Chapter I: The First Chaldæan Empire and the Hyksôs in Egypt (4)

* The length of time during which Egypt was subject to
Asiatic rule is not fully known. Historians are agreed in
recognizing the three epochs referred to in the narrative of
Manetho as corresponding with (1) the conquest and the six
first Hyksôs kings, including the XVth Theban dynasty; (2)
the complete submission of Egypt to the XVIth foreign
dynasty; (3) the war of independence during the XVIIth
dynasty, which consisted of two parallel series of kings,
the one Shepherds (Pharaohs), the other Thebans. There has
been considerable discussion as to the duration of the
oppression. The best solution is still that given by Erman,
according to whom the XVth dynasty lasted 284, the XVIth
234, and the XVIIth 143 years, or, in all, 661 years. The
invasion must, therefore, have taken place about 2346 B.C.,
or about the time when the Elamite power was at its highest.
The advent of the XVIth dynasty would fall about 2062 B.C.,
and the commencement of the war of independence between 1730
and 1720 B.C.

The period of hegemony attributed by the chronicles to the Hyksôs of the XVIth dynasty was not probably, as far as they were concerned, years of perfect tranquillity, or of undisputed authority. In inscribing their sole names on the lists, the compilers denoted merely the shorter or longer period during which their Theban vassals failed in their rebellious efforts, and did not dare to assume openly the title or ensigns of royalty. A certain Apôphis, probably the same who took the prsenomen of Aqnûnrî, was reigning at Tanis when the decisive revolt broke out, and Saqnûnrî Tiûâa I., who was the leader on the occasion, had no other title of authority over the provinces of the south than that of _hiqu,_ or regent. We are unacquainted with the cause of the outbreak or with its sequel, and the Egyptians themselves seem to have been not much better informed on the subject than ourselves. They gave free flight to their fancy, and accommodated the details to their taste, not shrinking from the introduction of daring fictions into the account. A romance, which was very popular with the literati four or five hundred years later, asserted that the real cause of the war was a kind of religious quarrel. It happened that the land of Egypt belonged to the Fever-stricken, and, as there was no supreme king at that time, it happened then that King Saqnûnrî was regent of the city of the south, and that the Fever-stricken of the city of Râ were under the rule of Râ-Apôpi in Avaris. The Whole Land tribute to the latter in manufactured products, and the north did the same in all the good things of the Delta. Now, the King Râ-Apôpi took to himself Sûtkhû for lord, and he did not serve any other god in the Whole Land except Sûtkhû, and he built a temple of excellent and everlasting work at the gate of the King Râ-Apôpi, and he arose every morning to sacrifice the daily victims, and the chief vassals were there with garlands of flowers, as it was accustomed to be done for the temple of Phrâ-Harmâkhis. Having finished the temple, he thought of imposing upon the Thebans the cult of his god, but as he shrank from employing force in such a delicate matter, he had recourse to stratagem. He took counsel with his princes and generals, but they were unable to propose any plan. The college of diviners and scribes was more complaisant: Let a messenger go to the regent of the city of the South to tell him: The King Râ-Apôpi commands thee: That the hippopotami which are in the pool of the town are to be exterminated in the pool, in order that slumber may come to me by day and by night. He will not be able to reply good or bad, and thou shalt send him another messenger: The King Râ-Apôpi commands thee: If the chief of the South does not reply to my message, let him serve no longer any god but Sûtkhû. But if he replies to it, and will do that which I tell him to do, then I will impose nothing further upon him, and I will not in future bow before any other god of the Whole Land than Amonrâ, king of the gods! Another Pharaoh of popular romance, Nectanebo, possessed, at a much later date, mares which conceived at the neighing of the stallions of Babylon, and his friend Lycerus had a cat which went forth every night to wring the necks of the cocks of Memphis:* the hippopotami of the Theban lake, which troubled the rest of the King of Tanis, were evidently of close kin to these extraordinary animals.

* Found in a popular story, which came in later times to be
associated with the traditions connected with Æsop.

The sequel is unfortunately lost. We may assume, however, without much risk of error, that Saqnûnrî came forth safe and sound from the ordeal; that Apôpi was taken in his own trap, and saw himself driven to the dire extremity of giving up Sûtkhû for Amonrâ or of declaring war. He was likely to adopt the latter alternative, and the end of the manuscript would probably have related his defeat.

Drawn from the original by Faucher-Gudin.

Hostilities continued for a century and a half from the time when Saqnûnrî Tiûâa declared himself son of the Sun and king of the two Egypts. From the moment in which he surrounded his name with a cartouche, the princes of the Said threw in their lot with him, and the XVIIth dynasty had its beginning on the day of his proclamation. The strife at first was undecisive and without marked advantage to either side: at length the Pharaoh whom the Greek copyists of Manetho call Alisphragmouthosis, defeated the barbarians, drove them away from Memphis and from the western plains of the Delta, and shut them up in their entrenched camp at Avaris, between the Sebennytic branch of the Nile and the Wady Tumilât. The monuments bearing on this period of strife and misery are few in number, and it is a fortunate circumstance if some insignificant object tarns up which would elsewhere be passed over as unworthy of notice. One of the officials of Tiûâa I. has left us his writing palette, on which the cartouches of his master are incised with a rudeness baffling description.

We have also information of a prince of the blood, a kings son, Tûaû, who accompanied this same Pharaoh in his expeditions; and the Gîzeh Museum is proud of having in its possession the i wooden sabre which this individual placed on the mummy of a certain Aqhorû, to enable him to defend himself against the monsters of the lower world. A second Saqnûnrî Tiûâa succeeded the first, and like him was buried in a little brick pyramid on the border of the Theban necropolis. At his death the series of rulers was broken, and we meet with several names which are difficult to classify--Sakhontinibrî, Sanakhtû-niri, Hotpûrî, Manhotpûrî, Eâhotpû.*

* Hotpûrî and Manhotpûrî are both mentioned in the fragments
of a fantastic story (copied during the XXth dynasty), bits
of which are found in most European museums. In one of these
fragments, preserved in the Louvre, mention is made of
Hotpûrîs tomb, certainly situated at Thebes; we possess
scarabs of this king, and Pétrie discovered at Coptos a
fragment of a stele bearing his name and titles, and
describing the works which he executed in the temples of the
town. The XIVth year of Manhotpûrî is mentioned in a passage
of the story as being the date of the death of a personage
born under Hotpûrî. These two kings belong, as far as we are
able to judge, to the middle of the XVIIth dynasty; I am
inclined to place beside them the Pharaoh Nûbhotpûrî, of
whom we possess a few rather coarse scarabs.

As we proceed, however, information becomes more plentiful, and the list of reigns almost complete. The part which the princesses of older times played in the transmission of power had, from the XIIth dynasty downward, considerably increased in importance, and threatened to overshadow that of the princes. The question presents itself whether, during these centuries of perpetual warfare, there had not been a moment when, all the males of the family having perished, the women alone were left to perpetuate the solar race on the earth and to keep the succession unbroken. As soon as the veil over this period of history begins to be lifted, we distinguish among the personages emerging from the obscurity as many queens as kings presiding over the destinies of Egypt. The sons took precedence of the daughters when both were the offspring of a brother and sister born of the same parents, and when, consequently, they were of equal rank; but, on the other hand, the sons forfeited this equality when there was any inferiority in origin on the maternal side, and their prospect of succession to the throne diminished in proportion to their mothers remoteness from the line of Râ. In the latter case all their sisters, born of marriages which to us appear incestuous, took precedence of them, and the eldest daughter became the legitimate Pharaoh, who sat in the seat of Horus on the death of her father, or even occasionally during his lifetime. The prince whom she married governed for her, and discharged those royal duties which could be legally performed by a man only,--such as offering worship to the supreme gods, commanding the army, and administering justice; but his wife never ceased to be sovereign, and however small the intelligence or firmness of which she might be possessed, her husband was obliged to leave to her, at all events on certain occasions, the direction of affairs.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Plinders
Pétrie.

At her death her children inherited the crown: their father had formally to invest the eldest of them with royal, authority in the room of the deceased, and with him he shared the externals, if not the reality, of power.* It is doubtful whether the third Saq-nûnrî Tiûâa known to us--he who added an epithet to his name, and was commonly known as Tiûâqni, Tiûâa the brave ** --united in his person all the requisites of a Pharaoh qualified to reign in his own right. However this may have been, at all events his wife, Queen Ahhotpû, possessed them.

* Thus we find Thûtmosis I. formally enthroning his daughter
Hât-shopsîtû, towards the close of his reign.

** It would seem that the epithet Qeni ( = the brave, the
robust) did not form an indispensable part of his name, any
more than Ahmosi did of the names of members of the family
of Ahmosis, the conqueror of the Shepherds. It is to him
that the Tiûâa cartouche refers, which is to be found on the
statue mentioned by Daninos-Pasha, published by Bouriant,
and on which we find Ahmosis, a princess of the same name,
together with Queen Ahhotpû I.

His eldest son Ahmosû died prematurely; the two younger brothers, Kamosû and a second Ahmosû, the Amosis of the Greeks, assumed the crown after him. It is possible, as frequently happened, that their young sister Ahmasi-Nofrîtari entered the harem of both brothers consecutively.

Drawn by Bouclier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

We cannot be sure that she was united to Kamosû, but at all events she became the wife of Ahmosis, and the rights which she possessed, together with those which her husband had inherited from their mother Ahhotpû, gave him a legal claim such as was seldom enjoyed by the Pharaohs of that period, so many of them being sovereigns merely _de facto,_ while he was doubly king by right.

Tiûâqni, Kamosû,* and Ahmosis** quickly succeeded each other. Tiûâqni very probably waged war against the Shepherds, and it is not known whether he fell upon the field of battle or was the victim of some plot; the appearance of his mummy proves that he died a violent death when about forty years of age. Two or three men, whether assassins or soldiers, must have surrounded and despatched him before help was available. A blow from an axe must have severed part of his left cheek, exposed the teeth, fractured the jaw, and sent him senseless to the ground; another blow must have seriously injured the skull, and a dagger or javelin has cut open the forehead on the right side, a little above the eye. His body must have remained lying where it fell for some time: when found, decomposition had set in, and the embalming had to be hastily performed as best it might. The hair is thick, rough, and matted; the face had been shaved on the morning of his death, but by touching the cheek we can ascertain how harsh and abundant the hair must have been. The mummy is that of a fine, vigorous man, who might have lived to a hundred years, and he must have defended himself resolutely against his assailants; his features bear even now an expression of fury. A flattened patch of exuded brain appears above one eye, the forehead is wrinkled, and the lips, which are drawn back in a circle about the gums, reveal the teeth still biting into the tongue. Kamosû did not reign long; we know nothing of the events of his life, but we owe to him one of the prettiest examples of the Egyptian goldsmiths art--the gold boat mounted on a carriage of wood and bronze, which was to convey his double on its journeys through Hades. This boat was afterwards appropriated by his mother Ahhotpû.

* With regard to Kamosû, we possess, in addition to the
miniature bark which was discovered on the sarcophagus of
Queen Ahhotpû, and which is now in the museum at Gîzeh, a
few scattered references to his worship existing on the
monuments, on a stele at Gîzeh, on a table of offerings in
the Marseilles Museum, and in the list of princes worshipped
by the servants of the Necropolis. His pyramid was at Drah-
Abul-Neggah, beside those of Ilûâa and Amenôthês I.

** The name Amosû or Ahmosi is usually translated Child of
the Moon-god the real meaning is, the Moon-god has brought
forth, him or her (referring to the person who bears
the name) being understood.

Ahmosisa must have been about twenty-five years of age when he ascended the throne; he was of medium height, as his body when mummied measured only 5 feet 6 inches in length, but the development of the neck and chest indicates extraordinary strength. The head is small in proportion to the bust, the forehead low and narrow, the cheek-bones project, and the hair is thick and wavy. The face exactly resembles that of Tiûâcrai, and the likeness alone would proclaim the affinity, even if we were ignorant of the close relationship which united these two Pharaohs.* Ahmosis seems to have been a strong, active, warlike man; he was successful in all the wars in which we know him to have been engaged, and he ousted the Shepherds from the last towns occupied by them. It is possible that modern writers have exaggerated the credit due to Ahmosis for expelling the Hyksôs. He found the task already half accomplished, and the warfare of his forefathers for at least a century must have prepared the way for his success; if he appears to have played the most important _rôle_ in the history of the deliverance, it is owing to our ignorance of the work of others, and he thus benefits by the oblivion into which their deeds have passed. Taking this into consideration, we must still admit that the Shepherds, even when driven into Avaris, were not adversaries to be despised. Forced by the continual pressure of the Egyptian armies into this corner of the Delta, they were as a compact body the more able to make a protracted resistance against very superior forces.

* Here again my description is taken from the present
appearance of the mummy, which is now in the Gîzeh Museum.
It is evident, from the inspection which I have made, that
Ahmosis was about fifty years old at the time of his death,
and, allowing him to have reigned twenty-five years, he must
have been twenty-five or twenty-six when he came to the
throne.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey.

The impenetrable marshes of Menzaleh on the north, and the desert of the Red Sea on the south, completely covered both their wings; the shifting network of the branches of the Nile, together with the artificial canals, protected them as by a series of moats in front, while Syria in their rear offered them inexhaustible resources for revictualling their troops, or levying recruits among tribes of kindred race. As long as they could hold their ground there, a re-invasion was always possible; one victory would bring them to Memphis, and the whole valley would again fall under then-suzerainty. Ahmosis, by driving them from their last stronghold, averted this danger. It is, therefore, not without reason that the official chroniclers of later times separated him from his ancestors and made him the head of a new dynasty.

His predecessors had in reality been merely Pharaohs on sufferance, ruling in the south within the confines of their Theban principality, gaining in power, it is true, with every generation, but never able to attain to the suzerainty of the whole country. They were reckoned in the XVIIth dynasty together with the Hyksôs sovereigns of uncontested legitimacy, while their successors were chosen to constitute the XVIIIth, comprising Pharaohs with full powers, tolerating no competitors, and uniting under their firm rule the two regions of which Egypt was composed--the possessions of Sit and the possessions of Horus.*

* Manetho, or his abridgers, call the king who drove out the
Shepherds Amôsis or Tethmôsis. Lepsius thought he saw
grounds for preferring the second reading, and identified
this Tethmôsis with Thûtmosi Manakhpirri, the ïhûtmosis III.
of our lists; Ahmosis could only have driven out the greater
part of the nation. This theory, to which Naville still
adheres, as also does Stindorff, was disputed nearly fifty
years ago by E. de Rougé; nowadays we are obliged to admit
that, subsequent to the Vth year of Ahmosis, there were no
longer Shepherd-kings in Egypt, even though a part of the
conquering race may have remained in the country in a state
of slavery, as we shall soon have occasion to observe.

The war of deliverance broke out on the accession of Ahmosis, and continued during the first five years of his reign.* One of his lieutenants, the kings namesake--Âhmosi-si-Abîna--who belonged to the family of the lords of Nekhabît, has left us an account, in one of the inscriptions in his tomb, of the numerous exploits in which he took part side by side with his royal master, and thus, thanks to this fortunate record of his vanity, we are not left in complete ignorance of the events which took place during this crucial struggle between the Asiatic settlers and their former subjects. Nekhabît had enjoyed considerable prosperity in the earlier ages of Egyptian history, marking as it did the extreme southern limit of the kingdom, and forming an outpost against the barbarous tribes of Nubia. As soon as the progress of conquest had pushed the frontier as far south as the first cataract, it declined in importance, and the remembrance of its former greatness found an echo only in proverbial expressions or in titles used at the Pharaonic court.* The nomes situated to the south of Thebes, unlike those of Middle Egypt, did not comprise any extensive fertile or well-watered territory calculated to enrich its possessors or to afford sufficient support for a large population: they consisted of long strips of alluvial soil, shut in between the river and the mountain range, but above the level of the inundation, and consequently difficult to irrigate.

* This is evident from passage in the biography of Ahmosi-
si-Abîna, where it is stated that, after the taking of
Avaris, the king passed into Asia in the year VI. The first
few lines of the _Great Inscription of El-Kab_ seem to refer
to four successive campaigns, i.e. four years of warfare up
to the taking of Avaris, and to a fifth year spent in
pursuing the Shepherds into Syria.

** The vulture of Nekhabît is used to indicate the south,
while the urseus of Buto denotes the extreme north; the
title Râ-Nekhnît, Chief of Nekhnît, which is,
hypothetically, supposed to refer to a judicial function, is
none the less associated with the expression, Nekhabît-
Tekhnît, as an indication of the south, and, therefore,
can be traced to the prehistoric epoch when Nekhabît was the
primary designation of the south.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

MODELLED AND PAINTED IN THE GRAND TEMPLE. PHILAE ISLAND.

These nomes were cultivated, moreover, by a poor and sparse population. It needed a fortuitous combination of circumstances to relieve them from their poverty-stricken condition--either a war, which would bring into prominence their strategic positions; or the establishment of markets, such as those of Syênê and Elephantine, where the commerce of neighbouring regions would naturally centre; or the erection, as at Ombos or Adfû, of a temple which would periodically attract a crowd of pilgrims. The principality of the Two Feathers comprised, besides Nekhabît, ât least two such towns--Anît, on its northern boundary, and Nekhnît almost facing Nekhabît on the left bank of the river.* These three towns sometimes formed separate estates for as many independent lords:** even when united they constituted a fiefdom of but restricted area and of slender revenues, its chiefs ranking below those of the great feudal princes of Middle Egypt. The rulers of this fiefdom led an obscure existence during the whole period of the Memphite empire, and when at length Thebes gained the ascendency, they rallied to the latter and acknowledged her suzerainty. One of them, Sovkûnakhîti, gained the favour of Sovkhotpû III. Sakhemûaztaûirî, who granted him lands which made the fortune of his house; another of them, Aï, married Khonsu, one of the daughters of Sovkûmsaûf I. and his Queen Nûbkhâs, and it is possible that the misshapen pyramid of Qûlah, the most southern in Egypt proper, was built for one of these royally connected personages.

* Nekhnît is the Hieracônpolis of Greek and Roman times,
Hâît-Baûkû, the modern name of which is Kom-el-Ahmar.

** Pihiri was, therefore, prince of Nekhabît and of Anît at
one and the same time, whereas the town of Nekhnît had its
own special rulers, several of whom are known to us from the
tombs at Kom-el-Ahmar.

The descendants of Aï attached themselves faithfully to the Pharaohs of the XVIIth dynasty, and helped them to the utmost in their struggle against the invaders. Their capital, Nekhabît, was situated between the Nile and the Arabian chain, at the entrance to a valley which penetrates some distance into the desert, and leads to the gold-mines on the Red Sea. The town profited considerably from the precious metals brought into it by the caravans, and also from the extraction of natron, which from prehistoric times was largely employed in embalming. It had been a fortified place from the outset, and its walls, carefully repaired by successive ages, were still intact at the beginning of this century. They described at this time a rough quadrilateral, the two longer sides of which measured some 1900 feet in length, the two shorter being about one-fourth less. The southern face was constructed in a fashion common in brick buildings in Egypt, being divided into alternate panels of horizontally laid courses, and those in which the courses were concave; on the north and west façades the bricks were so laid as to present an undulating arrangement running uninterruptedly from one end to the other. The walls are 33 feet thick, and their average height 27 feet; broad and easy steps lead to the foot-walk on the top. The gates are unsymmetrically placed, there being one on the north, east, and west sides respectively; while the southern side is left without an opening. These walls afforded protection to a dense but unequally distributed population, the bulk of which was housed towards the north and west sides, where the remains of an immense number of dwellings may still be seen. The temples were crowded together in a small square enclosure, concentric with the walls of the enceinte, and the principal sanctuary was dedicated to Nekhabît, the vulture goddess, who gave her name to the city.* This enclosure formed a kind of citadel, where the garrison could hold out when the outer part had fallen into the enemys hands. The times were troublous; the open country was repeatedly wasted by war, and the peasantry had more than once to seek shelter behind the protecting ramparts of the town, leaving their lands to lie fallow.

* A part of the latter temple, that which had been rebuilt
in the Saîte epoch, was still standing at the beginning of
the XIXth century, with columns bearing the cartouches of
Hakori; it was destroyed about the year 1825, and
Champollion found only the foundations of the walls.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
Bey.

Famine constantly resulted from these disturbances, and it taxed all the powers of the ruling prince to provide at such times for his people. A chief of the Commissariat, Bebî by name, who lived about this period, gives us a lengthy account of the number of loaves, oxen, goats, and pigs, which he allowed to all the inhabitants both great and little, down even to the quantity of oil and incense, which he had taken care to store up for them: his prudence was always justified by the issue, for during the many years in which the famine recurred, he distributed grain in the city to all those who hungered.

Babaî, the first of the lords of El-Kab whose name has come down to us, was a captain in the service of Saqnûnrî Tiûâqni.* His son Ahmosi, having approached the end of his career, cut a tomb for himself in the hill which overlooks the northern side of the town. He relates on the walls of his sepulchre, for the benefit of posterity, the most praiseworthy actions of his long life. He had scarcely emerged from childhood when he was called upon to act for his father, and before his marriage he was appointed to the command of the barque _The Calf._ From thence he was promoted to the ship _The North_, and on account of his activity he was chosen to escort his namesake the king on foot, whenever he drove in his chariot. He repaired to his post at the moment when the decisive war against the Hyksôs broke out.

* There are still some doubts as to the descent of this
Ahmosi. Some authorities hold that Babai was the name of his
father and Abîna that of his grandfather; others think that
Babai was his father and Abîna his mother; others, again,
make out Babai and Abîna to be variants of the same name,
probably a Semitic one, borne by the father of Ahmosi; the
majority of modern Egyptologists (including myself) regard
this last hypothesis as being the most probable one.

The tradition current in the time of the Ptolemies reckoned the number of men under the command of King Ahmosis when he encamped before Avaris at 480,000. This immense multitude failed to bring matters to a successful issue, and the siege dragged on indefinitely. The king afc length preferred to treat with the Shepherds, and gave them permission to retreat into Syria safe and sound, together with their wives, their children, and all their goods. This account, however, in no way agrees with the all too brief narration of events furnished by the inscription in the tomb. The army to which Egypt really owed its deliverance was not the undisciplined rabble of later tradition, but, on the contrary, consisted of troops similar to those which subsequently invaded Syria, some 15,000 to 20,000 in number, fully equipped and ably officered, supported, moreover, by a fleet ready to transfer them across the canals and arms of the river in a vigorous condition and ready for the battle.*

* It may be pointed out that Ahmosi, son of Abîna, was a
sailor and a leader of sailors; that he passed from one
vessel to another, until he was at length appointed to the
command of one of the most important ships in the royal
fleet. Transport by water always played considerable part in
the wars which were carried on in Egyptian territory; I have
elsewhere drawn attention to campaigns conducted in this
manner under the Horacleopolitan dynasties, and we shall see
that the Ethiopian conquerors adopted the same mode of
transit in the course of their invasion of Egypt.

As soon as this fleet arrived at the scene of hostilities, the engagement began. Ahmosi-si-Abîna conducted the manouvres under the kings eye, and soon gave such evidence of his capacity, that he was transferred by royal favour to the _Rising in Memphis_--a vessel with a high freeboard. He was shortly afterwards appointed to a post in a division told off for duty on the river Zadiku, which ran under the walls of the enemys fortress.* Two successive and vigorous attacks made in this quarter were barren of important results. Ahmosi-si-Abîna succeeded in each of the attacks in killing an enemy, bringing back as trophies a hand of each of his victims, and his prowess, made known to the king by one of the heralds, twice procured for him, the gold of valour, probably in the form of collars, chains, or bracelets.**

* The name of this canal was first recognised by Brugsch,
then misunderstood and translated the water bearing the
name of the water of Avaris. It is now road Zadikû, and,
with the Egyptian article, Pa-zadikû, or Pzadikû. The name
is of Semitic origin, and is derived from the root meaning
to be just; we do not know to which of the watercourses
traversing the east of the Delta it ought to be applied.

** The fact that the attacks from this side were not
successful is proved by the sequel. If they had succeeded,
as is usually supposed, the Egyptians would not have fallen
back on another point further south in order to renew the
struggle.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

The assault having been repulsed in this quarter, the Egyptians made their way towards the south, and came into conflict with the enemy at the village of Taqimît.* Here, again, the battle remained undecided, but Ahmosi-si-Abîna had an adventure. He had taken a prisoner, and in bringing him back lost himself, fell into a muddy ditch, and, when he had freed himself from the dirt as well as he could, pursued his way by mistake for some time in the direction of Avaris. He found out his error, however, before it was too late, came back to the camp safe and sound, and received once more some gold as a reward of his brave conduct. A second attack upon the town was crowned with complete success; it was taken by storm, given over to pillage, and Ahmosi-si-Abîna succeeded in capturing one man and three women, who were afterwards, at the distribution of the spoil, given to him as slaves.** The enemy evacuated in haste the last strongholds which they held in the east of the Delta, and took refuge in the Syrian provinces on the Egyptian frontier. Whether it was that they assumed here a menacing attitude, or whether Ahmosis hoped to deal them a crushing blow before they could find time to breathe, or to rally around them sufficient forces to renew the offensive, he made up his mind to cross the frontier, which he did in the 5th year of his reign.

* The site of Taqimît is unknown.

** The prisoner who was given to Ahmosis after the victory,
is probably Paâmû, the Asiatic, mentioned in the list of his
slaves which he had engraved on one of the walls of his
tomb.

It was the first time for centuries that a Pharaoh had trusted himself in Asia, and the same dread of the unknown which had restrained his ancestors of the XIIth dynasty, doubtless arrested Ahmosis also on the threshold of the continent. He did not penetrate further than the border provinces of Zahi, situated on the edge of the desert, and contented himself with pillaging the little town of Sharûhana.* Ahmosi-si-Abîna was again his companion, together with his cousin, Ahmosi-Pannekhabit, then at the beginning of his career, who brought away on this occasion two young girls for his household.**

* Sharûhana, which is mentioned again under Thûtmosis III.
is not the plain of Sharon, as Birch imagined, but the
Sharuhen of the Biblical texts, in the tribe of Simeon
(_Josh._ xix. 6), as Brugsch recognised it to be. It is
probably identical with the modern Tell-esh-Sheriâh, which
lies north-west of Beersheba.

** Ahmosi Pannekhabit lay in tomb No. 2, at El-Kab. His
history is briefly told on one of the walls, and on two
sides of the pedestal of his statues. We have one of these,
or rather two plates from the pedestal of one of them, in
the Louvre; the other is in a good state of preservation,
and belongs to Mr. Finlay. The inscription is found in a
mutilated condition on the wall of the tomb, but the three
monuments which have come down to us are sufficiently
complementary to one another to enable us to restore nearly
the whole of the original text.

The expedition having accomplished its purpose, the Egyptians returned home with their spoil, and did not revisit Asia for a long period. If the Hyksôs generals had fostered in their minds the idea that they could recover their lost ground, and easily re-enter upon the possession of their African domain, this reverse must have cruelly disillusioned them. They must have been forced to acknowledge that their power was at an end, and to renounce all hope of returning to the country which had so summarily ejected them. The majority of their own people did not follow them into exile, but remained attached to the soil on which they lived, and the tribes which had successively settled down beside them--including the Beni-Israel themselves--no longer dreamed of a return to their fatherland. The condition of these people varied according to their locality. Those who had taken up a position in the plain of the Delta were subjected to actual slavery. Ahmosis destroyed the camp at Avails, quartered his officers in the towns, and constructed forts at strategic points, or rebuilt the ancient citadels to resist the incursions of the Bedouin. The vanquished people in the Delta, hemmed in as they were by a network of fortresses, were thus reduced to a rabble of serfs, to be taxed and subjected to the _corvée_ without mercy. But further north, the fluctuating population which roamed between the Sebennytic and Pelusiac branches of the Nile were not exposed to such rough treatment. The marshes of the coast-line afforded them a safe retreat, in which they could take refuge at the first threat of exactions on the part of the royal emissaries. Secure within dense thickets, upon islands approached by interminable causeways, often covered with water, or by long tortuous canals concealed in the thick growth of reeds, they were able to defy with impunity the efforts of the most disciplined troops, and treason alone could put them at the mercy of their foes. Most of the Pharaohs felt that the advantages to be gained by conquering them would be outweighed by the difficulty of the enterprise; all that could result from a campaign would be the destruction of one or two villages, the acquisition of a few hundred refractory captives, of some ill-favoured cattle, and a trophy of nets and worm-eaten boats. The kings, therefore, preferred to keep a close watch over these undisciplined hordes, and as long as their depredations were kept within reasonable limits, they were left unmolested to their wild and precarious life.

The Asiatic invasion had put a sudden stop to the advance of Egyptian rule in the vast plains of the Upper Nile. The Theban princes, to whom Nubia was directly subject, had been too completely engrossed in the wars against their hereditary enemy, to devote much time to the continuation of that work of colonization in the south which had been carried on so vigorously by their forefathers of the XIIth and XIIIth dynasties. The inhabitants of the Nile valley, as far as the second cataract, rendered them obedience, but without any change in the conditions and mode of their daily life, which appear to have remained unaltered for centuries. The temples of Usirtasen and Amenemhaît were allowed to fall into decay one after another, the towns waned in prosperity, and were unable to keep their buildings and monuments in repair; the inundation continued to bring with it periodically its fleet of boats, which the sailors of Kûsh had laden with timber, gum, elephants tusks, and gold dust: from time to time a band of Bedouin from Uaûaît or Mazaiû would suddenly bear down upon some village and carry off its spoils; the nearest garrison would be called to its aid, or, on critical occasions, the king himself, at the head of his guards, would fall on the marauders and drive them back into the mountains. Ahrnosis, being greeted on his return from Syria by the news of such an outbreak, thought it a favourable moment to impress upon the nomadic tribes of Nubia the greatness of his conquest. On this occasion it was the people of Khonthanûnofir, settled in the wadys east of the Nile, above Semneh, which required a lesson. The army which had just expelled the Hyksôs was rapidly conveyed to the opposite borders of the country by the fleet, the two Ahmosi of Nekhabît occupying the highest posts. The Egyptians, as was customary, landed at the nearest point to the enemys territory, and succeeded in killing a few of the rebels. Ahmosi-si-Abîna brought back two prisoners and three hands, for which he was rewarded by a gift of two female Bedouin slaves, besides the gold of valour. This victory in the south following on such decisive success in the north, filled the heart of the Pharaoh with pride, and the view taken of it by those who surrounded him is evident even in the brief sentences of the narrative. He is described as descending the river on the royal galley, elated in spirit and flushed by his triumph in Nubia, which had followed so closely on the deliverance of the Delta. But scarcely had he reached Thebes, when an unforeseen catastrophe turned his confidence into alarm, and compelled him to retrace his steps. It would appear that at the very moment when he was priding himself on the successful issue of his Ethiopian expedition, one of the sudden outbreaks, which frequently occurred in those regions, had culminated in a Sudanese invasion of Egypt. We are not told the name of the rebel leader, nor those of the tribes who took part in it. The Egyptian people, threatened in a moment of such apparent security by this inroad of barbarians, regarded them as a fresh incursion of the Hyksôs, and applied to these southerners the opprobrious term of Fever-stricken, already used to denote their Asiatic conquerors. The enemy descended the Nile, committing terrible atrocities, and polluting every sanctuary of the Theban gods which came within their reach. They had reached a spot called Tentoâ,* before they fell in with the Egyptian troops. Ahmosi-si-Abîna again distinguished himself in the engagement. The vessel which he commanded, probably the _Rising in Memphis_, ran alongside the chief galliot of the Sudanese fleet, and took possession of it after a struggle, in which Ahmosi made two of the enemys sailors prisoners with his own hand. The king generously rewarded those whose valour had thus turned the day in his favour, for the danger had appeared to him critical; he allotted to every man on board the victorious vessel five slaves, and five ancra of land situated in his native province of each respectively. The invasion was not without its natural consequences to Egypt itself.

* The name of this locality does not occur elsewhere; it
would seem to refer, not to a village, but rather to a
canal, or the branch of a river, or a harbour somewhere
along the Nile. I am unable to locate it definitely, but am
inclined to think we ought to look for it, if not in Egypt
itself, at any rate in that part of Nubia which is nearest
to Egypt. M. Revillout, taking up a theory which had been
abandoned by Chabas, recognising in this expedition an
offensive incursion of the Shepherds, suggests that Tantoâ
may be the modern Tantah in the Delta.

A certain Titiânu, who appears to have been at the head of a powerful faction, rose in rebellion at some place not named in the narrative, but in the rear of the army. The rapidity with which Ahmosis repulsed the Nubians, and turned upon his new enemy, completely baffled the latters plans, and he and his followers were cut to pieces, but the danger had for the moment been serious.* It was, if not the last expedition undertaken in this reign, at least the last commanded by the Pharaoh in person. By his activity and courage Ahmosis had well earned the right to pass the remainder of his days in peace.

* The wording of the text is so much condensed that it is
difficult to be sure of its moaning. Modern scholars agree
with Brugsch that Titiânu is the name of a man, but several
Egyptologists believe its bearer to have been chief of the
Ethiopian tribes, while others think him to have been a
rebellious Egyptian prince, or a king of the Shepherds, or
give up the task of identification in despair. The tortuous
wording of the text, and the expressions which occur in it,
seem to indicate that the rebel was a prince of the royal
blood, and even that the name he bears was not his real one.
Later on we shall find that, on a similar occasion, the
official documents refer to a prince who took part in a plot
against Ramses III. by the fictitious name of Pentauîrît;
Titiânu was probably a nickname of the same kind inserted in
place of the real name. It seems that, in cases of high
treason, the criminal not only lost his life, but his name
was proscribed both in this world and in the next.

A revival of military greatness always entailed a renaissance in art, followed by an age of building activity. The claims of the gods upon the spoils of war must be satisfied before those of men, because the victory and the booty obtained through it were alike owing to the divine help given in battle. A tenth, therefore, of the slaves, cattle, and precious metals was set apart for the service of the gods, and even fields, towns, and provinces were allotted to them, the produce of which was applied to enhance the importance of their cult or to repair and enlarge their temples. The main body of the building was strengthened, halls and pylons were added to the original plan, and the impulse once given to architectural work, the co-operation of other artificers soon followed. Sculptors and painters whose art had been at a standstill for generations during the centuries of Egypts humiliation, and whose hands had lost their cunning for want of practice, were now once more in demand. They had probably never completely lost the technical knowledge of their calling, and the ancient buildings furnished them with various types of models, which they had but to copy faithfully in order to revive their old traditions. A few years after this revival a new school sprang up, whose originality became daily more patent, and whose leaders soon showed themselves to be in no way inferior to the masters of the older schools. Ahmosis could not be accused of ingratitude to the gods; as soon as his wars allowed him the necessary leisure, he began his work of temple-building. The accession to power of the great Theban families had been of little advantage to Thebes itself. Its Pharaohs, on assuming the sovereignty of the whole valley, had not hesitated to abandon their native city, and had made Heracleopolis, the Fayum or even Memphis, their seat of government, only returning to Thebes in the time of the XIIIth dynasty, when the decadence of their power had set in. The honour of furnishing rulers for its country had often devolved on Thebes, but the city had reaped but little benefit from the fact; this time, however, the tide of fortune was to be turned. The other cities of Egypt had come to regard Thebes as their metropolis from the time when they had temples. The main body of the building was strengthened, halls and pylons were added to the original plan, and the impulse once given to architectural work, the co-operation of other artificers soon followed. Sculptors and painters whose art had been at a standstill for generations during the centuries of Egypts humiliation, and whose hands had lost their cunning for want of practice, were now once more in demand. They had probably never completely lost the technical knowledge of their calling, and the ancient buildings furnished them with various types of models, which they had but to copy faithfully in order to revive their old traditions. A few years after this revival a new school sprang up, whose originality became daily more patent, and whose leaders soon showed themselves to be in no way inferior to the masters of the older schools. Ahmosis could not be accused of ingratitude to the gods; as soon as his wars allowed him the necessary leisure, he began his work of temple-building. The accession to power of the great Theban families had been of little advantage to Thebes itself. Its Pharaohs, on assuming the sovereignty of the whole valley, had not hesitated to abandon their native city, and had made Heracleopolis, the Fayum or even Memphis, their seat of government, only returning to Thebes in the time of the XIIIth dynasty, when the decadence of their power had set in. The honour of furnishing rulers for its country had often devolved on Thebes, but the city had reaped but little benefit from the fact; this time, however, the tide of fortune was to be turned.

The other cities of Egypt had come to regard Thebes as their metropolis from the time when they had learned to rally round its princes to wage war against the Hyksôs. It had been the last town to lay down arms at the time of the invasion, and the first to take them up again in the struggle for liberty. Thus the Egypt which vindicated her position among the nations of the world was not the Egypt of the Memphite dynasties. It was the great Egypt of the Amenemhâîts and the Usirtasens, still further aggrandised by recent victories. Thebes was her natural capital, and its kings could not have chosen a more suitable position from whence to command effectually the whole empire. Situated at an equal distance from both frontiers, the Pharaoh residing there, on the outbreak of a war either in the north or south, had but half the length of the country to traverse in order to reach the scene of action. Ahmosis spared no pains to improve the city, but his resources did not allow of his embarking on any very extensive schemes; he did not touch the temple of Amon, and if he undertook any buildings in its neighbourhood, they must have been minor edifices. He could, indeed, have had but little leisure to attempt much else, for it was not till the XXIInd year of his reign that he was able to set seriously to work.*

* In the inscription of the year XXII., Âhmosis expressly
states that he opened new chambers in the quarries of Tûrah
for the works in connection with the Theban Amon, as well as
for those of the temple of the Memphite Phtah.

An opportunity then occurred to revive a practice long fallen into disuse under the foreign kings, and to set once more in motion an essential part of the machinery of Egyptian administration. The quarries of Turah, as is well known, enjoyed the privilege of furnishing the finest materials to the royal architects; nowhere else could be found limestone of such whiteness, so easy to cut, or so calculated to lend itself to the carving of delicate inscriptions and bas-reliefs. The commoner veins had never ceased to be worked by private enterprise, gangs of quarrymen being always employed, as at the present day, in cutting small stone for building purposes, or in ruthlessly chipping it to pieces to burn for lime in the kilns of the neighbouring villages; but the finest veins were always kept for State purposes. Contemporary chroniclers might have formed a very just estimate of national prosperity by the degree of activity shown in working these royal preserves; when the amount of stone extracted was lessened, prosperity was on the wane, and might be pronounced to be at its lowest ebb when the noise of the quarrymans hammer finally ceased to be heard.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Vyse-Perring.

Every dynasty whose resources were such as to justify their resumption of the work proudly recorded the fact on stelae which lined the approaches to the masons yards. Ahmosis reopened the Tûrah quarry-chambers, and procured for himself good stone and white for the temples of Anion at Thebes and of Phtah at Memphis. No monument has as yet been discovered to throw any light on the fate of Memphis subsequent to the time of the Amenemhâîts. It must have suffered quite as much as any city of the Delta from the Shepherd invasion, and from the wars which preceded their expulsion, since it was situated on the highway of an invading army, and would offer an attraction for pillagers. By a curious turn of fortune it was the Fankhûi, or Asiatic prisoners, who were set to quarry the stone for the restoration of the monuments which their own forefathers had reduced to ruins.* The bas-reliefs sculptured on the stelæ of Ahmosis show them in full activity under the _corvée;_ we see here the stone block detached from the quarry being squared by the chisel, or transported on a sledge drawn by oxen.

* The _Fankhûi_ are, properly speaking, all white prisoners,
without distinction of race. Their name is derived from the
root _fôkhu, fankhu_ = to bind, press, carry off, steal,
destroy; if it is sometimes used in the sense of
Phoenicians, it is only in the Ptolemaic epoch. Here the
term Fankhûi refers to the Shepherds and Asiatics made
prisoners in the campaign of the year V. against Sharuhana.

Ahmosis had several children by his various wives; six at least owned Nofrîtari for their mother and possessed near claims to the crown, but she may have borne him others whose existence is unrecorded. The eldest appears to have been a son, Sipiri; he received all the honours due to an hereditary prince, but died without having reigned, and his second brother, Amenhotpû--called by the Greeks Amenôthes*--took his place.

* The form Amenôphis, which is usually employed, is,
properly speaking, the equivalent of the name
_Amenemaupitu,_ or Amenaupîti, which belongs to a king of
the XXIst Tanite dynasty; the true Greek transcription of
the Ptolemaic epoch, corresponding to the pronunciation
_Amehotpe,_ or _Amenhopte,_ is Amenôthes. Under the XVIIIth
dynasty the cuneiform transcription of the tablets of Tel-el
Amarna, Amankhatbi, seems to indicate the pronunciation
Amanhautpi, Amanhatpi, side by side with the pronunciation
Aman-hautpu, Amenhotpu.

Ahmosis was laid to rest in the chapel which he had prepared for himself in the cemetery of Drah-abul-Neggah, among the modest pyramids of the XIth, XIIIth, and XVIIth dynasties.* He was venerated as a god, and his cult was continued for six or eight centuries later, until the increasing insecurity of the Theban necropolis at last necessitated the removal of the kings from their funeral chambers.** The coffin of Ahmosis was found to be still intact, though it was a poorly made one, shaped to the contours of the body, and smeared over with yellow; it represents the king with the false beard depending from his chin, and his breast covered with a pectoral ornament, the features, hair, and accessories being picked out in blue. His name has been hastily inscribed in ink on the front of the winding-sheet, and when the lid was removed, garlands of faded pink flowers were still found about the neck, laid there as a last offering by the priests who placed the Pharaoh and his compeers in their secret burying-place.

* The precise site is at present unknown: we see, however,
that it was in this place, when wo observe that Ahmosis was
worshipped by the Servants of the Necropolis, amongst the
kings and princes of his family who were buried at Drah-
abul-Neggah.