Chapter CXV: Section 2 (20)

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

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

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

See, also, MEMPHIS, and THEBES, EGYPT.

EGYPT:
The Hyksos, or Shepherd-Kings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

{752}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See JEWS: THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL IN EGYPT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_H. H. Gorringe,
Egyptian Obelisks._

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

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

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

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

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

{754}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See, also, PALESTINE.

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

{755}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See JEWS: THE ROUTE OF THE EXODUS.

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

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

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

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

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

See, also, ETHIOPIA.

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

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

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

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

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

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

See, also, NAUKRATIS.

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

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

_George Rawlinson,
The Five Great Monarchies: Persia,
chapter 7._

"The Persian kings, from Cambyses to Darius II. Nothus, are
enrolled as the Twenty-Seventh Dynasty of Manetho. The ensuing
revolts [see ATHENS: B. C. 460-449] are recognized in the
Twenty-Eighth (Saite) Dynasty, consisting only of Amyrtæus,
who restored the independence of Egypt (B. C. 414-408), and
the Twenty-Ninth (Mendesian) and Thirtieth (Sebennyte)
Dynasties (about B. C. 408-353), of whose intricate history we
need only here say that they ruled with great prosperity and
have left beautiful monuments of art. The last king of
independent Egypt was Nectanebo II., who succumbed to the
invasion of Artaxerxes Ochus, and fled to Ethiopia (B. C.
353). The last three kings of Persia, Ochus, Arses, and Darius
Codomannus, form the Thirty-First Dynasty of Manetho, ending
with the submission of Egypt to Alexander the Great (B. C.
332)."

_P. Smith,
Ancient History of the East (Students'),
chapter 8._

ALSO IN: _S. Sharpe,
History of Egypt,
chapter 5._

{758}

EGYPT: B. C. 332.
Alexander's conquest.

"In the summer of 332 [after the siege and destruction of
Tyre—see TYRE: B. C. 332, and MACEDONIA, &c.: B. C. 334-330]
Alexander set forward on his march toward Egypt, accompanied
by the fleet, which he had placed under the orders of
Hephæstion." But, being detained on the way several months by
the siege of Gaza, it was not before December that he entered
Egypt. "He might safely reckon not merely on an easy conquest,
but on an ardent reception, from a people who burnt to shake
off the Persian tyranny. … Mazaces [the Persian commander]
himself, as soon as he heard of the battle of Issus, became
aware that all resistance to Alexander would be useless, and
met him with a voluntary submission. At Pelusium he found the
fleet, and, having left a garrison in the fortress, ordered it
to proceed up the Nile as far as Memphis, while he marched
across the desert. Here he conciliated the Egyptians by the
honours which he paid to all their gods, especially to Apis,
who had been so cruelly insulted by the Persian invaders. …
He then embarked, and dropt down the western or Canobic arm of
the river to Canobus, to survey the extremity of the Delta on
that side, and having sailed round the lake Mareotis, landed
on the narrow belt of low ground which parts it from the sea,
and is sheltered from the violence of the northern gales …
by a long ridge of rock, then separated from the main land by
a channel, nearly a mile (seven stades) broad and forming the
isle of Pharos. On this site stood the village of Racotis,
where the ancient kings of Egypt had stationed a permanent
guard to protect this entrance of their dominions from
adventurers. … Alexander's keen eye was immediately struck
by the advantages of this position for a city, which should
become a great emporium of commerce, and a link between the
East and the West. … He immediately gave orders for the
beginning of the work, himself traced the outline, which was
suggested by the natural features of the ground itself, and
marked the site of some of the principal buildings, squares,
palaces and temples" (see ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 332). Alexander
remained in Egypt until the spring of 331, arranging the
occupation and administration of the country. "The system
which he established served in some points as a model for the
policy of Rome under the Emperors." Before quitting the
country he made a toilsome march along the coast, westward,
and thence, far into the desert, to visit the famous oracle of
Ammon.

_C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 50._

EGYPT: B. C. 323-30.
The kingdom of the Ptolemies.