to be explained by the fact that the robber mountain horde of the Kossæans, or, as they called themselves, the Kasshu, maintained supremacy for centuries in Babylonia; this name was identified by the Hebrew narrator with that denoting the African tribe. Recent experts have derived the most illusory consequences from this misunderstanding. In consequence of it the Cushites have become for them an Asiatic-African aboriginal people of wide extent, appearing everywhere and never at home; and wherever we encounter riddles in the matter handed down to us, or a bold combination has to be made possible, these Cushites are trotted out, only to sink again into nothingness as soon as they have done their work. Conceptions of this character have found their way into ethnographical, philological, and historical works of high merit.

From the abortion that has grown out of the amalgamation of the Babylonian robber and warrior hordes with an African tribe, originally of quite a low grade of cultivation and the scantiest mental endowment, has been manufactured a people to whom the beginning of all civilisation has been referred, to whose inspiration the great monuments of Egypt, as of Babylonia, are supposed to owe their origin, but whose personality ceases to be tangible anywhere from the moment that positive historical evidence begins.

In the face of this we must again dwell on the fact that the Kossæans and the Cushites have not the slenderest historical connection with each other. The latter is a very real people that gradually absorbed a certain degree of external civilisation from the Egyptians.

With these East African nationalities on the one side, and the Libyans and Moors on the other, the Egyptians form a great group of nations whose languages are closely related to one another, and whom one may designate as North Africans. The North African languages again, in their grammatical structure as well as in their vocabulary, reveal a kindred spirit, however distant, with that in the language of their eastern Asiatic neighbours, the Semites, i.e. the inhabitants of Arabia, Syria, Assyria, and Babylonia. Especially in the most ancient form of Egyptian handed down to us, in the language of the time of the Pyramids, are we everywhere confronted with this kindred spirit. It is impossible to resist the conclusion that there was a time when the forefathers of the Egyptians and of the rest of the North Africans enjoyed a community of speech with the Semites.

Such being the case, we are inclined to conclude that the North Africans belong to the so-called Caucasian race of men, and that they reached their later domicile in prehistoric times, after their detachment from the Semites.

If this assumption can claim for itself a high degree of probability, we have not advanced a very great deal toward the understanding of the historical development of Egypt. For these wanderings and migrations belong in any case to times remote--ay, very remote--from all historical evidence, and they provide us with no new disclosures from any direction as to the character and the development of the Egyptians. A further inference has been expressed that the immigrants into Egypt found it occupied by an indigenous population, which they subdued, and that from this population came the bondmen whom we find in ancient Egypt, while the immigrants went to make the lords and the aristocracy.

Possibly this assumption is just; in support of it we may cite the agreement subsisting between the nature of the Egyptian animal worship and the religious conceptions of several of the African peoples. But we must never lose sight of the fact that the Egyptians themselves have no knowledge of any such theory.

If an immigration and an amalgamation of peoples took place, at the time of the Pyramids it had already long been buried in oblivion; the Egyptians regard themselves as autocthonous, and--with the exception of a part of the population in the lower lands of Nubia, Libya, and Asia--as a single nation, within which there can be no question of a clash of mental conceptions, and within which the proud and the humble, the lord and the bondman, have nothing to distinguish them externally.

Historical presentation demands that we should treat the Egyptians throughout as one people, whatever may be the number of different tribes that settled in the Nile Valley in prehistoric time.[b]

The earliest stage of man that is known in Egypt is the Palæolithic; this was contemporary with a rainy climate, which enabled at least some vegetation to grow on the high desert, for the great bulk of the worked flints are found five to fifteen hundred feet above the Nile, on a tableland which is now entirely barren desert. Water-worn palæoliths are found in the beds of the stream courses, now entirely dried up, and flaked flints of a rather later style occur in the deep beds of Nile gravels, which are twenty or thirty feet above the highest level of the present river. This type of work, however, lasted on to the age of the existing conditions, for perfectly sharp and fresh palæoliths are found on the desert as low down as the present high Nile.

PREHISTORIC EGYPT

The date of the change of climate is roughly shown by the depth of the Nile deposits. It is well known by a scale extending over about three thousand years, that in different parts of Egypt the rise of the Nile bed has been on an average about four inches per century, owing to the annual deposits of mud during the inundation. And in various borings that have been made, the depth of the Nile mud is only about twenty-five or thirty feet. Hence an age of about eight or nine thousand years for the cultivable land may be taken as a minimum, probably to be somewhat extended by slighter deposit in the earlier time.

The continuous history extends to about 5000 B.C., and the prehistoric age of continuous culture known to us covers probably two thousand years more; hence our continuous knowledge probably extends back to about 7000 B.C., or to about the time when the change of climate took place. At that time we find a race of European type starting on a continuous career, but with remains of a steatopygous race, of “Bushman” (Koranna) type known and represented in modelled figures. We can hardly avoid the conclusion that this steatopygous race was that of Palæolithic man in Egypt, especially as that equivalence is also known in the French cave remains. It is noticeable that all the figures known of this race--in France, Malta, and Egypt--are women, suggesting that the men were exterminated by the newer people, but the women were kept as slaves, and hence were familiar to the pioneers of the European race. These Palæolithic women were broadly built, with deep lumbar curve, great masses of fat on the hips and thighs, with hair along the lower jaw and over most of the body.

The fresh race which entered Egypt was of European type--slender, fair-skinned, with long, wavy brown hair. The skull was closely like that of the ancient and modern Algerians of the interior; and as one of the earliest classes of their pottery is similar in material and decoration to the present Kabyle pottery, we may consider them a branch of Algerians. They seem to have entered the country as soon as the Nile deposits rendered it habitable by an agricultural people. They already made well-formed pottery by hand, knew copper as a rarity, and were clad in goatskins. Entering a fertile country, and mixing probably with the earlier race, they made rapid advance in all their products, and in a few generations they had an able civilisation. Their work in flint was fine and bold, with more delicate handiwork than that of any other people except their descendants; their stone vases were cut in the hardest materials with exquisite regularity; their carving of ivory and slate was better than anything which followed for over a thousand years; and they had a large number of signs in use, which were probably the first stages of our alphabet.

After some centuries of this culture a change appears, at the same point of time in every kind of work. A difference of people seems probable, but no great change of race, as the type is unaltered. The later people show some Eastern affinities; and it seems as if a part of the earlier Libyan people had entered Syria or North Arabia and had afterward flowed back through Egypt, modified by their Semitic contact. It is perhaps to this influx that the Semitic element in the Egyptian language is due.

This later prehistoric people brought in new kinds of pottery and more commerce, which provided gold, silver, and various foreign stones; they also elaborated the art of flint-working to its highest pitch of regularity and beauty, and they generally extended the use of copper, and developed the principal tools to full size. But they show even less artistic feeling than the earlier branch, for all figure-carving quickly decayed, both in ivory and in stone. The use of amulets was brought in, and also forehead pendants of shell. And the signs which were already in use almost entirely disappeared.

This prehistoric civilisation was much decayed when it was overcome by a new influx of people, who founded the dynastic rule. These came apparently from the Red Sea, as they entered Egypt in the reign of Coptos, and not either from the north or from the Upper Nile. They were a highly artistic people, as the earliest works attributable to them--the Min sculptures at Coptos--show better drawing than any work by the older inhabitants; and they rapidly advanced in art to the noble works of the Ist Dynasty. They also brought in the hieroglyphic system, which was developed along with their art. It seems probable that they came up from the Land of Punt, at the south of the Red Sea, and they may have been a branch of the Punic race in its migration from the Persian Gulf round by sea to the Mediterranean. They rapidly subdued the various tribes which were in Egypt, and at least five different types of man are shown on the monuments of their earliest kings.[d] Of these there were two distinct lines, the kings of Upper and the kings of Lower Egypt. The Palermo stone gives us the names of seven independent kings of Lower Egypt who ruled before the time of Menes--Seker, Tesau, Tau, Thesh, Neheb, Uat´-nar, and Mekha, while within the past few years the names of three pre-dynastic kings of Upper Egypt have been revealed--Te, Re, and Ka. To discover when and where these early monarchs reigned is probably the most interesting and important problem engaging the Egyptologist to-day.[a]

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II. THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM

THE FIRST DYNASTY

Thinites

========================================================================= | | | | | | Years in | | Turin | | | | Manetho | Manetho | Papyrus | Abydos | Saqqarah | Monuments +-----+------ | | | | | |Afr. |Euseb. -+----------+------------+-----------+----------+-----------+-----+------ 1|Menes |Mena |Mena | |Menes | 62 | 60 2|Athothis |Atu |Teta | |Teta | 57 | 27 3|Kenkenes | |Ateth | | | 31 | 39 4|Uenephes |…a |Ata | | | 23 | 42 5|Usaphaïdes|Hesep-ti |Hesep-ti | |Hesep-ti | 20 | 20 6|Miebidos |Mer-ba-pen |Mer-ba-pa |Mer-ba-pen| | 26 | 26 7|Semempses |Men-sa-nefer|Sem-en-Ptah| |Sem-en-Ptah| 18 | 18 8|Bieneches |…buhu |Kebh |Keb-hu | | 26 | 26 +-----+------ Total 253 (L. 263) 252 or 253 (L. 258) =========================================================================

[Sidenote: [ca. 4400-4133 B.C.]]

The first human king who, according to Greek authors as well as according to the Egyptian lists of kings, ruled over the Nile Valley was Menes, called Mena in Egyptian. His family came from Teni, a spot in Middle Egypt, the Greek This [or Thinis] in Abydos, a place which formed a certain religious centre of the kingdom down to a late period. Menes himself, it is true, soon quitted the place and built his residence on another more favourably situated spot, the place where the fruitful plains of the Delta began. This new capital is Memphis, the city that flourished down to the latest periods of Egyptian history as a royal residence and a commercial centre. The foundation of the place is to-day exposed to the flooding of the Nile; this was already the case in ancient days, and the king was forced to protect the ground from this danger by a powerful dam. The dike which he constructed is in the neighbourhood of the place called Cocheiche. And this dike to this day secures the whole province of Gizeh from the floods.

This danger of flooding is less to be apprehended from the Nile itself than from the natural canal, called Bahr Yusuf [“River of Joseph”], which skirts the Libyan Desert. Thus the topographical conditions of this place have hardly varied at all from the time of Menes. The ruined site of ancient Memphis is now traced by only a few monuments, and the excavations here have been very unproductive, while even in the days of the Arabs the remnants of the town aroused the highest admiration in Arabian authors. At all events the name has remained, and to this day the great mound at Mitraheni is called Tel-el-Monf, the mound of Monf. The ancient Egyptian name was Men-nefer, “the good place,” the sacred name Ha-kha-Ptah, “the house of the divine person of Ptah,” just as Ptah has remained for all time the chief god of the city. From this name, with but little right, it has been sought to derive the Greek name of the country of Egypt.

The acts, which for the rest are ascribed to Menes, are just those with which the first prince of a country is usually accredited. According to the Greeks he founded in Memphis the great temple of Ptah, the very first temple in Egypt; he regulated the service in the temple and the honouring of the god; he further was responsible for the introduction of the cult of Apis. Finally, he even discovered the alphabet, according to Anticlides, fifteen years (it would probably be more reasonable to read it 15,000) before Phoroneus, the architect of Argos.

Diodorus obliges us with the additional information that King Menes once was pursued by his own dogs, that he fled into Lake Mœris and was carried to the opposite shore on the back of a crocodile. In gratitude for, and in memory of, his marvellous deliverance he founded, so goes the tale, the town of Crocodilopolis, and introduced the veneration of crocodiles, to whom he surrendered the use of the lake. For himself he raised here a memorial pyramid and founded the famous Labyrinth. As for his character, according to the legend, he was a luxurious prince, who discovered the art of dressing a meal, and taught his subjects to eat in a reclining posture. In conflict with this is the account of Manetho, which depicts him as the first warrior-prince, and makes him fight the Libyans. According to Manetho he met his death through being swallowed by a hippopotamus. According to a widely spread but quite unauthentic story, he had in earlier life lost his only son Maneros, and the nation had composed a dirge on the subject entitled “Maneros,” of which text and melody are supposed to have survived for long.

Down to a late period Menes was honoured as a god in Egypt. In this capacity he appears on the Tablet of Abydos as the first of the kings; his statue is carried round in a procession in the Ramesseum, and even in the time of the Ptolemies, a priest of the statues of Nectanebo I, by the name of Un-nefer, was entrusted with his worship. His name lasted in Egypt even longer than his worship; it was borne by one of the most important Coptic saints, who lived at the beginning of the fourth century and to whom a church in old Cairo is yet dedicated.

Teta: Styled Athothis I by Eratosthenes, he is supposed to have ruled for fifty-nine years. According to Manetho, he constructed the royal castle of Memphis and wrote a work on anatomy, being particularly occupied with medicine. The latter supposition is rendered more complete to a certain extent by the account, due to the Ebers papyrus, that a method for making the hair grow described accurately therein, was supposed to have been discovered by our king’s mother, Shesh. For the rest we have no information of his period, except that in the reign of the son of Menes a double-headed crane revealed itself; this was supposed to be a sign of long prosperity for Egypt. We may possibly explain this legend from the circumstance that the names of the two successors of Menes are formed with the names of the crane-headed or ibis-headed god, Tehuti.

Ata: A great plague broke out in his reign.

Hesep-ti: [Within the past few years the correct reading of this name has been shown to be Sem-ti. His Horus name is Ten.]

Sem-en-ptah: [This name is also read Semsu.] According to Manetho there was a great pestilence in this reign.

THE SECOND DYNASTY

Thinites

========================================================================= | | | | | | Years in | | Turin | | | | Manetho | Manetho | Papyrus | Abydos | Saqqarah | Monuments +-----+------ | | | | | |Afr. |Euseb. -+-----------+----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----+------ 1|Boethos |…ba-u |Be-t´a-u |Neter-ba-u | | 38 | 2|Chaiechos |…ka-u |Ka-ka-u |Ka-ka-u | | 29 | 29 3|Binothris |…neter-en |Ba-neter-en|Ba-neter-en| | 47 | 47 4|Tlas | |Uat´nes |Uat´nes | | 17 | 5|Sethenes |Senta | Senta |Sent |Sent | 41 | 6|Chaires |…ka | | |Per-ab-sen?| 17 | 7|Nefercheres| | |Nefer-ka-Ra| | 25 | 8|Sesochris | | | | | 48 | 9|Cheneres | | | | | 30 | +-----+------ Total 302 =========================================================================

[Sidenote: [ca. 4135-3766 B.C.]]

[There is a king whose Horus name is read Hotep-Sekhemui, and who is placed by some authorities early in the IInd Dynasty, but as yet we do not even know his name as king of United Egypt.] Ka-ka-u. [Under this king the worship of the Apis bulls was instituted.] Baneter-en. This is the Biophis of Eusebius. Of high importance for the whole of Egyptian history is the observation of Manetho that this king declared female succession to be legitimate. In the course of the history of Egypt we shall indeed frequently have occasion to note what immense weight this people attached to female succession, and how it is this which in innumerable instances gives the colour of legitimacy to the assumption of the throne by a sovereign or a dynasty. John of Antioch makes the Nile flow with honey for eleven days in the reign of Binothris, while Manetho postpones this miracle until the reign of Nefercheres.[d]

THE THIRD DYNASTY

Memphites

========================================================================= | | | | | | Years in | | Turin | | | | Manetho | Manetho | Papyrus | Abydos | Saqqarah |Monuments+----+------ | | | | | |Afr.|Euseb. -+-----------+------------+-----------+------------+---------+----+------ 1|Necherophes|Seker-nefer-| |Seker-nefer-| | 28 | | | ka | | ka | | | 2|Tosorthros |…t´efa | |T´efa | | 29 | 3|Tyreïs |T´at´ai |T´at´ai |Bebi | | 7 | 4|Mesochris |Neb-ka |Neb-ka | |Neb-ka-Ra| 17 | 5|Soüphis |T´er |T´er-sa |T´er |T´er | 16 | 6|Tosertasis |T´er-teta |Teta |T´er-teta | | 19 | 7|Aches | | | | | 42 | 8|Sephuris | |Set´es |Ra-neb-ka? | | 30 | 9|Cherpheres |Huni |Ra-nefer-ka|Huni |Huni | 26 | +----+------ NOTE.--T´ is to be pronounced tch or z. Total 214 =========================================================================

Unfortunately we cannot as yet positively identify Necherophes on the tablets and monuments. A new arrangement, and one that has much in its favour, is to connect him with Neb-ka or Neb-ka-Ra (No. 4, in Wiedemann’s table). This would join Seker-nefer-ka with Sesochris (No. 8, IInd Dynasty) with the additional support that “ochris” is plainly the Greek equivalent of “Seker”; and T´efa with Cheneres, although the latter assumption is admittedly the merest guesswork. This brings T´er-sa (or Zeser, as it is more often spelled) opposite Tosorthros. We know that Zeser built the step-pyramid of Saqqarah and Manetho says that Tosorthros “built a house of hewn stones.” He is the most important sovereign of the dynasty. Manetho further credits him with bringing the art of writing to perfection; he is also supposed to have been a physician, and for this reason the divine Æsculapius of the Greeks. From Tosertasis to the end of the dynasty there are differences of opinion in regard to order or identification, and consequently we are still at sea with regard to Tyreïs, Mesochris, and Soüphis.

THE PYRAMID DYNASTY

[Sidenote: [ca. 3766 B.C.]]

The IVth Dynasty has a peculiar and unique interest for the casual observer of Egyptian history, because it was the time when the world-famous pyramids were erected, the pyramids which were accounted among the wonders of the world in classical antiquity, and the name of which has stood almost as a synonym of Egypt for all succeeding generations. If one were to list the wonders of the world in our day, the legitimate number would swell far beyond the classical estimate of seven; but it may be doubted if among them all there would be any more justly accounted wonderful than these same pyramids. Even if constructed to-day, they would be accounted marvellous structures; and, dating as they do from remotest antiquity, when the devices of the modern mechanic were yet undreamed of, they seem almost miraculous. Nothing that any other land can show at all rivals or duplicates them; they are unique, like Egypt herself.

What adds to the unique interest of the pyramids is the fact that we know almost nothing of their builders, except what these structures themselves relate. The pyramids epitomise the history of an epoch. They are the standing witness that Egypt in that epoch was inhabited by a highly civilised people. But practically all that we know of this people is that they were the builders of the pyramids. Even that is much, however, and we shall advantageously dwell at length upon these monuments, viewing them from as many standpoints as possible--through the eyes of Diodorus on the one hand, and of the most recent European explorers on the other.[a]

[Sidenote: [ca. 3733-3633 B.C.]]

Diodorus, voicing the traditions of his time, gives the following entertaining account of these marvels:[2]

“Chemmis [Khufu or Cheops], the Eighth King from Remphis, was of Memphis, and reign’d Fifty Years. He built the greatest of the Three Pyramids, which were accounted amongst the Seven Wonders of the World. They stand towards Lybia a Hundred and Twenty Furlongs from Memphis, and Five and Forty from Nile. The Greatness of these Works, and the excessive Labour of the Workmen seen in them, do even strike the Beholders with Admiration and Astonishment. The greatest being Four-square, took up on every Square Seven Hundred Foot of Ground in the Basis, and above Six Hundred Foot in height, spiring up narrower by little and little, till it come up to the Point, the Top of which was Six Cubits Square. It’s built of solid Marble throughout, of rough Work, but of perpetual Duration: For though it be now a Thousand Years since it was built (some say above Three Thousand and Four Hundred) yet the Stones are as firmly joynted, and the whole Building as intire and without the least decay, as they were at the first laying and Erection. The Stone, they say, was brought a long way off, out of Arabia, and that the Work was rais’d by making Mounts of Earth; Cranes and other Engines being not known at that time. And that which is most to be admir’d at, is to see such a Foundation so imprudently laid, as it seems to be, in a Sandy Place, where there’s not the least Sign of any Earth cast up, nor Marks where any Stone was cut and polish’d; so that the whole Pile seems to be rear’d all at once, and fixt in the midst of Heaps of Sand by some God, and not built by degrees by the Hands of Men. Some of the Egyptians tell wonderful things, and invent strange Fables concerning these Works, affirming that the Mounts were made of Salt and Salt-Peter, and that they were melted by the Inundation of the River, and being so dissolv’d, everything was washt away but the Building itself. But this is not the Truth of the thing; but the great Multitude of Hands that rais’d the Mounts, the same carry’d back the Earth to the Place whence they dug it, for they say there were Three Hundred and Sixty Thousand Men imploy’d in this Work, and the Whole was scarce compleated in Twenty Years time.

“When this King was dead, his Brother Cephres [Khaf-Ra] succeeded him, and reign’d Six and Fifty Years: Some say it was not his Brother, but his Son Chabryis that came to the Crown: But all agree in this, that the Successor, in imitation of his Predecessor, erected another Pyramid like to the former, both in Structure and Artificial Workmanship, but not near so large, every square of the Basis being only a Furlong in Breadth.

“Upon the greater Pyramid was inscrib’d the value of the Herbs and Onions that were spent upon the Labourers during the Works, which amounted to above Sixteen Hundred Talents.

“There’s nothing writ upon the lesser: The Entrance and Ascent is only on one side, cut by steps into the main Stone. Although the Kings design’d these Two for their Sepulchers, yet it hapen’d that neither of them were there buri’d. For the People, being incens’d at them by reason of the Toyl and Labour they were put to, and the cruelty and oppression of their Kings, threatened to drag their Carkasses out of their Graves, and pull them by piece-meal, and cast them to the Dogs; and therefore both of them upon their Beds commanded their Servants to bury them in some obscure place.

“After him reign’d Mycerinus [Mencheres] (otherwise call’d Cherinus) the Son of him who built the first Pyramid. This Prince began a Third, but died before it was finish’d; every square of the Basis was Three Hundred Foot. The Walls for fifteen Stories high were Black Marble like that of Thebes, the rest was of the same Stone with the other Pyramids. Though the other Pyramids went beyond this in greatness, yet this far excell’d the rest in the Curiosity of the Structure and the largeness of the Stones. On that side of the Pyramid towards the North, was inscrib’d the Name of the Founder Mecerinus. This King, they say, detesting the severity of the former Kings, carried himself all his Days gently and graciously towards all his Subjects, and did all that possibly he could to gain their Love and Good Will towards him; besides other things, he expended vast Sums of Money upon the Oracles and Worship of the Gods; and bestowing large Gifts upon honest Men whom he judg’d to be injur’d, and to be hardly dealt with in the Courts of Justice.

“There are other Pyramids, every Square of which are Two Hundred Foot in the Basis; and in all things like unto the other, except in bigness. It’s said that these Three last Kings built them for their Wives.

“It is not in the least doubted, but that these Pyramids far excel all the other Works throughout all Egypt, not only in the Greatness and Costs of the Building, but in the Excellency of the Workmanship: For the Architects (they say) are much more to be admir’d than the Kings themselves that were at the Cost. For those perform’d all by their own Ingenuity, but these did nothing but by the Wealth handed to them by descent from their Predecessors, and by the Toyl and Labour of other Men.”[e]

A MODERN ACCOUNT OF THE PYRAMIDS

The Egyptians of the Theban period were compelled to form their opinions of the Pharaohs of the Memphite dynasties in the same way as we do, less by the positive evidence of their acts than by the size and number of their monuments: they measured the magnificence of Cheops [Khufu] by the dimensions of his pyramid, and all nations having followed this example, Cheops has continued to be one of the three or four names of former times which sound familiar to our ears. The hills of Gizeh in his time terminated in a bare, wind-swept tableland. A few solitary mastabas were scattered here and there on its surface, similar to those whose ruins still crown the hill of Dahshur.

The Sphinx, buried even in ancient times to its shoulders, raised its head halfway down the eastern slope, at its southern angle; beside him the temple of Osiris, lord of the Necropolis, was fast disappearing under the sand; and still farther back, old abandoned tombs honeycombed the rock.

[Sidenote: [ca. 3733 B.C.]]

Cheops [Khufu] chose a site for his pyramid on the northern edge of the plateau, whence a view of the city of the White Wall, at the same time of the holy city of Heliopolis, could be obtained. A small mound which commanded this prospect was roughly squared, and incorporated into the masonry; the rest of the site was levelled to receive the first course of stones.

The pyramid when completed had a height of 476 feet on a base 764 feet square; but the decaying influence of time has reduced these dimensions to 450 and 730 feet respectively. It possessed, up to the Arab conquest, its polished facing, coloured by age, and so subtly jointed that one would have said that it was a single slab from top to bottom. The work of facing the pyramid began at the top; that of the point was first placed in position, then the courses were successively covered until the bottom was reached.

In the interior every device had been employed to conceal the exact position of the sarcophagus, and to discourage the excavators whom chance or persistent search might have put upon the right track. Their first difficulty would be to discover the entrance under the limestone casing. It lay hidden almost in the middle of the northern face, on the level of the eighteenth course, at about forty-five feet above the ground. A movable flagstone, working on a stone pivot, disguised it so effectively that no one except the priests and custodians could have distinguished this stone from its neighbours. When it was tilted up, a yawning passage was revealed, three and a half feet in height, with a breadth of four feet. The passage is an inclined plane, extending partly through the masonry and partly through the solid rock for a distance of 318 feet; it passes through an unfinished chamber and ends in cul-de-sac 59 feet farther on.

The Great Pyramid was called Khut, “the Horizon,” in which Khufu had to be swallowed up, as his father, the Sun, was engulfed every evening in the horizon of the west. It contained only the chambers of the deceased, without a word of inscription, and we should not know to whom it belonged, if the masons, during its construction, had not daubed here and there in red paint among their private marks the name of the king and the date of his reign. Worship was rendered to this Pharaoh in a temple constructed a little in front of the eastern side of the pyramid, but of which nothing remains but a mass of ruins.

Pharaoh had no need to wait until he was mummified before he became a god; religious rites in his honour were established on his ascension; and many of the individuals who made up his court attached themselves to his double long before his double had become disembodied. They served him faithfully during their life, to repose finally in his shadow in the little pyramids and mastabas which clustered around him. Of Dadef-Ra (or Tatf-Ra), his immediate successor, we can probably say that he reigned eight years.

[This is according to the Abydos and Saqqarah lists, but his chronological position is still uncertain. The inscription of Mertitefs, one of Sneferu’s queens, mentions that she was later a favourite of Khufu, and even in her old age, of Khaf-Ra. This, if true, would leave no space for Dadef-Ra between these reigns, so he was either a co-regent or successor. In the XXVIth Dynasty his priests give, in several instances, the succession as Khufu, Khaf-Ra, Dadef-Ra. Professor Petrie identifies him with the Rhatoises of Manetho, and so makes him the third successor of Khufu, but Professor Maspero, in his reading “Dadef-Ra,” distinctly dissents from any such recognition. It is possible that this king is the same person as the Prince Hortotef, son of Khufu, who, as the hero of a famous tale, is one of the best-known characters of early Egyptian literature.]

[Sidenote: [ca. 3666-3600 B.C.]]

But Khaf-Ra (or Khephren), the next son, who succeeded to the throne, erected temples and a gigantic pyramid, like his father. He placed it some 394 feet to the southwest of that of Cheops (Khufu); and called it Ur, “the Great.” It is, however, smaller than its neighbour, and attains a height of only 443 feet, but at a distance the difference in height disappears, and many travellers have thus been led to attribute the same elevation to the two.

The internal arrangements of the pyramid are of the simplest character; they consist of a granite-built passage carefully concealed in the north face, running at first at an angle of 25°, and then horizontally, until stopped by a granite barrier at a point which indicates a change of direction; a second passage, which begins on the outside, at a distance of some yards in advance of the base of the pyramid, and proceeds, after passing through an unfinished chamber, to rejoin the first; finally, a chamber hollowed in the rock, but surmounted by a pointed roof of fine limestone slabs. The sarcophagus was of granite, and, like that of Khufu, bore neither the name of a king nor the representation of a god.

Of Khaf-Ra’s sons, Men-kau-Ra (the Mycerinus of the Greeks), who was his successor, could scarcely dream of excelling his father and grandfather; his pyramid, “the Supreme” (Her), barely attained an elevation of 216 feet, and was exceeded in height by those which were built at a later date. Up to one-fourth of its height it was faced with syenite, and the remainder, up to the summit, with limestone. For lack of time, doubtless, the dressing of the granite was not completed, but the limestone received all the polish it was capable of taking. The enclosing wall was extended to the north so as to meet, and be of one width with, that of the Second Pyramid. The temple was connected with the plain by a long and almost straight causeway, which ran for the greater part of its course upon an embankment raised above the neighbouring ground.

The arrangement of the interior of the pyramid is somewhat complicated, and bears witness to changes brought about unexpectedly in the course of construction. The original central mass probably did not exceed 180 feet in breadth at the base, with a vertical height of 154 feet. It contained a sloping passage cut into the hill itself, and an oblong low-roofed cell devoid of ornament. The main bulk of the work had been already completed, and the casing not yet begun, when it was decided to modify the proportions of the whole. Men-kau-Ra was not, it appears, the eldest son and appointed heir of Khaf-Ra; while still a mere prince he was preparing for himself a pyramid similar to those which lie near “the Horizon,” when the deaths of his father and brother called him to the throne.

What was sufficient for him as a child, was no longer suitable for him as a Pharaoh; the mass of the structure was increased to its present dimensions, and a new inclined passage was effected in it, at the end of which a hall panelled with granite gave access to a kind of antechamber. The latter communicated by a horizontal corridor with the first vault, which was deepened for the occasion; the old entrance, now no longer of use, was roughly filled up.

Men-kau-Ra did not find his last resting-place in this upper level of the interior of the pyramid: a narrow passage, hidden behind the slabbing of the second chamber, descended into a secret crypt, lined with granite and covered with a barrel-vaulted roof. The sarcophagus was a single block of blue-black basalt, polished, and carved into the form of a house, with a façade having three doors and three openings in the form of windows, the whole framed in a rounded moulding and surmounted by a projecting cornice such as we are accustomed to see on the temples. The mummy-case of cedar-wood had a man’s head, and was shaped to the form of the human body; it was neither painted nor gilt, but an inscription in two columns, cut on its front, contained the name of the Pharaoh, and a prayer on his behalf.

The example given by Khufu, Khaf-Ra, and Men-kau-Ra was by no means lost in later times. From the beginning of the IVth to the end of the XIVth Dynasty--during more than fifteen hundred years--the construction of pyramids was a common state affair, provided for by the administration.

Not only did the Pharaohs build them for themselves, but the princes and princesses belonging to the family of the Pharaohs constructed theirs, each one according to his resources; three of these secondary mausoleums are ranged opposite the eastern side of “the Horizon,” three opposite the southern face of “the Supreme,” and everywhere else--near Abusir, at Saqqarah, at Dahshur, or in the Fayum--the majority of the royal pyramids attracted around them a more or less numerous cortège of pyramids of princely foundation often debased in shape and faulty in proportion.[f]

THE BUILDERS OF THE PYRAMIDS

[Sidenote: [ca. 3766-3566 B.C.]]

Sneferu is the first ruler of Egypt of whose deeds we know something. A relief with an inscription in Wady Magharah on the peninsula of Sinai represents him as slaying the robber-like tribes of the desert, the Mentu, with a club. According to the inscriptions of the XIIth Dynasty in Sarbut-el-Hadim, it appears that he was considered as founder of the Egyptian dominion in the peninsula of Sinai. His memory was honoured for many years; his worship was often mentioned, and in literary works his bountiful reign was also called to mind. He was probably buried in the Great Pyramid, which has the appearance of terraces, at Medum, the opening of which was begun a short while ago. In one of the neighbouring tombs a statue was found of its architect, Henka, and probably the remaining tombs at Medum belong to this epoch.

Sneferu’s successor Khufu, the Cheops of Herodotus, was the builder of the largest pyramid. The construction of temples was also attributed to him (the temple of the “Lady of the Pyramids,” Isis, in Gizeh, and the planning of the temple of Denderah), and the town of Menat Khufu bears his name. He also fought in the peninsula of Sinai. In front of the immense sepulchre of the king, his wives or other relatives are buried in three small pyramids, and around them in mastabas the nobles of his court. What the Greeks relate concerning the oppression of Egypt by Khufu and Khaf-Ra and of their ungodliness, whilst Men-kau-Ra as the builder of the small Pyramid is looked on as a righteous and just ruler, are their own words which they place in the mouth of the Egyptians; such a conception is remote from the truth, and the picture which we gain from the tombs of the period is throughout bright and cheerful. Certainly every contemporary was proud of having taken part in this giant construction.

After the short reign of Tatf-Ra followed Khaf-Ra, the builder of the second pyramid of Gizeh, to which time probably dates back the enigmatically immense construction of granite and alabaster to the south of the Great Sphinx; the fragments of nine statues of the king were found in it. His next followers were Men-kau-Ra, the Mycerinus of Herodotus, the builder of the third pyramid at Gizeh, and Shepses-ka-f, of whom we learn something definite through the biography of Ptah-Shepses, buried in Saqqarah. He had formerly been brought up at the court of Men-kau-Ra with the children of the king; he grew up under Shepses-ka-f, who gave him his eldest daughter to wife, loaded him with honours, and appointed him as secretary to all constructions which he planned to build.

The circumstance, that there is no mention of warlike expeditions either in this biography or in other monuments of this epoch, but that peaceful undertakings, journeys, and festivals, and above all, the constructions of the king, are continually quoted, is an important sign of the character of the times.

[Sidenote: [ca. 3566-3300 B.C.]]

Manetho now makes three kings follow for thirty-eight years, who are nowhere mentioned in the inscriptions, and then begins a new dynasty (the Vth), with Usercheres, which sprang from Elephantine. But in the monuments it is stated that Shepses-ka-f was immediately followed by Uskaf (or User-ka-f) [Usercheres]. At the most, only short interregnums can have intervened, and Prince Sechem-ka-Ra lived under five kings, Khaf-Ra, Men-kau-Ra, Shepses-ka-f, Uskaf, and Sahu-Ra, whose reigns occupied about a century. It is very probable that a new family came to the throne either in a peaceful or violent manner; in the Turin papyrus the portion which probably contained Uskaf’s reign has completely fallen out.

We learn very little of Uskaf or Usercheres. His successor Sahu-Ra, on the contrary, is one of the most renowned rulers of the time. He also fought in Wady Magharah. The next kings cannot be placed in their order with certainty. The Turin papyrus allows eight reigns, mostly short, to follow, and at the fifth introduces a gap; the lists of Abydos and Saqqarah have only given us three names. Only Nefer-ar-ka-Ra and especially An, the first king who gave himself a title (User-en-Ra), were at all important. Then followed Men-kau-hor (reign of eight years), Assa, with the name of Tat-ka-Ra (twenty-eight years), and Unas (thirty years), of whom the first and second, like An, left monuments commemorative of their victories on the peninsula of Sinai.

The first epoch of Egyptian history closes with the reign of Unas. Almost three hundred years had passed since Sneferu had built up his pyramid and celebrated his victory in Wady Magharah. Throughout the whole period Memphis was the central point of the kingdom, and its necropolis almost the only source of our instruction. After the death of Unas--it is not known whether he died in peace or was overthrown by a revolution--a new race ascended the throne and the centre of Egyptian life begins gradually to shift itself. The Turin papyrus rightly makes the first principal division here, and gives the sum of all the reigns from Menes to Unas; but the figures are unfortunately lost to us.

[Sidenote: [ca. 3866-3300 B.C.]]

Here follows a table of kings in which the lists of Manetho for the IIIrd, IVth, and Vth Dynasties are compared with the lists of the Turin papyrus, the Abydos tablet, the Saqqarah tablet, and the wall list of Karnak.[b] It will be recalled that these lists, taken together, furnish us with the chief information at present accessible as to the true sequence of the early Egyptian rulers. Notwithstanding its somewhat forbidding appearance at first glance, this tablet will repay careful study. It illustrates the way in which the different lists must be pieced together in an attempt to form a complete record. It shows, also, how widely the Hellenised names of Manetho’s list differ from the Egyptian originals; suggesting the extent to which surmise must sometimes enter into identification. Indeed, it would be hard to tell which were the greater misfortune: the disappearance of Manetho’s history, or the accident by which the Turin papyrus was broken into scores of little pieces only to be restored in an unscientific and almost worthless condition by Seyffarth.[a]

========================================+================================ Turin Papyrus [P.], Abydos Tablet [A.], | Manetho Saqqarah Tablet [S.] Karnak [K.] | ----------------------------------------+-------------------------------- 1. Zeser, P. A. S. |Dyn. III--2 Tosorthros 29 years Gap in dynasty 19 years | 6 Tosertasis 19 years 2. Zeser Teta, P. A. S. 6 years | 3. Set´es, A.; Neb-ka-Ra, S. 6 years | 4. Nefer-ka-Ra, A.; Huni, S. 24 years | 5. Sneferu, A. S. K. 24 years |Dyn. IV--1 Soris 29 years 6. Khufu, A. S. 23 years | 2 Suphis 63 years 7. Tatf-Ra, A. S. 8 years | 8. Khaf-Ra, A. S. ? years | 3 Suphis 66 years 9. Men-kau-Ra, A. S. ? years | 4 Mencheres 63 years 10. Shepses-ka-f, A. S. ? years | 5 Rhatoises 25 years | 6 Bicheris 22 years | 7 Sebercheres 7 years | 8 Tamphthis 9 years 11. [Us-ka-f, A. S.] [missing] | Dyn. V--1 Usercheres 28 years 12. [A. S. K.] Sahu-Ra 18-38 years | 2 Sephres 13 years Here belong: | 13.{Kakaa, A.; and Monum. 4 years | 14.{Nefer-Ra, A. 2 years | 15.{Nefer-ar-ka-Ra, S.; and | { Monum. 7 years | 3 Nephercheres 20 years 16.{Shepses-ka-Ra, S. 12 years | 4 Sisires 7 years 17.{Nefer-kha-Ra, S. ? years}| 5 Cheres 20 years { Gap in Dynasty}| 18.{Akau-hor, Monum. 7 years}| 19.{and perhaps Ahtes ? years}| 20. [User-en-Ra, An. A. K.] 10-30 years}| 6 Rhathures 44 years 21. Men-kau-hor, P. A. S. 8 years | 7 Mencheres 9 years 22. Tat-ka-Ra, Assa., | P. A. S. K. 28 years| 8 Tancheres 44 years 23. Unas, P. A. S. 30 years| 9 Onnos 33 years | ------------ | Total of seventeen reigns, 236-276 years| ----------------------------------------+-------------------------------- To these must be added six reigns; the |Totals give 277 years for duration of which is unknown. | Dyn. IV, 248 for Dyn. V, | differing from the sums of | the single reigns. ========================================+================================

If we allow fifteen years for each of the six missing reigns, we get for the period from Zeser to Unas about 350 years. For the something like nineteen kings of the Turin Papyrus from Menes to Zeser (exclusive) there falls, then, about 350 years, from Menes to Sneferu (exclusive) therefore, about 350, from Sneferu to Unas about 300, which agrees very well with the indications on the monuments. (According to the most reliable of the reported figures of Manetho the first three dynasties lasted 769 years, the IVth and Vth 525 years.)[b]

[Sidenote: [ca. 3566-3300 B.C.]]

Very recent discoveries have thrown a certain amount of light on the obscurities of the Vth Dynasty, particularly with reference to the kings Nos. 13-19 bracketed in the above table. The latest research has developed:

(1) That Kakaa (No. 13) must be only another, and probably personal, name of either Nefer-ar-ka-Ra or Shepses-ka-Ra, probably of the former.

(2) That the Akau-hor of a few monuments is probably the personal name of Nefer-kha-Ra (Saqqarah tablet); now read Nefer-f-Ra.

We may also now reject the Nefer-Ra (No. 14) and the Ahtes (No. 19) and consider the Vth Dynasty, beginning with Uskaf and ending with Unas to consist of nine kings, and to have lasted about two hundred and twenty years.

Various monuments have come down to us from the Vth Dynasty, including inscriptions on steles and tablets, an alabaster vase, a polished ink slab and scarabs. Among the most interesting remains of the period is a papyrus roll found in 1893 at Saqqarah near the Step Pyramid. This papyrus contains an account of the reign of King Tat-ka-Ra or Assa, and it is believed to be the oldest fragment of manuscript in existence. A much more famous papyrus roll, the so-called Prisse Papyrus--sometimes called the oldest book in the world--now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, is believed to be a copy of an original written in the time of Assa. The Prisse Papyrus itself dates from the XIIth Dynasty. It was written by one Ptah-hotep, spoken of in the book itself as “Son of the King, of his body,” which phrase may mean that the author was actually the son of the king (Brugsch) or, that he was really a relative of the monarch, perhaps his uncle (Petrie). The document itself has a peculiar interest aside from its age. It is the philosophical moralising of an old man who, plaintively lamenting the infirmities of age, casts a regretful glance on by-gone times; yet whose view on the whole is wise and optimistic. “It does the heart good and rejoices the mind,” says Brugsch, “to follow that old harangue which preserves the intimate thought of the age of the prince, embracing the whole course of human existence in simple, childish words. Here is a noble lesson on the true greatness of man, for throughout he breathes a spirit of human purity which finds the only true greatness in a modest mind.”

Professor Mahaffy, speaking in a somewhat similar vein, calls attention to the fact that the morals, the aspirations, and the unsolved social problems of the remote time in which Ptah-hotep wrote bear a singular resemblance to those of to-day, pointing the moral that humanity has not greatly changed in essentials during the intervening five or six thousand years.

[Sidenote: [ca. 3300-3166 B.C.]]

After the Vth Dynasty, which was regarded by the author of the Turin Papyrus as closing an epoch, there is a period of five hundred years or more during which relatively little is known of Egyptian history. According to the lists of Manetho, this period saw the rise and fall of various dynasties which, vaguely as they are known, have passed into traditional history as Dynasties VI to X. The Turin Papyrus and the lists of Abydos, Saqqarah, and Karnak supply us with various names, mostly unsuggestive of the names of Manetho. There are, however, two or three exceptions to this, notably the king named third in Manetho’s VIth Dynasty, Philos, who is believed to represent the monarch named on all the other lists as Meri-Ra, or, as he is more generally known, Pepi, the latter being his family name. This monarch, who probably lived about 3200 B.C., was the Ramses II of his epoch. He has left us more monuments than any other ruler before the XIIth Dynasty. These include a pyramid at Saqqarah, rock inscriptions in steles at Elephantine and elsewhere, statuettes, canopic jars, cylinders, and scarabs. The most notable of all the monuments ascribed to him is the Red Sphinx of Tanis, now in the Louvre in Paris, which, if really his,--the matter is still not quite decided among the best authorities,--is the oldest sphinx known. If authentic, the face of this sphinx probably furnishes a representation of Pepi which is doubtless the most ancient portrait in existence.

A great builder and monument-maker, he was a great conqueror as well, waging successful wars against the Aamu and Herusha, who inhabited the desert east of the Delta. He even extended his conquests against “the land of the Terehbah,” which, it has been surmised, may be Syria; or which may possibly have been even farther to the north: the similarity of names suggests that the people referred to may have been the Tibareni, one of the smaller peoples of Asia Minor. In any event, the warlike expedition against this unknown people was made in ships.

The most interesting thing about King Pepi remains to be told. This is the manner in which records of his deeds have come down to us. The various monuments left by the king himself contain scant reference to his accomplishments. The inscription that enables us to gain glimpses of the life of the greatest monarch of his epoch is not the inscription of the monarch himself, but of one of his servants. This officer of the king bore the name of Una. He was of unknown origin, and there is no reason to suppose that he was of royal blood; but he attained to the highest distinction. He had come to be, according to the inscription over his tomb, “Crown bearer of the Majesty (of the King), Superintendent of the storehouse, and Registrar (Sacred Scribe) of the docks” for King Teta, the predecessor of King Pepi.

[Sidenote: [ca. 3166-3033 B.C.]]

On the death of his master, Una appears to have passed into the service of the next incumbent, Pepi, as “Chief of the coffer of the Majesty (of the King) with the rank of Companion, Scribe, Priest of the place of his pyramid.” “His Majesty was satisfied with me (beyond all) his servants,” declares Una. “(He gave me also) to hear all things. I was alone with the Royal Scribe, and officer of all the secrets. The King was satisfied with me more than any of his chiefs, of his family, of his servants.”

The inscription then goes on to detail the services rendered by Una to Pepi, and his son Mer-en-Ra as well. He fully earned all of his titles and honours. He would seem to have been in charge, not merely of household affairs, building operations, the moving of monuments and the like, but to have been commander-in-chief of the armies, and the efficient agent of Pepi in his conquests at home and abroad, as he says: “ He sent me five times, to subdue the land of Herusha to subdue their revolt by this force. His Majesty was pleased at it beyond everything Saying, have revolted the Negroes of this tribe of the land of Khetam, safely to Takhisa; I sailed again in boats with this force. I subdued this country from the extreme frontier on the North of the land of Herusha. Then was ordered this army on the road. They subdued them also smiting all opponents there. The place was thrown under my sandals. The King of Upper and Lower Egypt Mer-en-Ra the Divine Lord the ever living gave me to be a Duke, Governor of the South ascending from Abu to the North of the nome Letopolis. I very much pleased His Majesty, I greatly pleased His Majesty to the Satisfaction of His Majesty.”

One of the most interesting passages in the inscription of Una is that in which he gives details of the transportation of the pyramid Kha-nefer of Mer-en-Ra, making for it “a boat of burthen in the little dock 60 cubits in length and thirty in its breadth, put together in 17 days in the month of Epiphi.” There was not water enough in the river to tow the pyramid safely, but the inscription continues: “It was done by me forthwith before the god (King). His Majesty the Divine Lord ordered and sent me to excavate four docks in the South for three boats of burthen, four transports in the small basin of the land of Uauat. Then the rulers of the countries of Araret, Aam, and Ma, supplied the wood for them. It was made in about a year at the time of the inundation loaded with very much granite for the Kha-nefer pyramid of Mer-en-Ra.” (Birch’s[g] translation.)

Aside from its intrinsic interest, this inscription of Una has a peculiar historical importance as illustrating a phase of life in Egypt that we shall not see duplicated among the Semitic nations of Asia; the fact, namely, that a mere subject of the king could leave a permanent record of his deeds. In Babylonia and Assyria it is the monarch always who speaks from the inscriptions; the name of a subject is never mentioned. It is not so very often, even in Egypt, that the name of a subject is heard, but the fact that this sometimes occurs marks a distinct difference between the character of the Egyptian and Asiatic civilisations.

[Sidenote: [ca. 3066-3033 B.C.]]

One other monarch of the VIth Dynasty has gained traditional fame; this time through the pages of Herodotus. This is the Queen Nitocris. Herodotus, to be sure, gives us no clew as to the age when this female monarch ruled, but the name appears in the lists of Manetho. Herodotus was attracted by the picturesque story told him in reference to Nitocris by the Egyptian priests. He asserts that of the names of three hundred and thirty sovereigns, successors of Menes, recited to him from a book by the Egyptian priests, only one was a female native of the country. He continues: “The female was called Nitocris, which was also the name of the Babylonian princess. They affirm that the Egyptians having slain her brother, who was their sovereign, she was appointed his successor; and that afterwards, to avenge his death, she destroyed by artifice a great number of Egyptians. By her orders a large subterraneous apartment was constructed professedly for festivals, but in reality for a different purpose. She invited to this place a great number of those Egyptians whom she knew to be the principal instruments of her brother’s death, and then by a private canal introduced the river amongst them. They added, that to avoid the indignation of the people, she suffocated herself in an apartment filled with ashes.” (Herodotus, II, 99.)

The Turin papyrus gives the name of Nit-aqert as one of the Pharaohs of the VIth Dynasty, so it would appear that Herodotus was writing of an actual personage, whether or not the story that he tells was well founded. Manetho says of Nitocris that she governed twelve years, “the noblest and most beautiful woman of that period, fair, and at the same time the builder of the Third Pyramid.” Brugsch, commenting upon this, says: “It is difficult to discover the historical foundation for the tale of Herodotus, and we would only say that it must indicate that about the time of Queen Nitocris, internecine murders and dissensions began in the kingdom, awakened by the poisonous envy of the pretenders to the throne.” As to Manetho’s assertion that Nitocris built the Third Pyramid, it has been explained by Perring that the Third Pyramid was transformed and enlarged at a later date. It is suggested that “Queen Nitocris took possession of Men-kau-Ra’s tomb, left the king’s sarcophagus in a lower vault, and placed her own in the chamber in front. If we are to be guided by the ruined fragments of bluish basalt which lie on the spot, she had the surface of the monument faced with that costly decoration of highly polished granite, which afterward served inventive Greek story-tellers with a foundation for the tale of Rhodopis, the hetaira, who reduced her friends to beggary that she might obtain vast sums of money for the building of the pyramid.”

THE BEAUTIFUL NITOCRIS

Various romances have become associated with traditions in reference to Nitocris. She was credited with supernatural witchery, and it was said that after her death her naked spirit haunted the pyramid she was alleged to have built, and that by the magic of her mere smile she drove her lovers mad. The story of her revenge upon the men who, in a riot, had killed her brother the king, is given by Herodotus as above. The brother she avenged was Menthesouphis, whom Meyer places at some distance from her in the line. Round this same Nitocris gathered other legends, among them the original of our Cinderella story. According to this version, Nitocris was originally a courtesan named Rhodopis (“Rosy-cheeked”--a translation into Greek of the name Nitocris). Once when she was bathing in the river, an eagle stole one of her little gilded sandals, and flying away let it fall into the lap of the king, who was holding a court of justice in the open air. He was so taken with the beauty of the tiny shoe that he had a search made for the woman whom it fitted, and made her his queen.

Beyond the historical narratives of Una, and the traditions about Nitocris, only shreds of knowledge are forthcoming regarding the monarchs of the long epoch with which we are dealing. The epoch as a whole is well characterised in the words of Brugsch:[a]

A profound darkness falls over Egyptian history after the time of Ne-fer-ka-Ra, shrouding even the faintest traces of the existence of kings whose empty names the tablets of Abydos and Saqqarah have preserved to us, names without deeds, sounds without meaning, like the inscriptions on the tombs of unknown, obscure men. Unless we are deceived, we may here picture a state split up into petty kingdoms and scourged by civil war and regicide, from whose haq or princes no saviour arose to strike down the refractory with the strong arm, grasp with a firm hand the loosened rein, and once more establish a central government.[h]

In a few words may be added certain more or less inchoate details as to the few monarchs of the VIth to Xth Dynasties upon whose history the most recent research has thrown some rays of light.

As for the VIth Dynasty, the most modern attempts at disentanglement place a Mer-en-Ra II and a Neter-ka-Ra after Nefer-ka-Ra; Mer-en-Ra II to correspond with the Menthesuphis of Manetho as distinct from the Methusuphis [Mer-en-Ra I] of the same historian. The Neter-ka-Ra occurs only on the Abydos Tablet, and is followed by Men-ka-Ra, which is also found nowhere else. But there is some reason to believe that the bearer of this name is identical with the Nit-aqert of the Turin papyrus and the Nitocris of Manetho, and in this connection the confusion between Men-kau-Ra and Nitocris is susceptible of another and perhaps better explanation than that offered by Perring; for although the Third Pyramid has been enlarged, the manner of its enlargement shows that it was done in the age of the Pyramid builders and not so late as the end of the VIth Dynasty. Therefore it is better to accept M. Maspero’s theory of the alterations as given in a preceding page; while the similarity of the names Men-kau-Ra and Men-ka-Ra will show how Manetho was led into the error of assigning the building of the Third Gizeh Pyramid to Queen Nitocris.

[Sidenote: [ca. 3033-2700 B.C.]]

The VIIth and VIIIth Dynasties fell through causes of disintegration and decay. The capital was transferred to Heracleopolis, presumably because of the intrusion of an outside people into the Delta.

Some authorities assign the dislodgment of the native dynasty to a perplexing line of foreign kings whose position still defies definition; but Professor Petrie writing in 1901 says: “The group of foreign kings, mainly known by scarabs and cylinders, Khyan, Samqan, Anthar, Yaqebar, Shesha, and Uazed, are probably of the XVth-XVIth Dynasties, though some connections place them shortly before the XIIth Dynasty.” All we yet know of the intrusion is concisely stated by Eduard Meyer: “We may with some certainty assume that strange Syrian races attacked Egypt and probably ruled the land or part of it for a while.”

Two legitimate kings of the IXth or Xth Dynasty now stand out prominently; Ab-meri-Ra (Kheti) who may be the Achthoes of Manetho, the first of his recorded IXth Dynasty, and Ka-meri-Ra. But the most interesting historical information of this period is from three tombs of the princes of Assiut; Kheti I, Tefa-ba, and Kheti II.

The Thebans had now practically obtained their independence, and certain circumstances indicate that the beginning of the XIth Dynasty was contemporary with the Xth. Such a state of affairs will explain the singular fact that Manetho assigns only forty-three years to the XIth Dynasty. For it is held that he ignored contemporaneous dynasties, and therefore may have rejected about one hundred and twenty years, during which period he does not recognise the XIth Dynasty as legitimate.[a]

FOOTNOTES

[2] [Here and in subsequent excerpts from Diodorus we use a seventeenth-century translation.]

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III. THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM

Egypt is the monumental land of the earth, as the Egyptians are the monumental people of history.--BARON BUNSEN.

The history of civilisation is very largely the history of a few great cities.

There has been no great people without its great metropolis. The overthrow of such a city, as in the case of Nineveh, or Babylon, or Tyre, or Sardis, often meant the subjugation or destruction of a nation. And the mere transfer of supremacy from one city to another within the same country meant the beginning of a new era. It was so in Egypt when the centre of authority shifted from Memphis to Thebes. By common consent, historians mark the period in which Thebes became the home of the ruling monarch, and hence the capital of Egypt, as a new era in Egyptian history. This new era is commonly designated the Old Theban Kingdom, or the Middle Kingdom.

This era of the Theban supremacy was by no means a homogeneous epoch. It saw many dynasties established and overthrown; it even witnessed the conquest of the country by a strange horde from the east, a horde spoken of as the Shepherd invaders, whose leaders, seated upon the throne of Egypt for some generations, have passed into history as the Hyksos or Shepherd kings. These outsiders held the power so long, indeed, that they may very well have felt entitled to call themselves Egyptians. The later generations had as good claim to that name as, for example, any Caucasian has to call himself an American. Yet when the Hyksos kings were finally overthrown, the feat seems to have been regarded as the expulsion of intruders, and the verdict of posterity is that the governmental power passed back to its rightful possessors. It would be difficult, however, to say how much the ethnic status of the race may have been modified by the influence of these many generations of outsiders. Be that as it may, the Egyptians who expelled the Hyksos kings and established anew the “native” dynasties were in some respects a very different people from the Egyptians whom the Hyksos had overthrown. But before expanding this point we had best follow the fortunes of the Old Theban Kingdom itself.

THE ELEVENTH DYNASTY

[Sidenote: [ca. 2700-2500 B.C.]]

For the XIth Dynasty we have as yet no good list; the total number of kings even is unknown, but the best authorities agree that there were probably about nine. But since this dynasty undoubtedly ruled at Thebes simultaneously with the Xth at Heracleopolis, whence it had been driven from Memphis, the question as to just which Theban prince so far overcame the legitimate government in the struggle that had been long going on, as to be acknowledged the ruler of Egypt, will probably never reach solution. Professor Petrie begins with Antef I and follows him with Mentuhotep I, Antef II, Antef III, Mentuhotep II, Antef IV, and then Nub-kheper-Ra (or Antef V). Concerning the latter and his two successors, there is no question; we emerge once more into the daylight. After Nub-kheper-Ra comes Neb-kher-Ra whose other name was Mentuhotep, and we designate him as the third of his name. He stands fifty-seventh on the Abydos list.[a]

The princely line from which the commanding figure of King Mentuhotep III stood forth to the healing of the reunited kingdom was of Theban origin. The feeble ancestors of his race bore alternately the names of Antef and Mentuhotep. They had set up their regal dwelling in that city of Thebes which afterward became of such world-wide importance, and their tombs (simple, homely tiled pyramids) lay at the foot of the “Western Mountain” of the Theban necropolis. Here a few ruins of ancient date indicate the names of the rulers. It was here too that, more than twenty years ago, two quite modest sarcophagi belonging to these Pharaohs were brought to light by some Arabs in search of gold, and unconscious of what a treasure they had found.

In that part of the city of the dead which nowadays goes among the inhabitants by the name of Assassif, those sarcophagi were found, only lightly covered with sand and rubble and one of them containing the embalmed body of a king, his head adorned with a royal circlet. The cover of the casket was richly gilded, and the sacred symbols which decked the central strip soon revealed the name of Pharaoh Antef in the royal cartouche.

In the year 1854, when Brugsch for the first time stayed on the banks of the Nile, he had the unhoped-for good fortune to stumble, in a lumber room in the house of the Greek consul, across the coffin of a second Antef, which was notably distinguished from the first by his cognomen of “the Great.” The coffin is now preserved in the Louvre, a precious and valuable relic of the ancient kingdom of the Pharaohs.

The black rocks of the island of Konosso, near Osiris’s favoured island of Philæ above the First Cataract, preserve the memory of the Mentuhotep (II) who bore the royal name of Neb-taui-Ra, “Sun of the Lord of the Country.” A sculpture chiselled in the hard stone shows the Pharaoh as the conqueror of thirteen peoples, and as the devout servant of his original progenitor Khem or Amsu, the famous god of Coptos. The place of this name (Qobt it was actually called among the Egyptians) had at that time a great reputation.

This Mentuhotep also appears perpetuated on the wall in the rocky valley, together with his mother, Ama. He had, so his inscription distinctly says, caused a deep well, ten cubits in diameter, to be sunk in the waterless, desolate waste, in order to provide reviving draughts of fresh water for all pilgrims with their beasts of burden and all men whom the king had commissioned to quarry stone in the hot valley.

Another inscription, dated the 15th of Paophi in the second year of the reign of our Mentuhotep, next commemorates the god Khem, “the Lord of the Peoples of this Wilderness,” then renders homage to other heavenly beings, and informs us how it was marvellously contrived to convey the gigantic blocks of stone Nileward to serve for the future housing of the royal corpse. A high dignitary, Amenemhat by name, and appointed to superintend all works of the kind for Pharaoh, received an express order to forward the heavy load of the sarcophagus and its cover from the mountains to the ruler’s eternal resting-place.

Long was the way and hard the labour of the task, for the mighty mass of hewn stone measured eight cubits in length, whilst the proportion of this to the breadth and height was as four to two. When rich offerings had been made to the gods, three thousand strong men succeeded in moving the gigantic weight of stone from its place, and in rolling it down the valley to the river.

We have less information respecting the other Mentuhotep, whose pyramid bears the name of Khu-asu, “the most shining place.” A tombstone found in the carefully explored valley of Abydos commemorates the priest who presented the offerings of the dead to the departed king at the pyramid.

The list of kings closes with Sankh-ka-Ra, the fifty-eighth of the long series of Abydos. The rock valley of Hammamat commemorates him in an inscription of the highest value. From Coptos the way led through waterless deserts toward the coast of the Red Sea, and was much frequented by merchants, who, for the sake of profit, ventured life and limb, and after painful wanderings on desert paths trusted themselves in the harbour to frail vessels, that they might steer for the southern regions of the farther coasts and bring valuable goods, principally costly spices full of sweet savours, back from the land of Punt to their native country and the temples of the gods.

THE VOYAGE TO PUNT

Under the name of Punt, the ancient inhabitants of Kamit understood a distant country, washed by the great sea, full of valleys and hills, rich in ebony and other valuable woods, in incense, balsam, precious metals and stones; rich also in animals, for there are camelopards, cheetahs, panthers, dog-headed apes, and long-tailed monkeys. Winged creatures with strange feathers flew up to the boughs of wonderful trees, especially of the incense tree and the cocoanut palm. Such was the conception of the Egyptian Ophir, doubtless the coast of the modern Somaliland, which lies in view of Arabia, though divided from it by the sea.

According to the old dim legend, the land of Punt was the primeval dwelling of the gods. From Punt the heavenly beings had, headed by Amen, Horus, and Hathor, passed into the Nile Valley. The passage of the gods had consecrated the coast lands, which the waters of the Red Sea washed as far as Punt and whose very name “God’s land” (Ta-neter) recalls the legend. Amen is called Haq, that is, “King of Punt,” Hathor similarly, “Lady and Ruler of Punt,” while Hor was spoken of as “the holy morning star which rises westward from the land of Punt.” To this same country belongs that idol of Bes, the ancient figure of the deity in the land of Punt, who in frequent wanderings obtained a footing, not only in Egypt, but in Arabia and other countries of Asia, as far as the Greek islands. The deformed figure of Bes, with its grinning visage, is none other than the benevolent Dionysus [Bacchus], who, pilgrimaging through the world, dispenses gentle manners, peace, and cheerfulness to the nations with a lavish hand.

[Sidenote: [ca. 2500 B.C.]]

It was under Sankh-ka-Ra that the first Ophir-voyage to Punt and Ophir was accomplished. According to the words of the inscription, everything which might be serviceable to the expedition was wisely arranged before-hand, and Pharaoh selected as its leader and guide the noble Hannu, who gives the following account of it:

“I was despatched to conduct the ships toward the land of Punt, to fetch Pharaoh sweet-smelling spices, which the princes of the red country collect with the fear and anxiety which he inspires in all peoples. And I started from the city of Coptos.”--“And his majesty gave the order that the armed men who were to accompany me should come from the southern land of the Thebaïd.”

After a defaced portion in the inscription, which was fairly long, and of which enough had been preserved to show that in the course of the story there was some account of how the armed force was provided for offence and defence against the enemy, and how the king’s officers, with stone-cutters and other work-people, accompanied the train, Hannu continues:

“And I journeyed thence with a host of three thousand men, and came through the place of the red hamlet, and through a cultivated land. I had skins prepared and barrows to convey the water-jars to the number of twenty. And every one of my people carried a burden daily … and another adjusted the load. And I had a reservoir dug twelve rods in length in a wood, and two basins at a place called Atahet, one of them a rod and twenty cubits, and the other a rod and thirty cubits. And I made another in Ateb, ten cubits by ten each way, that it might hold water a cubit deep. Thereafter I came to the harbour town of Seba (?), and I had cargo vessels built to bring commodities of every kind. And I made a great sacrifice of oxen, cows, and goats. And when I returned from Seba (?) I had fulfilled the king’s command, for I brought him all kinds of commodities, which I had found in the harbours of the sacred country. And I descended into the street of Uak and Rohan, and took with me valuable stones for the statues of the houses of God. The like has never been since there were kings, and such things were never done by any blood relations of the king who were sent to those places since the time (the rule) of the sun-god Ra. And I did thus for the king on account of the great favour he cherished for me.”

M. Chabas, who first rendered this important inscription and its contents intelligible, has joined to his translation some valuable remarks concerning the direction of the desert road from Coptos to the Red Sea. By this means we may satisfy ourselves that already in those remote times, the ancient Egyptians had opened a road by which to establish communication with the land of Punt, and to transport its products--rare and costly commodities--to the valley of the Nile.

In his description of the journey, Hannu speaks of five principal camps, at which the wanderers rested, and men and animals (then only donkeys, the only beast of burden referred to, at least at this period) fortified themselves for the toilsome journey in the enjoyment of the fresh drinking-water. It is, moreover, this same road which, even in the time of the Ptolemies and Romans, led from Coptos in the direction of the sunrise, to the harbour of Leukos Limen (now Kosseir), on the Red Sea, the great highway and commercial route of the merchants of all countries, who carried on a trade in the wondrous products of Arabia and India, the bridge of nations which once connected Asia and Europe.

Although, in view of the most recent discoveries, we must no longer regard Punt and the oft referred to “sacred country” as the exclusive designation of the southern and western coasts of Arabia itself, still nothing is more probable than that, already in the reign of King Sankh-ka-Ra, five and twenty centuries before the beginning of our era, the Egyptians had some knowledge of the coasts of Yemen and of the Hadramaut on the opposite side of the sea, which lay in sight of the incense-bearing mountains of Punt and of the sacred country. Here, in these regions, should, as it seems to us, that mysterious place be sought which, in remotely prehistoric times, sent forth the restless Cushite nations oversea from Arabia, like swarms of locusts, to plant themselves on the highly favoured coasts of Punt and the “sacred country,” and to extend their wanderings further inland in a westerly and northerly direction.[b]

THE TWELFTH DYNASTY

It is hard to keep in mind the long sweep of these meagre Egyptian chronicles, but it must not be forgotten that we are handling dynasties of long duration and not single reigns.

[Sidenote: [ca. 2466 B.C.]]

It was not without a struggle that the XIIth Dynasty was established, and the first years of the reign of the Theban king Amenemhat were harassed by the conspiracies and plots of those who contested his claim to the throne.

In the Instructions to his son, Usertsen I, the king says: “When night came I took an hour of ease. I stretched myself on the soft couch in my palace and sought repose, my spirit had nearly succumbed to sleep, when lo! they gathered themselves together in arms against me, and I became as weak as a serpent of the field. Then I arose to fight with my own hands, and I found I had but to strike to conquer. If I attacked an armed foe, he fled before me, and I had no reverse of fortune.” And it was to this force of character that the king owed his success. “Never in my life have I given way,” he continues, “either in a grasshopper plague or in conspiracies set afoot in the palace, or when, taking advantage of my youth, they banded together against me.”

The south of Memphis was the final scene of struggle against the new dynasty, but after the surrender of the fortified town of Titui, the whole of Egypt surrendered to the sway of Amenemhat, who now devoted himself to the reparation of the evils of war and to expeditions against the Libyans, Nubians, and Asiatics, whose invasions were so ruinous to the country. “I caused the mourner,” says the king in the same Instructions, “to mourn no longer, and his lamentation was no longer heard. Perpetual fighting was no more seen, whereas, before my coming, they fought together as bulls who think not of the past, whilst the welfare of the wise and unwise was equally ignored. I have had the land tilled as far as Abu [Elephantine]. I have spread joy as far as Adhu [the Delta]. I am the creator of the three kinds of grain, I am the friend of Nopu [the god of grain]. In answer to my prayer the Nile has inundated the fields; nobody hungers or thirsts under my sway, for my orders have been obeyed. All that I said was a fresh source of love; I have overthrown the lion and killed the crocodile. I have conquered the Uauat, I have taken the Mazau captive, and I have forced the Sati [Asiatics] to follow me like harriers.”

[Sidenote: [ca. 2466-2370 B.C.]]

In Nubia the king had the gold mines reopened which had been abandoned since the time of Pepi.

As Amenemhat was not young when he ascended the throne, he began to feel the effects of age after reigning nineteen years, and this led to his making his son, Usertsen I, co-regent with himself with all the titles and prerogatives of royalty. “I raised thee from a subject,” he writes in the Instructions, “I granted thee the free use of thy arms that thou mightest be feared on that account. As for me, I arrayed myself in the fine stuffs of my palace so as to look like one of the flowers of my garden. I perfumed myself as freely as if the essences were drawn like water from the cisterns.”

At the end of some years the king took so little active part in the government, that his name was often omitted in the monuments beside that of his son; but he still gave wise counsels from the palace where he lived in retirement. To the wisdom of his advice much of the prosperity of Egypt was due, and such a reputation for ruling did the old king acquire, that in a treatise, composed by a contemporary, on the art of governing, the writer represents him rising like a god and addressing his son: “Thou reignest over two worlds, thou dost govern three regions. Act better than thy predecessors, maintain harmony between thy subjects and thyself lest they succumb to fear; sit not by thyself in their midst, do not take to thy heart and treat as thy brother only him that is rich and of high degree, neither accord thy friendship to newcomers whose devotion is not proved.”

In support of his Instructions the old king gives a résumé of his life, of which some extracts have been already given. Although only three pages long, this little work became quite a classic, and kept its place a thousand years, for at the time of the XIXth Dynasty, it was still copied in the schools and studied as an exercise of style by young scribes.

Nothing is more illustrative of the state of Egypt and the neighbouring countries at this period than certain passages from the memoirs of an adventurer named Sineh. Arrived at the court of a little Asiatic chief, who asks for an account of the power of the Egyptian sovereign, and who was surprised at hearing that a death had taken place in the palace of Amenemhat without his knowledge, the traveller gives a poetical panegyric of the king and his son: “My exile into that country was arranged by God, for Egypt is under the control of a master, who is called ‘the benevolent god’; and the terror of him extends to all the surrounding nations, as the power of the goddess Sekhet extends over the earth in the season of sickness. I told him my thoughts and he replied, ‘We grant thee immunity.’ His son, Usertsen, entered the palace, for he manages his father’s business; he is an incomparable god, he has never had his equal, he is a counsellor wise in his designs, benevolent in his decrees, who goes and comes at his will. He conquers foreign states and reports his conquests to his father, who remains in the palace. He is a brave man, who rules by the sword, his courage is unequalled; when he sees barbarians, he rushes forward and scatters the predatory hordes. He is the hurler of javelins who makes the hand of the enemy feeble, those whom he strikes never more lift the lance. He is formidable in shattering skulls, and has never been overcome. He is a swift runner who kills the fugitive, and no one can overtake him. He is alert and ready. He is a lion who strikes with his claws, nor ever lets go from his grip; he is a heart girded in armour at the sight of the hosts, and leaves nothing standing behind him; he is a valiant man rushing forward at the sight of battle. He seizes his buckler, he bounds forward and kills without a second blow. Nobody can withstand his arrow; before he bends his bow, the barbarians flee in front of him like hares, for the great goddess has commanded him to slay those who ignore her name, and when he attacks, he spares not. All are laid low. He is a wonderful friend, who knows how to win love; his country loves him more than herself, and rejoices in him more than in a god; and both men and women are prompt to render him homage. He is king; he has commanded ever since he was born; the nation has multiplied under him, the unique being of a divine essence by whom this land rejoices to be governed. He has enlarged the frontiers of the South, whilst not coveting the region of the North. He has subjugated the Asiatics and conquered the Nemashatu.”

[Sidenote: [ca. 2370-2250 B.C.]]

The co-regency of Usertsen I with Amenemhat I, instituted ten years before the king’s death, led to Usertsen’s being accepted as successor to his father without any opposition. And following his parent’s example, this king (after forty-two years) appointed his son, Amenemhat II, to be co-regent with himself; and he, thirty-two years later, did the same with Usertsen II; Amenemhat III and Amenemhat IV also reigned a long time together. The only reigns in which there is no proof of co-regency are those of Usertsen III and Queen Sebek-neferu-Ra (the Schemiophris of Manetho), who was the last of the dynasty, which had lasted 213 years, 1 month, and 27 days.

The history of the XIIth Egyptian dynasty is certainly given with greater accuracy and completeness than that of any of the others. In spite of the deficiencies in the biographies of the eight monarchs, and the accounts of their wars, we have an uninterrupted survey of the development of their policy, and even after the lapse of four thousand years and more, we can form a fair idea of the Egypt of the period. As engineers, soldiers, friends of art, and patrons of agriculture, they were indefatigable in their work of aggrandising the country. With the enlargement of the boundaries of the kingdom, the hordes of barbarians on the frontiers were dispersed, Nubia was conquered; the valley of the Middle Nile, from the First Cataract to the Fourth, was colonised; the supply of water was more equalised by the creation of Lake Mœris and a system of canals; and towns like Heliopolis, Thebes, Tanis, and a hundred others of less repute, were adorned with fine buildings. Egypt, in fact, at this time, was in a most prosperous state, and if later she obtained more renown by her Asiatic wars and distant conquests, the period of this dynasty, when each generation of Pharaohs followed in the other’s steps of good administration, was the most happy and peaceful of all.

The two scenes of warfare of the Pharaohs at this period were Syria on the east of the Delta, and Nubia, properly so called, on the south of Elephantine. One would have thought that the large tracts of sand, separating the Syrians from Egypt, would have prevented any incursions from that quarter. But the nomadic tribes made such inroads on that district that a series of fortresses had to be built from the Red Sea to the Nile, to protect the entrance of the Wady Tumilat from the hordes; and this wall, begun by Amenemhat and continued by his successors, marked the extreme limit, at that time, of the empire of the Pharaohs in this direction. Beyond stretched the desert, a world almost unknown to the Egyptians at that time.

Of the people of Syria and Palestine they had only vague ideas brought thither by the caravans or brought to the ports in the Mediterranean by sailors who had been there. Sometimes, however, a party of emigrants, or even whole tribes, driven from their country by misery or revolutions, would arrive and settle in Egypt. One of the bas-reliefs of the tomb of Khnumhotep depicts the arrival of such a party. It represents thirty-seven men, women, and children, brought before the governor of the nome of Mah, to whom they present a sort of greenish paint, called moszmit, and two boxes. They are armed like Egyptians with bows, javelins, axes, and clubs; one of them plays, as he walks, on an instrument resembling an old Greek lyre in shape. The cut of their dress, the brilliancy and good taste of the fringed and patterned materials, the elegance of most of the things they have with them, testify to an advanced stage of civilisation, albeit inferior to that of Egypt. Asia already supplied Egypt with slaves, perfumes, cedar wood, and cedar essences, enamelled precious stones, lapis-lazuli, and the embroidered and dyed stuffs of which Chaldea retained the monopoly until the time of the Romans.[c]

The monuments of this great period provoked wonder among the ancients, and the old traveller and historian Herodotus thus describes the marvels of Egypt:[a]

MONUMENTS OF THE TWELFTH DYNASTY: A CLASSICAL VIEW

It was the resolution of all the princes to leave behind them a common monument of their fame:--With this view, beyond the Lake Mœris, near the City of Crocodiles, they constructed a labyrinth, which exceeds, I can truly say, all that has been said of it; whoever will take the trouble to compare them, will find all the works of Greece much inferior to this, both in regard to the workmanship and expense. The temples of Ephesus and Samos may justly claim admiration, and the Pyramids may individually be compared to many of the magnificent structures of Greece, but even these are inferior to the Labyrinth. It is composed of twelve courts, all of which are covered; their entrances are opposite to each other, six to the north and six to the south; one wall encloses the whole; the apartments are of two kinds, there are fifteen hundred above the surface of the ground, and as many beneath, in all three thousand. Of the former I speak from my own knowledge and observation; of the latter, from the information I received.

The Egyptians who had the care of the subterraneous apartments would not suffer me to see them, and the reason they alleged was, that in these were preserved the sacred crocodiles, and the bodies of the kings who constructed the labyrinth: of these therefore I presume not to speak; but the upper apartments I myself examined, and I pronounce them among the greatest efforts of human industry and art.

The almost infinite number of winding passages through the different courts, excited my warmest admiration: from spacious halls I passed through smaller apartments, and from them again to large and magnificent courts, almost without end. The ceilings and walls are all of marble, the latter richly adorned with the finest sculpture; around each court are pillars of the whitest and most polished marble: at the point where the labyrinth terminates, stands a pyramid one hundred and sixty cubits high, having large figures of animals engraved on its outside, and the entrance to it is by a subterraneous path.

Wonderful as this labyrinth is, the Lake Mœris, near which it stands, is still more extraordinary: the circumference of this is three thousand six hundred stadia, or sixty schæni, which is the length of Egypt about the coast. This lake stretches itself from north to south, and in its deepest parts is two hundred cubits; it is entirely the produce of human industry, which indeed the work itself testifies, for in its centre may be seen two pyramids, each of which is two hundred cubits above and as many beneath the water: upon the summit of each is a colossal statue of marble, in a sitting attitude. The precise altitude of these pyramids is consequently four hundred cubits; these four hundred cubits, or one hundred orgyiæ, are adapted to a stadium of six hundred feet; an orgyia is six feet, or four cubits, for a foot is four palms, and a cubit six.

The waters of the lake are not supplied by springs; the ground which it occupies is of itself remarkably dry, but it communicates by a secret channel with the Nile; for six months the lake empties itself into the Nile, and the remaining six the Nile supplies the lake. During the six months in which the waters of the lake ebb, the fishery which is here carried on furnishes the royal treasury with a talent of silver every day; but as soon as the Nile begins to pour its waters into the lake, it produces no more than twenty minæ.

[The silver which the fishery of this lake produced was, says Larcher, appropriated to find the queen with clothes and perfume.]

The inhabitants affirm of this lake, that it has a subterraneous passage inclining inland towards the west, to the mountains above Memphis, where it discharges itself into the Libyan sands. I was anxious to know what became of the earth, which must somewhere have necessarily been heaped up in digging this lake; as my search after it was fruitless, I made inquiries concerning it of those who lived nearer the lake. I was the more willing to believe them, when they told me where it was carried, as I had before heard of a similar expedient used at Nineveh, an Assyrian city. Some robbers, who were solicitous to get possession of the immense treasures of Sardanapalus, King of Nineveh, which were deposited in subterraneous apartments, began from the place where they lived to dig under ground, in a direction towards them. Having taken the most accurate measurement, they continued their mine to the palace of the king; as night approached they regularly emptied the earth into the Tigris, which flows near Nineveh, and at length accomplished their purpose. A plan entirely similar was executed in Egypt, except that the work was here carried on not by night but by day; the Egyptians threw the earth into the Nile, as they dug it from the trench; thus it was regularly dispersed, and this, as they told me, was the process of the lake’s formation.[d]

Thus Herodotus explains what he but faintly understood; his translator William Beloe has added the following commentary:[a]

Herodotus, Diodorus, and Pomponius Mela differ but little in opinion concerning its extent. The design of it was probably to hinder the Nile from overflowing the country too much, which was effected by drawing off such a quantity of water, when it was apprehended that there might be an inundation sufficient to hurt the land. [The regulation of the Nile floods has been accomplished in the latter part of the nineteenth century, by dams elsewhere described.] The water, Pococke observes, is of a disagreeable muddy taste, and almost as salt as the sea, which quality it probably contracts from the nitre that is in the earth, and the salt which is every year left in the mud. The circumference of the lake at present is no more than fifty leagues. Larcher says we must distinguish betwixt the lake itself, and the canal of communication from the Nile; that the former was the work of nature, the latter of art. This canal, a most stupendous effort of art, is still entire; it is called Bahr Yusuf, the canal of Joseph. According to Savary it is forty leagues in length.

There were two other canals with sluices at their mouths, from the lake to the river, which were alternately shut and opened when the Nile increased or decreased. This work united every advantage, and supplied the deficiencies of a low inundation, by retaining water which would uselessly have been expended in the sea. It was still more beneficial when the increase of the Nile was too great, by receiving that superfluity which would have prevented seed-time. Were the canal of Joseph cleansed, the ancient mounds repaired, and the sluices restored, this lake might again serve the same purposes. The pyramids described by Herodotus no longer exist, neither are they mentioned by Strabo.

When it is considered that this was the work of an individual, and that its object was the advantage and comfort of a numerous people, it must be agreed, with M. Savary, that the king who constructed it performed a far more glorious work than either the Pyramids or the Labyrinth.[e]

The Sphinx itself is hardly more distinctly Egyptian than the ruins of Karnak, a solemn memorial of Old Thebes. The famed Egyptologist, Lepsius, visited the region and described the impression the ruins made on him as follows:[a]

THE RUINS OF KARNAK

The river here divides the broad valley into two unequal parts. On the west side it approaches close to the precipitous Libyan range, which there projects; on the eastern side it bounds a wide fruitful plain, extending as far as Medamut, a spot situated on the border of the Arabian Desert, several hours distant. On this side stood the actual town of Thebes, which seems to have been chiefly grouped round the two great temples of Karnak and Luxor, situated above half an hour apart. Karnak lies more to the north, and farther removed from the Nile; Luxor is now actually washed by the waves of the river, and may even formerly have been the harbour of the city. The west side of the river contained the necropolis of Thebes, and all the temples which stood here referred more or less to the worship of the dead; indeed, all the inhabitants of this part, which was afterwards comprehended by the Greeks under the name of Memnonia, seem to have been principally occupied with the care of the dead and their tombs. The former extent of the Memnonia may be now distinguished by Gurnah and Medinet Habu, places situated at the northern and southern extremities.

A survey of the Theban monuments naturally begins with the ruins of Karnak. Here stood the great royal temple of the hundred-gated Thebes, which was dedicated to Amen-Ra, the King of the Gods, and to the peculiar local god of the city of Amen, so called after him (No-Amen, Diospolis). Ap, along with the feminine article Tap, from which the Greeks made Thebe, was the name of one particular sanctuary of Amen. It is also often employed in hieroglyphics in the singular, or still more frequently in plural (Napu), as the name of the town; for which reason the Greeks naturally, without changing the article along with it, generally used the plural θῆβαι. The whole history of the Egyptian monarchy, after the city of Amen was raised to be one of the two royal residences in the land, is connected with this temple. All dynasties emulated in the glory of having contributed their share to the enlargement, embellishment, or restoration of this national sanctuary.

It was founded by their first king, the mighty Usertsen I, under the Old Theban Royal Dynasty (XIIth of Manetho), between 2400 and 2300 B.C., and even now exhibits some ruins in the centre of the building from that period bearing the name of this king. During the dynasties immediately succeeding, which for several centuries groaned under the yoke of the victorious hereditary enemy, this sanctuary no doubt was also deserted, and nothing has been preserved which belonged to that period. But after the first king of the XVIIIth Dynasty, Aahmes, in the seventeenth century B.C., had succeeded in his first war against the Hyksos, his two successors, Amenhotep I and Tehutimes I, built round the remains of the most ancient sanctuary a magnificent temple, with a great many chambers round the cella, and with a broad court, and pylons appertaining to it, in front of which Tehutimes I erected two obelisks. Two other pylons, with contiguous court walls, were built by the same king, at a right angle with the temple in the direction of Luxor.

Tehutimes III and his sister enlarged this temple to the back by a hall resting on fifty-six columns, besides many other chambers, which surrounded it on three sides, and were encircled by one common outer wall. The succeeding kings partly closed the temple more perfectly in front, partly built new independent temples near it, and also placed two more large pylons towards the southwest, in front of those erected by Tehutimes I, so that now four lofty pylons formed the magnificent entrance to the principal temple on this side.

But a far more splendid enlargement of the temple was executed in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries B.C. by the great Pharaohs of the XIXth Dynasty; for Seti I, the father of Ramses Meri-Amen, added in the original axis of the temple the most magnificent hall of pillars that was ever seen in Egypt or elsewhere. The stone roof, supported by 134 columns, covers a space of 164 feet in depth, and 320 feet in breadth. Each of the twelve central columns is 36 feet in circumference, and 66 feet high beneath the architrave; the other columns, 40 feet high, are 27 feet in circumference.

It is impossible to describe the overwhelming impression which is experienced upon entering for the first time into this forest of columns, and wandering from one range into the other, between the lofty figures of gods and kings on every side represented on them, projecting sometimes entirely, sometimes only in part. Every surface is covered with various sculptures, now in relief, now sunk, which were, however, only completed under the successors of the builder; most of them, indeed, by his son Ramses Meri-Amen. In front of this hypostyle hall was placed, at a later period, a great hypæthral court, 270 by 320 feet in extent, decorated on the sides only with colonnades, and entered by a magnificent pylon.

The principal part of the temple terminated here, comprising a length of 1170 feet, not including the row of sphinxes in front of its external pylon, nor the peculiar sanctuary which was placed by Ramses Meri-Amen directly beside the wall farthest back in the temple, and with the same axis, but turned in such a manner that its entrance was on the opposite side. Including these enlargements, the entire length must have amounted to nearly 2000 feet, reckoning to the most southern gate of the external wall, which surrounded the whole space, which was of nearly equal breadth. The later dynasties, who now found the principal temples completed on all sides, but who also were desirous of contributing their share to the embellishment of this centre of the Theban worship, began partly to erect separate small temples on the large level space which was surrounded by the above-mentioned enclosure-wall, partly to extend these temples also externally.[f]

In almost unfailing sequence decline follows glory; and now, having seen the ruined monuments of the Theban Kingdom, we may turn to consider the ruin of her power.[a]

THE FALL OF THE THEBAN KINGDOM

[Sidenote: [ca. 2250-1635 B.C.]]

The new family (XIIIth Dynasty) which ascended the throne with Sebekhotep I, seems, from numerous similarities of name, to have been connected with the previous dynasty; for instance, two of its rulers took the prename of Amenemhat I, and their surname, generally supposed to have been derived from the god’s name Sebek, is linked to the name of the last queen, Sebek-neferu-Ra.

Sebekhotep I appears only once in the monuments, in a measurement of the height of the Nile at Kummeh in the first year of his reign; besides him only the sixth of his successors, with the remarkable name of Amenie-Antef-Amenemhat are on the two altar tablets of the Theban Amen.

Evidently none of these reigns was of long duration; usurpations and probably also revolts of the nomarchs shook the kingdom, as at the end of the VIth dynasty.

The Turin papyrus has an incision at Ranseneb, the eleventh or twelfth successor of Sebekhotep I. Most of the rulers of the next family (about fifteen in number) are known to us only by single monuments, and we see that they still rule the united kingdoms of Usertsen III, from Tanis to Semneh, albeit in a stormy fashion. Certainly one must not estimate the accounts of their power and brilliancy too highly, as has been the case lately. They have left us only short inscriptions and statues, some of which are masterpieces of work, and albeit the former are of short reigns and very circumscribed, they are full of significance. The fact that the sixth king bore the name of Mermesha (i.e. General) shows that he was an usurper. We have two colossal statues of this ruler, found in Tanis. The tenth king, Neferhotep, was the son of a private person, brought perhaps by marriage near to the throne, and we find the name of this ruler here and there on temple buildings at Karnak and Abydos; and finally the five reigns, of which we know the duration are only very short; all these are points which cast a clear light on the condition of Egypt at the time.

The above-named Neferhotep, who reigned eleven years, seems to have been the most powerful ruler of the period; this great ruler appears with his family in inscriptions in the district of the First Cataract (Assuan, Konosso, Sehel) and in the temple of Karnak, also in a large and very interesting inscription at Abydos, and the museum of Bologna has a statue of him, as well as of his second son, Sebekhotep V (Kha-nefer-Ra). The elder, Sehathor, died after a reign of a few months. There was a colossal granite statue of Sebekhotep V found at Tanis, another far in the Nubian country on the island of Arqo, far above the Second Cataract, and the Louvre has two more. There is frequent mention of him at Karnak. The three last rulers of this house are of no great importance. Far less is known of the next rulers than of the above. Their names, probably about a hundred, are divided into dynasties and fill nearly five divisions of the Turin papyrus. Where we have dates, there are, on the whole, about twenty-two, more or less recognisable; they show that the reigns were of short duration, a few months, one or two years, and, far more rarely, three or four years. There is only one case of a longer reign, and that was in the case of the first ruler of the new house, Mer-nefer-Ra Ai, who reigned thirteen years, eight months, and eighteen days.

It follows that only a very few of these kings are known to us through the monuments, and the majority only by insignificant memorials. Their names appear only occasionally in the stone quarries at Hammamat, or in Karnak and Abydos, or they have statues, which are far inferior to those of the preceding epoch.

And yet we have from this, as well as from the preceding epoch, a line of graves and tomb steles in Abydos, as well as numerous rock tombs in El-Kab (Eleithyia), and probably also the great rock graves of Assiut (Lycopolis), which attest the position and power of the high priests of Anubis and the governors of the nome. They are as important for this period as the graves of Beni-Hasan are for the XIIth Dynasty, but unfortunately they are in a much worse condition, and much poorer in historical information.

THE FOREIGN RULE

The facts above mentioned clearly show that the Egypt of this period was governed under conditions similar to those existing in the Roman Empire in the third century after Christ.

In fact, as a fuller light is thrown upon Egyptian history, there seems to have been a whole line of dynasties, evidently local, coexistent with the chief king at Thebes. If Neferhotep and Sebekhotep V still reigned over Egypt from Nubia to Tanis, the Delta was lost under their successors. It is not an improbable theory of Stern’s that Manetho’s XIVth Dynasty of seventy-six kings from Xoïs (Sakha), in the western Delta, included Libyan foreign rulers who occupied the Delta.

But the chief invaders of this time were an Asiatic race who made a violent attack on the power of the Pharaohs at Thebes. They were the Mentu, or, as they are now called, the Mentu of Satet, that is “the barbarous Asiatic country.” They were called the Shepherds or Hyksos by their contemporaries and by Manetho.

Of what race the Hyksos were, is not known. Some points in the account show that we have here to do with an invasion of Bedouin races, one of those frequent raids upon cultivated land by nomads of the desert.

Among the latest opinions on the subject is one that ascribes to the Hyksos a partly Semitic and partly Turanian origin, and accounts for their settling in Egypt by their being crowded out of western Asia in the numerous race conflicts of which that part of the world was the arena. The expelled people could find no resting-place among the wild hordes of Syria, and moved on to the peaceful and fertile valley of the Nile.

It is certain that Semitic and Canaanitish, not Arabic, elements penetrated to Egypt under the Hyksos. The Egyptian language was subsequently sprinkled with Canaanitish words; the specifically Canaanitish divinities Baal Astarte (in the feminine form), Anit, Reshpu, etc., were afterwards extensively worshipped in the eastern Delta, and in the whole of Egypt. In the next centuries we find Canaanitish proper names everywhere.

More accurate information on the invasion of the Hyksos is wanting. It is certain that they settled in Lower Egypt, where they founded a state which they ruled according to the Egyptian fashion. Their chief seats were Avaris (Ha-Uar), the border fortress built or enlarged by them, which is Pelusium, or a place a little to the south; and Tanis, the powerful capital of the eastern Delta, ornamented by numerous buildings of the XIIth Dynasty and the real residence of the Hyksos kings.

It seems, moreover, certain that Memphis, and even the Fayum, remained in their hands; but Upper Egypt was at most conquered only temporarily. Here ruled, during this epoch, the kings mentioned in the five divisions of the Turin papyrus, and their successors, perhaps as tributary vassals, since they occasionally bear the title of Haq, that is, Prince.

King Meneptah, the son of the great Ramses, speaks of this time as “the epoch of the kings of Lower Egypt, since this land Qem was in their (power), and the accursed foe (Aad, the Plague) ruled at the time when the kings of Upper Egypt (were powerless).”

It is very possible that the Hyksos pillaged Egypt in their conquests, but Manetho’s assertion that they systematically destroyed the temples and monuments is contradicted by the following facts. The chief god they worshipped was Sutekh, or Set with the surname of “the Golden,” by which the Sun-Baal is understood. They built him a great temple in Tanis, and his cult was followed in the eastern Delta until later times. He was also called “Lord of Avaris” at this time.

The Egyptian gods were, however, retained; the kings called themselves “sons of Ra” and, like the Egyptian rulers, they chiefly begin their throne names with “Ra.” Egyptian culture was generally adopted by the foreigners.

The fact that we have a mathematical handbook under the rule of a Hyksos king, written “according to old copies,” and that we have a scribe’s palette, presented by the same king to the scribe Atu, shows that writing was in vogue under their rule. The monuments ascribed to them, particularly the sphinxes with kings’ heads, found at Tanis, a group of two men before an altar with fish, the piece of a statue from Mit-Fares in the Fayum, differ widely from the Egyptian type in features and apparel, but the work is evidently that of Egyptian artists, and most carefully executed.

The length of the rule of the Hyksos is as unknown to us as the number of their kings. Manetho makes two dynasties (Dynasties XV and XVI) rule, which, according to Josephus, reigned 511 years altogether over the whole of Egypt, whilst the tables of Africanus give 284 to the XVth (an evident misquotation of Josephus 260) and 518 to the XVIth. For the XVIIth Dynasty, according to Africanus, 43 Shepherds and 43 Theban kings ruled for 151 years; and this is the era of the struggle for freedom, which ended with the expulsion of the Hyksos. It is impossible for these figures to be correct, but there is no means of getting at the historical truth, even approximately. It can be said, however, that according to the monuments there is no gap of five hundred or more years between the end of the XIIIth Dynasty and the beginning of the New Kingdom. The pedigrees of the nomarchs and nobles of El-Kab (Eileithyia) give names after a few generations, which are undoubtedly contemporaneous with the XIIIth and XIVth Dynasties.

The monuments of the first rulers of the New Kingdom in Thebes show the closest connection with the more ancient Theban, and strikingly so with those of the XIth Dynasty. There is, certainly between the time of Amenemhat and Sebekhotep and the New Kingdom, no distinctive break in culture and art similar to that between the Old Kingdom of Memphis and the XIIth Dynasty.

Manetho’s figures have evidently to be very considerably reduced. Some of the short-lived rulers of the Egyptian dynasties must be regarded as contemporaneous with the Hyksos kings and connected directly with the first rulers of the New Kingdom who undertook the struggle for emancipation.

If we allow 150 years for the first kings of the XIII Dynasty,--and dates are inevitable,--about four hundred years would be reckoned from the end of the XIIth Dynasty to the expulsion of the Hyksos under Aahmes. Moreover, we also know that a Hyksos king, Nub, reigned four hundred years before Ramses II.[g]

It will be clear to the reader, from the account just given, that the period of the XIIIth-XVIIth Dynasties is one of which we have very little knowledge. Not only is the Turin papyrus here much broken, but the intrusion of the Hyksos has greatly confused the knowledge we have indirectly from Manetho through Josephus, Africanus, Eusebius, and others. Petrie has made a careful study of the subject, and his conclusions are, in brief, as follows:

1. The Hyksos were not contemporaneous with the 453 years of the XIIIth Dynasty.

2. There is a period of about 100 years during the XIVth Egyptian Dynasty during which the Hyksos gradually came into power, and

3. The XVth Dynasty mentioned by Africanus and Eusebius represents the 260 years of the great Hyksos kings, while Africanus has included this period again in his XVIth Dynasty of 518 years. On the other hand, the XVIth Dynasty mentioned by Eusebius is the Egyptian XVIth of 190 years, in which the native rulers persisted, but were ruled and almost eclipsed by the invaders.

4. The XVIIth Dynasty of both Africanus and Eusebius (it will be remembered that Josephus dealt only with the Hyksos and neglected the contemporary Egyptian sovereigns) is a joint dynasty of Hyksos and Egyptians. The number of its kings is quite unknown, and its period witnessed the struggle of the two races which culminated in the triumph of Aahmes I (XVIIIth Dynasty) and the restoration of the old race.

The following table, compiled from Petrie,[h] and keeping his dates, will show the situation as viewed by this eminent authority:

========================================================================= Date| | |Date| | B.C.|Egyptian Dynasty| Years |B.C.| Hyksos Dynasty |Years ----+----------------+---------+----+------------------------------+----- 2565|XIII, (60 kings)| | | | 2112| | 453 |2112|14 years before Hyksos came to| | | | | power. | | | |2098| | | | | | | |XIV, (76 kings) | 184} | |Unknown period of 100 years} | | | } | | during which Hyksos } | | | } | | harried Egyptians. } | | | } |1998| } | 1928| | }525 | |XV, (6 great Hyksos) 260 } |511 |XVI, (8 kings) | 190} | | years. } | 1738| | } |1738| } | |XVII, (? kings) | 151} | |XVII, (? kings) 151 years. } | 1587| | } |1587| } | =========================================================================

THE HYKSOS RULE; THE SEVENTEENTH DYNASTY

[Sidenote: [ca. 2000-1635 B.C.]]

It has been most fortunate for our study of antiquity that Josephus’[i] account of the early history of his people was received by the Greeks with doubt and denial. In an impassioned answer to his critics the great Jewish historian has preserved the only account we possess of the appearance and fortunes of the Hyksos in Egypt, although of course he is wrong in his theory that these people were Hebrews.

He quotes from Manetho[j]: “There was a king of ours whose name was Timæus.” (The identity of this king has never been determined with certainty. It may have been Amenemhat IV (XIIth Dynasty) or Ra Amenemhat, the third king of the XIIIth.) “Under him it came to pass, I know not how, that God was averse to us, and there came, after a surprising manner, men of ignoble birth out of the eastern parts, and had boldness enough to make an expedition into our country, and with ease subdued it by force, yet without our hazarding a battle with them.”

It is possible that this campaign of unresisted conquest was accomplished with the aid of factors hitherto unknown on the African continent: the war chariot and the horse.[a]

“So when they had gotten those that governed us under their power, they afterwards burnt down our cities and demolished the temples of the gods, and used all the inhabitants after a most barbarous manner. At length they made one of themselves king, whose name was Salatis; he lived also at Memphis and made both the upper and lower regions pay tribute, and left garrisons in places that were the most proper for them. He chiefly aimed to secure the eastern parts, as foreseeing that the Assyrians, who had then the greatest power, would be desirous of that kingdom and invade them; and as he found in the Saïte [Sethroite] nome, a city very proper for his purpose, and which lay upon the Bubastic channel, called Avaris; this he rebuilt and made very strong by walls, and by a most numerous garrison of two hundred and forty thousand armed men to keep it. Thither Salatis came in summer-time, partly to gather his corn, and pay his soldiers their wages, and partly to exercise his armed men and thereby to terrify foreigners. When this man had reigned thirteen years, after him reigned another, whose name was Beon [or Bnon], for forty-four years, and after him reigned another, called Apachnas, thirty-six years and seven months; after him Apophis reigned sixty-one years, and then Ianias fifty years and one month, after all these reigned Assis forty-nine years and two months. And these six were the first rulers among them, who were all along making war with the Egyptians, and were very desirous gradually to destroy them to the very roots. This whole nation was called Hyksos, i.e. Shepherd kings. These people and their descendants kept possession of Egypt 511 years.

“And after this the kings of the Thebaïd and of the other parts of Egypt made an insurrection against the Shepherds, and a terrible and long war was made between them.

“Under a king whose name was Alisphragmuthosis, the Shepherds were subdued, and were indeed driven out of other parts of Egypt, but were shut up in a place that contained ten thousand acres; this place was named Avaris.

“The Shepherds built a wall around all this place, which was a large and strong wall, and this in order to keep all their possessions and their prey within a place of strength, but that Thummosis, the son of Alisphragmuthosis made an attempt to take them by force and by siege, with four hundred and eighty thousand men to lie round about them; but that upon his despair of taking the place by that siege, they came to an agreement with them, that they should leave Egypt and go without any harm to be done them, whithersoever they would; and after this agreement was made, they went away with their whole families and effects, not fewer in number than two hundred and forty thousand, and took their journey from Egypt, through the wilderness, for Syria; but as they were in fear of the Assyrians, who had then the dominion over Asia, they built a city in that country which is now called Judah, and that large enough to contain this great number of men, and called it Hierosolyma (Jerusalem).”[i]

The modern historian is brought face to face with the fact that for the period of the XIIIth to the XVIIIth Dynasties there is even less material and information than for that other “dark age” extending from the VIIth to the XIth. The main facts of our knowledge concerning the XIIIth Dynasty have been given in the preceding chapter. The Hyksos were settled in the land but had not yet come to power. The Pharaohs were still in full possession of Upper and Lower Egypt.

This cannot have been the case with the XIVth, which Manetho tells us had its capital at Xoïs (Sakha, a town on the western side of the central Delta), from which it would seem probable that the invaders drove the ruling house to the west instead of southward, up the Nile, perhaps because the broad river and its wide marsh-land were found to be the best means of defence against a people acquainted hitherto with only small and insignificant streams. The Turin papyrus gives eighty-five names for this dynasty; Manetho’s figure is seventy-six, and of only two of them are there even the slightest remains. For the 184 years this dynasty is said to have ruled, the average length of reign is therefore only 2½ years. How may we explain this? There seems to be little doubt that the untrammelled rule of this dynasty lasted but a few years, perhaps less than twenty. By degrees the Hyksos chiefs attained influence and power, until, as Professor Petrie says, the native kings “were merely the puppets of the Hyksos power, the heads of the native administration which was maintained for taxing purposes; like the last emperors of Rome, whose reigns also average two years and a half, or like the Coptic administration of Egypt, maintained during the supremacy of Islam in Egypt as being the only practical way of working the country. Later on, when the Hyksos had established a firm hold on all the land and had a strong rule of their own, these native viceroys were permitted a longer tenure of power, and formed the XVIth Dynasty contemporary with the great Hyksos kings.”

The first Hyksos kings seem, from the very beginning, to have appreciated fully that it was better to exploit the country than to devastate it, and to this end they retained the temple scribes and other officials of the native rulers. The influence of the organised government soon bore effect.

All the pomp and circumstance of Pharaoh’s court were revived; the new sovereigns had become civilised, and they managed, by adopting the titles of the Amenemhats and Usertsens, to legitimise themselves as descendants of Horus and “sons of Ra.” The local religions were not interfered with, but the chief object of their worship was Baal, “the lord of all, a cruel and savage warrior,” and from his great similarity to Set, “the brother and enemy of Osiris,” Baal and Set soon became identified, and Set was now called Sutekh, “the Great Set.”

The six great Hyksos kings--those mentioned in the Josephus-Manetho account--may be considered as composing the XVth Dynasty. Their rule of nearly 260 years marked the zenith of Hyksos power. There was as yet no sign of rebellion amongst the conquered people.

But when we come to the so-called XVIIth Dynasty the years are no longer tranquil and authority undisputed. As stated in the preceding chapter, it is the better plan to regard this dynasty as a joint one of Shepherds and Egyptians, for its rise is wholly lost to sight under the Hyksos power. We know that the Hyksos Apophis (Apepa I) ruled the whole land, for his name is found far in the south; but in the days of his namesake Apophis (Apepa II), some three hundred years later, Thebes was practically independent. The compilers of the lists make mention of unsuccessful attempts at rebellion on the part of the Theban vassals, for some time before Apepa II, but this ruler had to meet a decisive revolt under Seqenen-Ra-Taa I, who was haq (prince or regent) over the South. There is no information as to the cause of the outbreak or its consequences, but the tale of “Apepa and Seqenen-Ra,” so popular with readers five hundred years later, asserts that the cause of the quarrel was a religious one, since Thebes refused to worship no other gods but Sutekh. Seqenen-Ra would seem to have been the descendant of a branch of the royal Egyptian line, settled in the far south to escape the Hyksos oppression, and which, intermarrying with Ethiopian blood, had become possessed of the characteristics of the dark Berber race. With the decay of the Hyksos power, these people gradually worked their way northward from Nubia, and began the re-winning of the land for the ancient line of Pharaohs. For eighty years after the death of Assis we have no names of these Berbers, but finally Seqenen-Ra I, in the days of Apepa II, declared himself “Son of the Sun and King of the Two Egypts,” and the princes of the Saïd made common cause with him. Now the native rulers of the XVIIth Dynasty free themselves from any confusion with the Hyksos, and the strife has become a serious one. A second Seqenen-Ra, bearing the same family name Taa, followed the first, and then a third, whose wife Aah-hotep is one of the great queens of Egyptian history, further celebrated as the mother of the honoured Nefert-ari. Aah-hotep in all probability was married before, to an Egyptian and not a Berber husband, and by him was the mother of an elder Aahmes, who died prematurely, and his three brothers, Kames, Sekhent-neb-Ra, and a second Aahmes, the Amasis of the Greeks, who founded the XVIIIth Dynasty.

Professor Maspero, one of the greatest authorities for this period of Egyptian history, holds to the belief that Seqenen-Ra-Taa III was the sole husband of Aah-hotep, and consequently the father of Aahmes, his brothers, and Nefert-ari. Dr. Petrie, however, one of the most recent of investigators, says: “Aahmes is always (except once) shown of the same colour as other Egyptians, while Nefert-ari is almost always coloured black. And any symbolic reason invented to account for such colouring applies equally to her brother, who is nevertheless not black. As Nefert-ari was especially venerated as the ancestress of the dynasty, we must suppose that she was in the unbroken female line of descent, in which the royal succession appears to have been reckoned, and hence her black colour is more likely to have come through her father. The only conclusion, if these points should be established, is that the Queen Aah-hotep had two husbands; the one black (the father of Nefert-ari), the celebrated Seqenen-Ra, who was of Berber type; the other an Egyptian, the father of Aahmes and his elder brothers.”

There is little known of Aah-hotep’s origin beyond that she was of pure royal descent, but there are documents which attest to her very long and eventful life. In the tenth year of Amenhotep I she was still active and must have been nearly ninety years old; and if a stele found at Iufi is to be credited, she was alive, and about a hundred, under her great-grandson Tehutimes I.

Aah-hotep would have had every right to rule as sovereign, but she willingly gave over the power to her sons. When she died her body was embalmed with special care, and a beautifully gilded mummy-case was made for her. Within this coffin was placed the jewelry, presents from husband and sons, which until recently has been the most famous find of its kind. Most of the trinkets are for feminine use: bracelets, solid and hollow gold ankle rings, others of gold beads, lapis lazuli, cornelian, and green feldspar, a fan with a gold inlaid handle, a mirror of gilt bronze with handle of ebony, etc.

This wonderful woman in the course of her long life must have witnessed the whole drama of the restoration. Born when the heel of the Hyksos was still felt in the land, she closed her eyes, not only with her country free and her family firmly seated on the throne, but with the Syrian fatherland of the hated usurpers under heavy tribute, the fruits of the conquests of her own descendants to the third generation.

Kames and Sekhnet-neb-Ra quickly succeeded Seqenen-Ra III. The struggle against the Shepherd kings was kept up, and when Aahmes found himself Pharaoh, nearly the whole of the country was free, and only the provinces about Ha-Uar (Avaris) remained to the Hyksos; but here they were prepared to make a desperate stand.[a]

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