Chapter XIV: Part 14

The duration of the reigns in several dynasties is fairly well known from the incontrovertible evidence of contemporary monuments. The XXVIth Dynasty, which lasted 139 years, is particularly clear, and synchronisms fix its regnal dates to the years B.C. within an error of one or two years at most. The lengths of several reigns in the XIIth, XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties are known, and the sum total for the XIIth Dynasty is preserved better than any other in the Turin Papyrus, which was written under the XIXth Dynasty. The succession and number of the kings are also ascertained for other dynasties, together with many regnal dates, but very serious gaps exist in the records of the Egyptian monuments, the worst being between the XIIth and the XVIIIth Dynasties, between the XIth and the VIth, and at Dynasties I.-III. For the chronology before the time of the XXVIth Dynasty Herodotus's history is quite worthless. Manetho alone of all authorities offers a complete chronology from the 1st Dynasty to the XXXth. In the case of the six kings of the XXVIth Dynasty, Africanus, the best of his excerptors, gives correct figures for five reigns, but attributes six instead of sixteen years to Necho; the other excerptors have wrong numbers throughout. For the XIXth Dynasty Manetho's figures are wrong wherever we can check them; the names, too, are seriously faulty. In the XVIIIth Dynasty he has too many names and few are clearly identifiable, while the numbers are incomprehensible. In the XIIth Dynasty the number of the kings is correct and many of the names can be justified, but the reign-lengths are nearly, if not quite, all wrong. The summations of years for the Dynasties XII. and XVIII. are likewise wrong. It seems, therefore, that the known texts of Manetho, serviceable as they have been in the reconstruction of Egyptian history, cannot be employed as a serious guide to the early chronology, since they are faulty wherever we can check them, even in the XXVIth Dynasty whose kings were so celebrated among the Greeks. There remain the astronomical data. Of these, the Sothic date furnished by a calendar in the Ebers Papyrus of the 9th year of Amenophis I. (when interpreted on the assumption stated above), and another at Elephantine of an uncertain year of Tethmosis III., tally well with each other (1550-1546, 1474-1470 B.C.) and with the Babylonian synchronism (not yet accurately determined) under Amenhotp IV. (Akhenaton). Another Sothic date of the 7th year of Senwosri III. on a Berlin papyrus from Kahun, similarly interpreted (1882-1878 B.C.), gives for the XIIth Dynasty a range from 2000 to 1788 B.C. This (discovered by L. Borchardt in 1899) seems to offer a welcome ray, piercing the obscurity of early Egyptian chronology; guided by it the historian Ed. Meyer, and K. Sethe have framed systems of chronology in close agreement with each other, reaching back to the 1st Dynasty at about 3400 B.C. To Meyer is further due a calculation that the Egyptian calendar was introduced in 4241-4238 B.C.[19] Their results in general have been adopted by the "Berlin school," including Erman, Steindorff (in Baedeker's _Egypt_) and Breasted in America. Nevertheless many Egyptologists are unwilling to accept the new chronology, the chief obstacle being that it allows so short an interval for the six dynasties between the XIIth and the XVIIIth. If the XIIth Dynasty ended about 1790 B.C. and the XVIIIth began about 1570 B.C., taking what seems to be the utmost interval that it permits, 220 years have to contain a crowd of kings of whom nearly 100 are already known by name from monuments and papyri, while fresh names are being added annually to the long list; the shattered fragments of the last columns in the Turin Papyrus show space for 150 or perhaps 180 kings of this period, apparently without reaching the XVIIth Dynasty. An estimate of 160 to 200 kings would therefore not be excessive. The dates that have come down to us are very few; the only ones known from the Hyksos period are of a 12th and a 33rd year. In the Turin Papyrus two reign-lengths of less than a year, seven others of less than five years each, one of ten years and one of thirteen seem attributable to the XIIIth and XIVth Dynasties. Probably most of the reigns were short, as Manetho also decidedly indicates. It is possible that the compiler of the Turin Papyrus, who excluded contemporary reigns in the period between the VIth and the XIIth Dynasties, here admitted such; nor is a correspondingly large number of kings in so short a period without analogies in history. Professor Petrie, however, thinks it best, while accepting the evidence of the Sirius date, to suppose further that a whole Sothic period of 1460 years had passed in the interval, making a total of 1650 years for the six dynasties in place of 220 years. This, however, seems greatly in excess of probability, and several Egyptologists familiar with excavation are willing to accept Meyer's figures on archaeological grounds. To the present writer it seems that Meyer's chronology provides a convenient working theory, but involves such an improbability in regard to the interval between the XIIth and the XVIIIth Dynasties that the interpretation of the Sothic date on which it is founded must be viewed with suspicion until clear facts are found to corroborate it. Corroboration has been sought by Mahler, Sethe and Petrie in the dates of new moons, of warlike and other expeditions, and of high Nile, but their evidence so far is too vague and uncertain to affect the question seriously. It is remarkable that no records of eclipses are known from Egyptian documents. The interesting date of the harvest at El Bersha, quoted by Meyer in Breasted, _Records_, i. p. 48, confirms the Sothic date for the XIIth Dynasty in some measure, but it belongs to the same age, and therefore its evidence would be equally vitiated with the other by any subsequent alteration in the Egyptian calendar. Before the discovery of the Kahun Sothic date, Professor Petrie put the end of the XIIth Dynasty at 2565 B.C.; in 1884 even Meyer had suggested 1930 B.C. as its _minimum_ date, thus allowing 400 years at the least for the period from the XIIIth Dynasty to the XVIIth.

+----------+-----------+-------+------------+----------+---------+
| Dynasty. | Wiedemann | Meyer | Petrie | Breasted | Maspero |
| | 1884. | 1884. | 1905-1906. | 1906. | 1904. |
+----------+-----------+-------+------------+----------+---------+
| XIX. | 1490 | 1320 |(1328), 1322| 1350 | |
| XX. | 1280 | 1180 | 1202 | 1200 | |
| XXI. | 1100 | 1060 | 1102 | 1090 | |
| XXII. | 975 | 930 | 952 | 945 | |
| XXIII. | 810 | | 755 | 745 | |
| XXIV. | 720 | | 721 | 718 | |
| XXV. | 715 | 728 | 715 | 712 | |
| XXVI. | 664 | 663 | 664 | 663 | |
| XXVII. | 525 | 525 | 525 | 525 | 425 |
| XXVIII. | 415 | | 405 | | c. 405 |
| XXIX. | 408 | | 399 | | 399 |
| XXX. | 387 | | 378 | | 380 |
| Ochus | 350 | | 342 | | 342 |
+----------+-----------+-------+------------+----------+---------+

Beyond the XIIth Dynasty estimates must again be vague. The spacing of the years on the Palermo stone has given rise to some calculations for the early dynasties. Others are grounded on the dates of certain operations which are likely to have taken place at particular seasons of the year so that they can be roughly calculated on the Sothic basis, others on Manetho's figures, average lengths of reigns, evidence of the Turin Papyrus, &c.

Table I. page 79 shows the chronology of the first nineteen dynasties, according to recent authorities, before and after the discovery of the Kahun Sothic date.

The dates of the earlier dynasties in this table are always intended to be only approximate; for instance, Meyer in 1904 allowed an error of 100 years either of excess or deficiency in the dates he assigned to the dynasties from the Xth upwards.

The other dynasties are dated as in Table II. by different authorities.

See Ed. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_, Bd. i. (Stuttgart, 1884),
_Geschichte des alten Agyptens_ (1887), _Agyptische Chronologie_
(_Abhandl._ of Prussian Academy) (Berlin, 1904, with the supplement
_Nachtrage zur agypt. Chronologie_, ib. 1907); K. Sethe, "Beitrage zur
altesten Geschichte Agyptens" (in his _Untersuchungen_, Bd. iii.)
(Leipzig, 1905); J. H. Breasted, _Ancient Records of Egypt_,
"Historical Documents," vol. i. (Chicago, 1906); W. M. F. Petrie, _A
History of Egypt_, vol. i. (London, 1884), vol. iii. (1905),
_Researches in Sinai_ (London, 1906); G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne
des peuples de l'orient_ (Paris, 1904); A. Wiedemann, _Agyptische
Geschichte_ (Gotha, 1884); articles by Mahler and others in the
_Zeitschrift fur agyptische Sprache and Orientalistische
Literaturzeitung_ (recent years). (F. Ll. G.)

III. HISTORY

1. _From the Earliest Times to the Moslem Conquest._

In the absence of a strict chronology, the epochs of Pharaonic history are conveniently reckoned in dynasties according to Manetho's scheme, and these dynasties are grouped into longer periods:--the Old Kingdom (Dynasties I. to VIII.), including the Earliest Dynasties (I. to III.) and the Pyramid Period (Dynasties IV. to VI.); the Middle Kingdom (Dynasties IX. to XVII.), including the Heracleopolite Dynasties (IX. to X.) and the Hyksos Period (Dynasties XV. to XVII.); the New Empire (Dynasties XVIII. to XX.); the Deltaic Dynasties (Dynasties XXI. to XXXI.), including the Saite and Persian Periods (Dynasties XXVI. to XXXI.). The conquest by Alexander ushers in the Hellenistic age, comprising the periods of Ptolemaic and Roman rule.

_The Prehistoric Age._--One of the most striking features of recent Egyptology is the way in which the earliest ages of the civilization, before the conventional Egyptian style was formed, have been illustrated by the results of excavation. Until 1895 there seemed little hope of reaching the records of those remote times, although it was plain that the civilization had developed in the Nile valley for many centuries before the IVth Dynasty, beyond which the earliest known monuments scarcely reached. Since that year, however, there has been a steady flow of discoveries in prehistoric and early historic cemeteries, and, partly in consequence of this, monuments already known, such as the annals of the Palermo stone, have been made articulate for the beginnings of history in Egypt.

It is probable that certain rudely chipped flints, so-called eoliths, in the alluvial gravels (formed generally at the mouth of wadis opening on to the Nile) at Thebes and elsewhere, are the work of primitive man; but it has been shown that such are produced also by natural forces in the rush of torrents. On the surface of the desert, at the borders of the valley, palaeolithic implements of well-defined form are not uncommon, and bear the marks of a remote antiquity. In some cases they appear to lie where they were chipped on the sites of flint factories. Geologists and anthropologists are not yet agreed on the question whether the climate and condition of the country have undergone large changes since these implements were deposited. As yet none have been found in such association with animal remains as would help in deciding their age, nor have any implements been discovered in rock-shelters or in caves.

Of neolithic remains, arrowheads and other implements are found in some numbers in the deserts. In the Fayum region, about the borders of the ancient Lake of Moeris and beyond, they are particularly abundant and interesting in their forms. But their age is uncertain; some may be contemporary with the advanced culture of the XIIth Dynasty in the Nile valley. Definite history on the other hand has been gained from the wonderful series of "prehistoric" cemeteries excavated by J. de Morgan, Petrie, Reisner and others on the desert edgings of the cultivated alluvium. The succession of archaeological types revealed in them has been tabulated by Petrie in his _Diospolis Parva_; and the detailed publication of Reisner's unusually careful researches is bringing much new light on the questions involved, amongst other things showing the exact point at which the "prehistoric" series merges into the Ist Dynasty, for, as might be surmised, in many cases the prehistoric cemeteries continued in use under the earliest dynasties. The finest pottery, often painted but all hand-made without the wheel, belongs to the prehistoric period; so also do the finest flint implements, which, in the delicacy and exactitude of their form and flaking, surpass all that is known from other countries. Metal seems to be entirely absent from the earliest type of graves, but immediately thereafter copper begins to appear (bronze is hardly to be found before the XIIth Dynasty). The paintings on the vases show boats driven by oars and sails rudely figured, and the boats bear emblematic standards or ensigns. The cemeteries are found throughout Upper and Middle Egypt, but as yet have not been met with in the Delta or on its borders. This might be accounted for by the inhabitants of Lower Egypt having practised a different mode of disposing of the dead, or by their cemeteries being differently placed.

Tradition, mythology and later customs make it possible to recover a scrap of the political history of that far-off time. Menes, the founder of the Ist Dynasty, united the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt. In the prehistoric period, therefore, these two realms were separate. The capital of Upper Egypt was Nekheb, now represented by the ruins of El Kab, with the royal residence across the river at Nekhen (Hieraconpolis); that of Lower Egypt was at Buto (Puto or Dep) in the marshes, with the royal residence in the quarter called Pe. Nekhebi, goddess of El Kab, represented the Upper or Southern Kingdom, which was also under the tutelage of the god Seth, the goddess Buto and the god Horus similarly presiding over the Lower Kingdom. The royal god in the palace of each was a hawk or Horus. The spirits of the deceased kings were honoured respectively as the jackal-headed spirits of Nekhen and the hawk-headed spirits of Pe. As we hear also of the "spirits of On" it is probable that Heliopolis was at one time capital of a kingdom. In after days the prehistoric kings were known as "Worshippers of Horus" and in Manetho's list they are the [Greek: nekues] "Dead," and [Greek: heroes] "Heroes," being looked upon as intermediate between the divine dynasties and those of human kings. It is impossible to estimate the duration of the period represented by the prehistoric cemeteries; that the two kingdoms existed throughout unchanged is hardly probable.

According to the somatologist Elliott Smith, the most important change in the physical character of the people of Upper Egypt, in the entire range of Egyptian archaeology, took place at the beginning of the dynastic period; and he accounts for this by the mingling of the Lower with the Upper Egyptian population, consequent on the uniting of the two countries under one rule. From remains of the age of the IVth Dynasty he is able to define to some extent the type of the population of Lower Egypt as having a better cranial and muscular development than that of Upper Egypt, probably through immigration from Syria. The advent of the dynasties, however, produced a quickening rather than a dislocation in the development of civilization.

It is doubtful whether we possess any writing of the prehistoric age. A few names of the kings of Lower Egypt are preserved in the first line of the Palermo stone, but no annals are attached to them. Petrie considers that one of the kings buried at Abydos, provisionally called Nar-mer and whose real name may be Mer or Beza, preceded Menes; of him there are several inscribed records, notably a magnificent carved and inscribed slate palette found at Hieraconpolis, with figures of the king and his vizier, war-standards and prisoners. To identify him with Bezau (Boethos) of the IInd Dynasty runs counter to much archaeological evidence. Sethe places him next after Menes and some would identify him with that king. Another inscribed palette may be pre-dynastic; it perhaps mentions a king named "Scorpion."

The earliest dynasties.

_The Old Kingdom._--The names of a number of kings attributable to the Ist Dynasty are known from their tombs at Abydos. Unfortunately, they are almost exclusively Horus titles [HRG: tyw-O33], in place of the personal names by which they were recorded in the lists of Abydos and Manetho; some, however, of the latter are found, and prove that the scribes of the New Kingdom were unable to read them correctly. Important changes and improvements took place in the writing even during the Ist Dynasty. The personal name of Menes [HRG: mn] is given by one only of many relics of a king whose Horus-name was Aha, "the Fighter." Doubts have been expressed about the identification with Menes, but it is strongly corroborated by the very archaic style of the remains. The name of Aha (Menes) was found in two tombs, one at Nagada north of Thebes and nearly opposite the road to the Red Sea, the other at Abydos. Manetho makes the Ist Dynasty Thinite, this being the capital of the nome in which Abydos lay. Upper Egypt always had precedence over Lower Egypt, and it seems clear that Menes came from the former and conquered the latter. According to tradition he founded Memphis which lay on the frontier of his conquest; probably he resided there as well as at Abydos; at any rate relics of one of the later kings of the Ist Dynasty have already been recognized in its vast necropolis. Of the eight kings of the Ist Dynasty, three--the fifth, sixth and seventh in the Ramesside list of Abydos--are positively identified by tomb-remains from Abydos, and others are scarcely less certain. Two of the kings have also left tablets at the copper and turquoise mines of Wadi Maghara in Sinai. The royal tombs are built of brick, but one of them, that of Usaphais, had its floor of granite from Elephantine. They must have been filled with magnificent furniture and provisions of every kind, including annual record-tablets of the reigns, carved in ivory and ebony. From a fragment on the Palermo stone it is clear that material existed as late as the Vth Dynasty for a brief note of the height of the Nile and other particulars in each year of the reign of these kings.

The IInd Dynasty of Manetho appears to have been separated from the Ist even on the Palermo stone; it also was Thinite, and the tombs of several of its nine (?) kings were found at Abydos. The IIIrd Dynasty is given as Memphite by Manetho. Two of the kings built huge mastaba-tombs at Bet Khallaf near Abydos, but the architect and learned scribe Imhotp designed for one of these two kings, named Zoser, a second and mightier monument at Memphis, the great step-pyramid of Sakkara. In Ptolemaic times Imhotp was deified, and the traditional importance of Zoser is shown by a forged grant of the Dodecaschoenus to the cataract god Khnum, purporting to be from his reign, but in reality dating from the Ptolemaic age. With Snefru, at the end of this dynasty, we reach the beginning of Egyptian history as it was known before the recent discoveries. Monuments and written records are henceforth more numerous and important, and the Palermo annals show a fuller scale of record. The events in the three years that are preserved include a successful raid upon the negroes, and the construction of ships and gates of cedar-wood which must have been brought from the forests of the Lebanon. Snefru also set up a tablet at Wadi Maghara in Sinai. He built two pyramids, one of them at Medum in steps, the other, probably in the perfected form, at Dahshur, both lying between Memphis and the Fayum.

The pyramid period.

Pyramids did not cease to be built in Egypt till the New Kingdom; but from the end of the IIIrd to the VIth Dynasty is pre-eminently the time when the royal pyramid in stone was the chief monument left by each successive king. Zoser and Snefru have been already noticed. The personal name enclosed in a cartouche [HRG] is henceforth the commonest title of the king. We now reach the IVth Dynasty containing the famous names of Cheops (q.v.), Chephren (Khafre) and Mycerinus (Menkeure), builders respectively of the Great, the Second and the Third Pyramids of Giza. In the best art of this time there was a grandeur which was never again attained. Perhaps the noblest example of Egyptian sculpture in the round is a diorite statue of Chephren, one of several found by Mariette in the so-called Temple of the Sphinx. This "temple" proves to be a monumental gate at the lower end of the great causeway leading to the plateau on which the pyramids were built. A king Dedefre, between Cheops and Chephren, built a pyramid at Abu-Roash. Shepseskaf is one of the last in the dynasty. Tablets of most of these kings have been found at the mines of Wadi Maghara. In the neighbourhood of the pyramids there are numerous mastabas of the court officials with fine sculpture in the chapels, and a few decorated tombs from the end of this centralized dynasty of absolute monarchs are known in Upper Egypt. A tablet which describes Cheops as the builder of various shrines about the Great Sphinx has been shown to be a priestly forgery, but the Sphinx itself may have been carved out of the rock under the splendid rule of the IVth Dynasty.

The Vth Dynasty is said to be of Elephantine, but this must be a mistake. Its kings worshipped Re, the sun, rather than Horus, as their ancestor, and the title [HRG: zA-hrw] "son of the Sun" began to be written by them before the cartouche containing the personal name, while another "solar" cartouche, containing a name compounded with Re, followed the title [HRG: sw:t-bit:t] "king of Upper and Lower Egypt." Sahure and the other kings of the dynasty built magnificent temples with obelisks dedicated to Re, one of which, that of Neuserre at Abusir, has been thoroughly explored. The marvellous tales of the Westcar Papyrus, dating from the Middle Kingdom, narrate how three of the kings were born of a priestess of Re. The pyramids of several of the kings are known. The early ones are at Abusir, and the best preserved of the pyramid temples, that of Sahure, excavated by the German Orient-Gesellschaft, in its architecture and sculptured scenes has revealed an astonishingly complete development of art and architecture as well as of warlike enterprise by sea and land at this remote period; the latest pyramid belonging to the Vth Dynasty, that of Unas at Sakkara, is inscribed with long ritual and magical texts. Exquisitely sculptured tombs of this time are very numerous at Memphis and are found throughout Upper Egypt. Of work in the traditional temples of the country no trace remains, probably because, being in limestone, it has all perished. The annals of the Palermo stone were engraved and added to during this dynasty; the chief events recorded for the time are gifts and endowments for the temples. Evidently priestly influence was strong at the court. Expeditions to Sinai and Puoni (Punt) are commemorated on tablets.

The VIth Dynasty if not more vigorous was more articulate; inscribed tombs are spread throughout the country. The most active of its kings was the third, named Pepi or Phiops, from whose pyramid at Sakkara the capital, hitherto known as "White Walls," derived its later name of Memphis (MN-NFR, Mempi); a tombstone from Abydos celebrates the activity of a certain Una during the reigns of Pepi and his successor in organizing expeditions to the Sinai peninsula and south Palestine, and in transporting granite from Elephantine and other quarries. Herkhuf, prince of Elephantine and an enterprising leader of caravans to the south countries both in Nubia and the Libyan oases, flourished under Merenre and Pepi II. called Neferkere. On one occasion he brought home a dwarf dancer from the Sudan, described as being like one brought from Puoni in the time of the fifth-dynasty king Assa; this drew from the youthful Pepi II. an enthusiastic letter which was engraved in full upon the facade of Herkhuf's tomb. The reign of the last-named king, begun early, lasted over ninety years, a fact so long remembered that even Manetho attributes to him ninety-four years; its length probably caused the ruin of the dynasty. The local princelings and monarchs had been growing in culture, wealth and power, and after Pepi II. an ominous gap in the monuments, pointing to civil war, marks the end of the Old Kingdom. The VIIth and VIIIth Dynasties are said to have been Memphite, but of them no record survives beyond some names of kings in the lists.

Heracleopolite period.

_The Middle Kingdom._--The long Memphite rule was broken by the IXth and Xth Dynasties, of Heracleopolis Magna (Hes) in Middle Egypt. Kheti or Achthoes was apparently a favourite name with the kings, but they are very obscure. They may have spread their rule by conquest over Upper Egypt and then overthrown the Memphite dynasty. The chief monuments of the period are certain inscribed tombs at Assiut; it appears that one of the kings, whose praenomen was Mikere, supported by a fleet and army from Upper Egypt, and especially by the prince of Assiut, was restored to his paternal city of Heracleopolis, from which he had probably been driven out; his pyramid, however, was built in the old royal necropolis at Memphis. Later the princes of Thebes asserted their independence and founded the XIth Dynasty, which pushed its frontiers northwards until finally it occupied the whole country. Its kings were named Menthotp, from Mont, one of the gods of Thebes; others, perhaps sub-kings, were named Enyotf (Antef). They were buried at Thebes, whence the coffins of several were obtained by the early collectors of the 19th century. Nibhotp Menthotp I. probably established his rule over all Egypt. The funerary temple of Nebhepre Menthotp III., the last but one of these kings, has been excavated by the Egypt Exploration Fund at Deir el Bahri, and must have been a magnificent monument. His successor Sankhkere Menthotp IV. is known to have sent an expedition by the Red Sea to Puoni.

The XIIth Dynasty is the central point of the Middle Kingdom, to which the decline of the Memphite and the rise of the Heracleopolite dynasty mark the transition, while the growth of Thebes under the XIth Dynasty is its true starting-point. Monuments of the XIIth Dynasty are abundant and often of splendid design and workmanship, whereas previously there had been little produced since the VIth Dynasty that was not half barbarous. Although not much of the history of the XIIth Dynasty is ascertained, the Turin Papyrus and many dated inscriptions fix the succession and length of reign of the eight kings very accurately. The troubled times that the kingdom had passed through taught the long-lived monarchs the precaution of associating a competent successor on the throne. The nomarchs and the other feudal chiefs were inclined to strengthen themselves at the expense of their neighbours; a firm hand was required to hold them in check and distribute the honours as they were earned by faithful service. The tombs of the most favoured and wealthy princes are magnificent, particularly those of certain families in Middle Egypt at Beni Hasan, El Bersha, Assiut and Deir Rifa, and it is probable that each had a court and organization within his nome like that of the royal palace in miniature. Eventually, in the reigns of Senwosri III. and Amenemhe III., the succession of strong kings appears to have centralized all authority very completely. The names in the dynasty are Amenemhe (Ammenemes) and Senwosri (formerly read Usertesen or Senusert). The latter seems to be the origin of the Sesostris (q.v.) and Sesoosis of the legends. Amenemhe I., the first king, whose connexion with the previous dynasty is not known, reigned for thirty years, ten of them being in partnership with his son Senwosri I. He had to fight for his throne and then reorganize the country, removing his capital or residence from Thebes to a central situation near Lisht about 25 m. south of Memphis. His monuments are widespread in Egypt, the quarries and mines in the desert as far as Sinai bear witness to his great activity, and we know of an expedition which he made against the Nubians. The "Instructions of Amenemhe to his son Senwosri," whether really his own or a later composition, refer to these things, to his care for his subjects, and to the ingratitude with which he was rewarded, an attempt on his life having been made by the trusted servants in his own palace. The story of Sinuhi is the true or realistic history of a soldier who, having overheard the secret intelligence of Amenemhe's death, fled in fear to Palestine or Syria and there became rich in the favour of the prince of the land; growing old, however, he successfully sued for pardon from Senwosri and permission to return and die in Egypt.

Senwosri I. was already the executive partner in the time of the co-regency, warring with the Libyans and probably in the Sudan. After Amenemhe's death he fully upheld the greatness of the dynasty in his long reign of forty-five years. The obelisk of Heliopolis is amongst his best-known monuments, and the damming of the Lake of Moeris (q.v.) must have been in progress in his reign. He built a temple far up the Nile at Wadi Halfa and there set up a stela commemorating his victories over the tribes of Nubia. The fine tombs of Ameni at Beni Hasan and of Hepzefa at Assiut belong to his reign. The pyramids of both father and son are at Lisht.

Amenemhe II. was buried at Dahshur; he was followed by Senwosri II., whose pyramid is at Illahun at the mouth of the Fayum. In his reign were executed the fine paintings in the tomb of Khnemhotp at Beni Hasan, which include a remarkable scene of Semitic Bedouins bringing eye-paint to Egypt from the eastern deserts. In Manetho he is identified with Sesostris (see above), but Senwosri I., and still more Senwosri III., have a better claim to this distinction. The latter warred in Palestine and in Nubia, and marked the south frontier of his kingdom by a statue and stelae at Semna beyond the Second Cataract. Near his pyramid was discovered the splendid jewelry of some princesses of his family (see JEWELRY ad init.). The tomb of Thethotp at El Bersha, celebrated for the scene of the transport of a colossus amongst its paintings, was finished in this reign.

Amenemhe III. completed the work of Lake Moeris and began a series of observations of the height of the inundation at Semna which was continued by his successors. In his long reign of forty-six years he built a pyramid at Dahshur, and at Hawara near the Lake of Moeris another pyramid together with the Labyrinth which seems to have been an enormous funerary temple attached to the pyramid. His name was remembered in the Fayum during the Graeco-Roman period and his effigy worshipped there as Pera-marres, i.e. Pharaoh Marres (Marres being his praenomen graecized). Amenemhe IV.'s reign was short, and the dynasty ended with a queen Sebeknefru (Scemiophris), whose name is found in the scanty remains of the Labyrinth. The XIIth Dynasty numbered eight rulers and lasted for 213 years. Great as it was, it created no empire outside the Nile valley, and its most imposing monument, which according to the testimony of the ancients rivalled the pyramids, is now represented by a vast stratum of chips.

The history of the following period down to the rise of the New Empire is very obscure. Manetho gives us the XIIIth (Diospolite) Dynasty, the XIVth (Xoite from Xois in Lower Egypt), the XVth and XVIth (Hyksos) and the XVIIth (Diospolite), but his names are lost except for the Hyksos kings. The Abydos tablet ignores all between the XIIth and XVIIIth Dynasties. The Turin Papyrus preserves many names on its shattered fragments, and the monuments are for ever adding to the list, but it is difficult to assign them accurately to their places. The Hyksos names can in some cases be recognized by their foreign aspect, the peculiar style of the scarabs on which they are engraved or by resemblances to those recorded in Manetho. The kings of the XVIIth Dynasty too are generally recognizable by the form of their name and other circumstances. Manetho indicates marvellous crowding for the XIIIth and XIVth Dynasties, but it seems better to suggest a total duration of 300 or 400 years for the whole period than to adopt Meyer's estimate of about 210 years (see above, Chronology).

Amongst the kings of the XIIIth Dynasty (including perhaps the XIVth), not a few are represented by granite statues of colossal size and fine workmanship, especially at Thebes and Tanis, some by architectural fragments, some by graffiti on the rocks about the First Cataract. Some few certainly reigned over all Egypt. Sebkhotp (Sekhotp, [Greek: Sochotes]) is a favourite name, no doubt to be connected with the god of the Fayum. Several of the Theban kings named Antef (Enyotf) must be placed here rather than in the XIth Dynasty. A decree of one of them degrading a monarch who had sided with his enemies was found at Coptos engraved on a doorway of Senwosri I.

The Hyksos period.

In its divided state Egypt would fall an easy prey to the foreigner. Manetho says that the Hyksos (q.v.) gained Egypt without a blow. Their domination must have lasted a considerable time, the Rhind mathematical papyrus having been copied in the thirty-third year of a king Apophis. The monuments and scarabs of the Hyksos kings are found throughout Upper and Lower Egypt; those of Khian somehow spread as far as Crete and Bagdad. The Hyksos, in whom Josephus recognized the children of Israel, worshipped their own Syrian deity, identifying him with the Egyptian god Seth, and endeavoured to establish his cult throughout Egypt to the detriment of the native gods. It is to be hoped that definite light may one day be forthcoming on the whole of this critical episode which had such a profound effect on the character and history of the Egyptian people. The spirited overthrow of the Hyksos ushered in the glories in arms and arts which marked the New Empire. The XVIIth Dynasty probably began the struggle, at first as semi-independent kinglets at Thebes. Seqenenre is here a leading name; the mummy of the third Seqenenre, the earliest in the great find of royal mummies at Deir el Bahri, shows the head frightfully hacked and split, perhaps in a battle with the Hyksos.

XVIIIth Dynasty.

Queen Hatshepsut.

_The New Empire._--The epithet "new" is generally attached to this period, and "empire" instead of "kingdom" marks its wider power. The glorious XVIIIth Dynasty seems to have been closely related to the XVIIth. Its first task was to crush the Hyksos power in the north-east of the Delta; this was fully accomplished by its founder Ahmosi (dialectically Ahmasi, Amosis or Amasis I.) capturing their great stronghold of Avaris. Amasis next attacked them in S.W. Palestine, where he captured Sharuhen after a siege of three years. He fought also in Syria and in Nubia, besides overcoming factious opposition in his own land. The principal source for the history of this time is the biographical inscription at El Kab of a namesake of the king, Ahmosi son of Abana, a sailor and warrior whose exploits extend to the reign of Tethmosis I. Amenophis I. (Amenhotp), succeeding Amasis, fought in Libya and Ethiopia. Tethmosis I. (c. 1540 B.C.) was perhaps of another family, but obtained his title to the throne through his wife Ahmosi. After some thirty years of settled rule uninterrupted by revolt, Egypt was now strong and rich enough to indulge to the full its new taste for war and lust of conquest. It had become essentially a military state. The whole of the administration was in the hands of the king with his vizier and other court officials; no trace of the feudalism of the Middle Kingdom survived. Tethmosis thoroughly subdued Cush, which had already been placed under the government of a viceroy. This province of Cush extended from Napata just below the Fourth Cataract on the south to El Kab in the north, so that it included the first three nomes of Upper Egypt, which agriculturally were not greatly superior to Nubia. Turning next to Syria, Tethmosis carried his arms as far as the Euphrates. It is possible that his predecessor had also reached this point, but no record survives to prove it. These successful campaigns were probably not very costly, and prisoners, plunder and tribute poured in from them to enrich Egypt. Tethmosis I. made the first of those great additions to the temple of the Theban Ammon at Karnak by which the Pharaohs of the Empire rendered it by far the greatest of the existing temples in the world. The temple of Deir el Bahri also was designed by him. Towards the end of his reign, his elder sons being dead, Tethmosis associated Hatshepsut, his daughter by Ahmosi, with himself upon the throne. Tethmosis I. was the first of the long line of kings to be buried in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings of Thebes. At his death another son Tethmosis II. succeeded as the husband of his half-sister, but reigned only two or three years, during which he warred in Nubia and placed Tethmosis III., his son by a concubine Esi, upon the throne beside him (c. 1500 B.C.). After her husband's death the ambitious Hatshepsut assumed the full regal power; upon her monuments she wears the masculine garb and aspect of a king though the feminine gender is retained for her in the inscriptions. On some monuments of this period her name appears alone, on others in conjunction with that of Tethmosis III., while the latter again may appear without the queen's; but this extraordinary woman must have had a great influence over her stepson and was the acknowledged ruler of Egypt. Tethmosis, to judge by the evidence of his mummy and the chronology of his reign, was already a grown man, yet no sign of the immense powers which he displayed later has come down to us from the joint reign. Hatshepsut cultivated the arts of peace. She restored the worship in those temples of Upper and Lower Egypt which had not yet recovered from the religious oppression and neglect of the Hyksos. She completed and decorated the temple of Deir el Bahri, embellishing its walls with scenes calculated to establish her claims, representing her divine origin and upbringing under the protection of Ammon, and her association on the throne by her human father. The famous sculptures of the great expedition by water to Puoni, the land of incense on the Somali coast, are also here, with many others. At Karnak Hatshepsut laboured chiefly to complete the works projected in the reigns of Tethmosis I. and II., and set up two obelisks in front of the entrance as it then was. One of these, still standing, is the most brilliant ornament of that wonderful temple. A date of the twenty-second year of her reign has been found at Sinai, no doubt counted from the beginning of the co-regency with Tethmosis I. Not much later, in his twenty-second year, Tethmosis III. is reigning alone in full vigour. While she lived, the personality of the queen secured the devotion of her servants and held all ambitions in check. Not long after her death there was a violent reaction. Prejudice against the rule of a woman, particularly one who had made her name and figure so conspicuous, was probably the cause of this outbreak, and perhaps sought justification in the fact that, however complete was her right, she had in some degree usurped a place to which her stepson (who was also her nephew) had been appointed. Her cartouches began to be defaced or her monuments hidden up by other buildings, and the same rage pursued some of her most faithful servants in their tombs. But the beauty of the work seems to have restrained the hand of the destroyer. Then came the religious fanaticism of Akhenaton, mutilating all figures of Ammon and all inscriptions containing his name; this made havoc of the exquisite monuments of Hatshepsut; and the restorers of the XIXth Dynasty, refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the queen, had no scruples in replacing her names by those of the associate kings Tethmosis I., II. or III. These acts of vandalism took place throughout Egypt, but in the distant mines of Sinai the cartouches of Hatshepsut are untouched. In the royal lists of Seti I. and Rameses II. Hatshepsut has no place, nor is her reign referred to on any later monument.[20]

Wars of Tethmosis III.

The immense energy of Tethmosis III. now found its outlet in war. Syria had revolted, perhaps on Hatshepsut's death, but by his twenty-second year the monarch was ready to lead his army against the rebels. The revolt, headed by the city of Kadesh on the Orontes, embraced the whole of western Syria. The movements of Tethmosis in this first campaign, including a battle with the Syrian chariots and infantry at Megiddo and the capture of that city, were chronicled from day to day, and an extract from this chronicle is engraved on the walls of the sanctuary of Karnak, together with a brief record of the subsequent expeditions. In a series of five carefully planned campaigns he consolidated his conquests in southern Syria and secured the ports of Phoenicia (q.v.). Kadesh fell in the sixth campaign. In the next year Tethmosis revisited the Phoenician ports, chastised the rebellious and received the tribute of Syria, all the while preparing for further advance, which did not take place until another year had gone by. Then, in the thirty-third year of his reign, he marched through Kadesh, fought his way to Carchemish, defeated the forces that opposed him there and crossed over the Euphrates into the territory of the king of Mitanni. He set up a tablet by the side of that of Tethmosis I. and turned southward, following the river as far as Niy. Here he stayed to hunt a herd of 120 elephants, and then, marching westwards, received the tribute of Naharina and gifts from the Hittites in Asia Minor and from the king of Babylon. In all he fought seventeen campaigns in Syria until the spirit of revolt was entirely crushed in a second capture of Kadesh. The wars in Libya and Ethiopia were of less moment. In the intervals of war Tethmosis III. proved to be a wonderfully efficient administrator, with his eye on every corner of his dominions. The Syrian expeditions occupied six months in most of his best years, but the remaining time was spent in activity at home, repressing robbery and injustice, rebuilding and adorning temples with the labour of his captives and the plunder and tribute of conquered cities, or designing with his own hand the gorgeous sacred vessels of the sanctuary of Ammon. In his later years some expeditions took place into Nubia. Tethmosis died in the fifty-fourth year of his reign. His mummy, found in the _cachette_ at Deir el Bahri, is said to be that of a very old man. He was the greatest Pharaoh in the New Empire, if not in all Egyptian history.

Amenophis III.

Tethmosis III. was succeeded by his son Amenophis II., whom he had associated on the throne at the end of his reign. One of the first acts of the new king was to lead an army into Syria, where revolt was again rife; he reached and perhaps crossed the Euphrates and returned home to Thebes with seven captive kings of Tikhsi and much spoil. The kings he sacrificed to Ammon and hanged six bodies on the walls, while the seventh was carried south to Napata and there exposed as a terror to the Ethiopians. Amenophis reigned twenty-six years and left his throne to his son Tethmosis IV., who is best remembered by a granite tablet recording his clearance of the Great Sphinx. He also warred in northern Syria and in Cush. His son Amenophis III., c. 1400 B.C., was a mighty builder, especially at Thebes, where his reign marks a new epoch in the history of the great temples, Luxor being his creation, while avenues of rams, pylons, &c., were added on a vast scale to Karnak. He married a certain Taia, who, though apparently of humble parentage, was held in great honour by her husband as afterwards by her son. Amenophis III. warred in Ethiopia, but his sway was long unquestioned from Napata to the Euphrates. Small objects with his name and that of Taia are found on the mainland and in the islands of Greece. Through the fortunate discovery of cuneiform tablets deposited by his successor in the archives at Tell el-Amarna, we can see how the rulers of the great kingdoms beyond the river, Mitanni, Assyria and even Babylonia, corresponded with Amenophis, gave their daughters to him in marriage, and congratulated themselves on having his friendship. The king of Cyprus too courted him; while within the empire the descendants of the Syrian dynasts conquered by his father, having been educated in Egypt, ruled their paternal possessions as the abject slaves of Pharaoh. A constant stream of tribute poured into Egypt, sufficient to defray the cost of all the splendid works that were executed. Amenophis caused a series of large scarabs unique in their kind to be engraved with the name and parentage of his queen Taia, followed by varying texts commemorating like medals the boundaries of his kingdom, his secondary marriage with Gilukhipa, daughter of the king of Mitanni, the formation of a sacred lake at Thebes, a great hunt of wild cattle, and the number of lions the king slew in the first ten years of his reign. The colossi known to the Greeks by the name of the Homeric hero Memnon, which look over the western plain of Thebes, represent this king and were placed before the entrance of his funerary temple, the rest of which has disappeared. His palace lay farther south on the west bank, built of crude brick covered with painted stucco. Towards the end of his reign of thirty-six years, Syria was invaded by the Hittites from the north and the people called the Khabiri from the eastern desert; some of the kinglets conspired with the invaders to overthrow the Egyptian power, while those who remained loyal sent alarming reports to their sovereign.

Amenophis IV.

Amenophis IV., son of Amenophis III. and Taia, was perhaps the most remarkable character in the long line of the Pharaohs. He was a religious fanatic, who had probably been high priest of the sun-god at Heliopolis, and had come to view the sun as the visible source of life, creation, growth and activity, whose power was demonstrated in foreign lands almost as clearly as in Egypt. Thrusting aside all the multitudinous deities of Egypt and all the mythology even of Heliopolis, he devoted himself to the cult of the visible sun-disk, applying to it as its chief name the hitherto rare word Aton, meaning "sun"; the traditional divine name Harakht (Horus of the horizon), given to the hawk-headed sun-god of Heliopolis, was however allowed to subsist and a temple was built at Karnak to this god. The worship of the other gods was officially recognized until his fifth year, but then a sweeping reform was initiated by which apparently the new cult alone was permitted. Of the old deities Ammon represented by far the wealthiest and most powerful interests, and against this long favoured deity the Pharaoh hurled himself with fury. He changed his own name from Amenhotp, "Ammon is satisfied," to Akhenaton, "pious to Aton," erased the name and figure of Ammon from the monuments, even where it occurred as part of his own father's name, abandoned Thebes, the magnificent city of Ammon, and built a new capital at El Amarna in the plain of Hermopolis, on a virgin site upon the edge of the desert. This with a large area around he dedicated to Aton in the sixth year, while splendid temples, palaces, houses and tombs for his god, for himself and for his courtiers were rising around him; apparently also this "son of Aton" swore an oath never to pass beyond the boundaries of Aton's special domain. There are signs also that the polytheistic word "gods" was obliterated on many of the monuments, but other divine names, though almost entirely excluded from Akhenaton's work, were left untouched where they already existed. In all local temples the worship of Aton was instituted. The confiscated revenues of Ammon and the tribute from Syria and Cush provided ample means for adorning Ekhaton (Akhetaton), "the horizon of Aton," the new capital, and for richly rewarding those who adopted the Aton teaching fervently. But meanwhile the political needs of the empire were neglected; the dangers which threatened it at the end of the reign of Amenophis III. were never properly met; the dynasts in Syria were at war amongst themselves, intriguing with the great Hittite advance and with the Khabiri invaders. Those who relied on Pharaoh and remained loyal as their fathers had done sent letter after letter appealing for aid against their foes. But though a general was despatched with some troops, he seems to have done more harm than good in misjudging the quarrels. At length the tone of the letters becomes one of despair, in which flight to Egypt appears the only resource left for the adherents of the Egyptian cause. Before the end of the reign Egyptian rule in Syria had probably ceased altogether. Akhenaton died in or about the seventeenth year of his reign, c. 1350 B.C. He had a family of daughters, who appeared constantly with him in all ceremonies, but no son. Two sons-in-law followed him with brief reigns; but the second, Tutenkhaton, soon changed his name to Tutenkhamun, and, without abandoning Ekhaton entirely, began to restore to Karnak its ancient splendour, with new monuments dedicated to Ammon. Akhenaton's reform had not reached deep amongst the masses of the population; they probably retained all their old religious customs and superstitions, while the priesthoods throughout the country must have been fiercely opposed to the heretic's work, even if silenced during his lifetime by force and bribes. One more adherent of his named Ay, a priest, ruled for a short time, but now Aton was only one of many gods. At length a general named Harmahib, who had served under Akhenaton, came to the throne as a whole-hearted supporter of the old religion; soon Aton and his royal following suffered the fate that they had imposed upon Ammon; their monuments were destroyed and their names and figures erased, while those of Ammon were restored. From the time of Rameses II. onwards the years of the reigns of the heretics were counted to Harmahib, and Akhenaton was described as "that criminal of Akhetaton." Harmahib had to bring order as a practical man into the long-neglected administration of the country and to suppress the extortions of the official classes by severe measures. His laws to this end were engraved on a great stela in the temple of Karnak, of which sufficient remains to bear witness to his high aims, while the prosperity of the succeeding reigns shows how well he realized the necessities of the state. He probably began also to re-establish the prestige of Egypt by military expeditions in the surrounding countries.

XIXth Dynasty.

Rameses II.