CHAPTER III. The Land of Egypt, its People and their

History.

Egypt lies between the twenty-fourth and thirty-second parallels of north latitude, in the north-east of Africa ; it is about six hundred miles long, and is really comprised of a strip of land on each bank of the Nile. This strip varies in width from ten to thirty miles. The Egyptians called their country Kem, ?>., ' the black,' because of the very dark colour of the soil. It bore a variety of names, each having some particular application ; and among these must come Ta-mera, which means the * land of the inundation.' The Assyrians called the land Miistir, the Hebrews Misraiin, and the Arabs to this day Misr. The Egyptian kings called themselves ' lords of the two countries,' thereby indicating that the land was divided into two great parts, the north and the south : veiy probably a remembrance of the * double ' land is preserved in the Hebrew name Misraini, which is a dual form. The kings are also called on the monuments * lords of the white and red crown ; ' the former signifying their rule over Upper Egypt, and the latter their dominion over

THE LAND OF EGYPT, ITS PEOPLE, ETC. 5 I

Lower Egypt. Upper Egypt was divided into twentytwo nomes, and Lower Egypt into twenty.^ Hitherto the name ' Egypt ' has remained unexplained ; but some have supposed that it is derived from Ha-ka-ptah, (i.e., the temple of the genius of Ptah), the sacred name of Memphis.

From what country did the Egyptians come } Ethnologists and anthropologists, having examined a large number of skulls of mummies, have come to the conclusion that the Egyptians belong to the Caucasian race. Hence it is generally understood now that some thousands of years before the Christian era (how many it is quite impossible to say) the nation which afterwards inhabited the Nile set out from Asia, for some reason still unexplained, journeyed westward, and crossing the Isthmus of Suez, entered Africa, and settling down by the Nile, founded there a mighty kingdom. This agrees too with what is stated in the table of nations given by Moses, who says, ' And the sons of Ham ; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan,'"^ Now Ham (or Kham) is the same as Khem, Egypt, and a proof of this may be deduced from the Psalms, where it is said, ' And smote all the firstborn in Egypt ; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham; '3 and again, 'Wondrous works in the land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red Sea."^ Now the Mizraim mentioned in the table of nations is Egypt itself.

* For a list, see Brugsch, ' Egypt under the Pharaohs,' ii. p. 8. 2 Gen. X. 6. ^ Ps. Ixxviii. 51. '* Ps. cvi. 22.

D 2

52 THE DWELLERS ON THE NILE.

As for the other sons of Ham, the inhabitants of Kush, i.e., the region called after the son of Ham, are represented on the Egyptian monuments. Their bodily appearance is the same, though their skin is a little darker, and at the outset they appear to have had a religion and speech akin to that of the Egyptians/ We find Phut, most probably, in the Punt of the inscriptions, the land from whence spices came, which was situated to the south of Egypt on both sides of the Red Sea. As early as 2500 years before Christ, the hieroglyphics tell us that a king of Egypt sent one of his people called Anti, to bring back a peculiarly valuable kind of frankincense from this land. The fourth son, Canaan, is represented by the original inhabitants of Canaan, who were probably near relatives of the Egyptians. It has been thought by some scholars that there are indications in the inscriptions which would lead one to suppose that the Egyptians considered that the home of the race was the Nile ; this idea, however, has never been worked out. Some again, following a Greek tradition, have thought that the civilization of Egypt came from Ethiopia ; but all modern researches show that this idea has no groundwork of truth.

The Egyptians of the later empire believed that men had been made out of clay upon a potter's wheelThey believed that the god Harmachis^ attacked his foes, who fled in all directions from before him. Those who

' Wiedemann, ' ^gyptische Geschichte,' p. 23.

2 Chabas, ' Etudes,' p. i ; Naville, ' Mythe d'Horus.'

THE LAND OF f:GYPT, ITS PEOPLE, ETC. 53

came to the south became the Cushites, those who came to the north became the Amu, those who came to the west the Libyans, and those who came to the east the Shasu; and thus were the four races of mankind made. Of the Amu more will be said further on ; for it was from this race that the Khita nation, so celebrated for having waged war successfully with Rameses II., and recently identified with the Biblical Hittites, sprang.

What was the Egyptian like in stature ? His head was large, his forehead square, his eyes large, his cheeks full, his mouth wide, his nose short and rounded, and his lips thick.i

The ancient history of Egypt goes back into a far distant past. The exact time when the early settlers on the Nile first made their home in the ' black ' land is quite unknown ; and who ruled them and gave them laws is, historically, also unknown. Only one thing about the matter is quite certain, and that is that the migration from the East must have taken place some thousands of years before Christ.

The Egyptians believed that the first three dynasties of kings who ruled over Egypt were composed of gods, who reigned in succession, and of a series of beings who were called * the followers of Horus.'^

The first dynasty consisted of a number of gods, Ptah, Ra, Shu, Seb, Osiris, Set or Typhon, and Horus : these were supposed to have reigned for 12,300 years,

* Wiedemann, ' y^^gyptische Geschichte,' p. 25. ^ Maspero, ' Histoire Ancienne, p. 18.

54 THE DWELLERS ON THE NILE.

according to Manetho, a celebrated priest of Heliopolis who flourished about B. C. 261. Of the next two dynasties we only know that they were termed, it is supposed, 'the followers of Horus.' So that at present nothing is really known of the Eg>^ptian rulers before Menes, the first historical king of Egypt. Many dates have been fixed by scholars for the reign of this king : Champollion-Figeac thought about B.C. 5867, Bunsen 3623, Lepsius 3892, Brugsch 4455, and Wilkinson 2320; but it must be understood that a correct chronology of the early empire of Egypt is not at present possible, for only approximate data can be given. ^

ft^^^^ [j j Mena or Menes, the first king of Egypt,

came from the town of Teni, the Greek This, near Abydos. According to Herodotus, he built the great temple of Ptah, established a regular worship there, and is said to have founded the great city of Memphis, which name means * the good place.' He built a large dyke to protect this city, and it is that which even to-day protects Gizeli from excessive inundation. He was a mighty warrior, and waged war with the Libyans. The tradition of his death is that he was devoured by a

"■ Since it is impossible to give here an account of each king of Eg}'pt and his works, we can only refer to the most important of them, reserving our special attention for those kings with whom the children of Israel came in contact. On pages 12 to 14 we have given a list of the kings and the approximate dates of their reigns from Brugsch's ' Egypt under the Pharaohs : ' and for fuller information on matters of Eg)'ptian history we refer the reader to Dr. Birch's 'Egypt,' Wiedemann's ' ^E^gyptische Geschichte,' and the above-mentioned work of Brugsch.

THE LAND OF EGYPT, ITS PEOPLE, ETC. 55

crocodile. He was succeeded by his son Athothis, who is said to have written books on anatomy. Remarkably little is known of Menes, for none of his inscriptions have been found ; his name, however, is placed first in the list of kings.

The next Egyptian king of importance was Ata, or as the Greeks called him, Ouenephes ; and he is famous for having built pyramids at Kochome near Sakkarah. Of the remaining kings of the first and second dynasties but little is known. During the reign of Necherophes or Nefer-ka-Seker, the first king of the third or Memphitic dynasty, we are told by Manetho that an eclipse took place, and the Libyans, with whom this king was fighting, were so terrified that they submitted immediately.

The fourth dynasty was also from Memphis, and it was under these kings that Egypt became famous ; it must be remembered that at this period we are able to obtain information from the monuments which the kings of the fourth dynasty erected. During the reign of Senefru

(pi ;^ ^ j its first king, a veiy valuable mine of

turquoise was found in Arabia at Wady Magharah, and

traces of the workings, etc., are still to be seen. An invasion of the Amu took place in the reign of this king, who appears to have been occupied in various wars. Some have thought that the pyramid of Meydoum marks the place of his sepulchre, but his body has not hitherto been found.

56 THE DWELLERS OX THE NILE.

[s^^.=^^j| ^2ifu^ or Cheops (B.C. 3733), the successor of Senefru, is celebrated chiefly for the immense pyramid, called ' Height,' which he built at Gizeh, the height of which is 450 feet, and the breadth at the base 746 feet. The pyramids which come next in point of size are the pyramids of Chephren and IMycerinus ; the former is 447 feet high, and measures 690 feet at the base ; while the latter is 203 feet high, and measures 352 feet at the base. The pyramids were graves ; the plan of construction, as laid down by Lepsius, is as follows : When a new king ascended the throne he began at once to build a pyramid. The site having been chosen, the ground was levelled, and a slanting shaft was bored out of the solid rock ; and at the end of this shaft a rectangular chamber was made, which was intended to hold the sarcophagus containing the king's body. On the flat site a comparatively small building was made, the outsides of which were steep steps. If the king died at this stage of the work, he was laid in his sarcophagus, and the steep steps of the little building were filled up with triangular pieces of stone, and so its sides became smooth, and the pyramid, though little, was complete. If, on the other hand, the king lived another year, a second layer of stones was built on to the four sides of the pyramid ; and for ^v&ry year the king lived a fresh layer of stones was built on to the four sides ; but the layers became gradually smaller. When the king died no further layers were added, and the pyramid was finished either by the steps being filled

THE LAND OF EGYPT, ITS PEOPLE, ETC. 5/

up with exactly fitting pieces of stone, or another layer of stones was added, and then the edges of the stones were chiselled away until each side of the structure was perfectly smooth. It is perfectly evident that such a tomb might well be considered everlasting, for it was inaccessible to the attacks of the elements, and its destruction would be a very difficult piece of work even for modern nations. The size of a pyramid then, varied generally with the length of the king's life ; but vanity and a desire to possess the largest pyramid, may have induced a king to add two layers or even more for each year of his life.

There are some who doubt the truth of this theory of pyramid construction, but it has been pointed out that the nearer the inside the better is the work found to be ; while each subsequent layer seems to have been more carelessly and hastily built than its fellow.^ The Egyptian word for pyramid is abiner. The greater part of a pyramid was built of limestone, but red granite was used for certain parts, such as the interior of the passages, of the Great Pyramid. Small passages leading upwards and downwards are found inside some of the pyramids. When the mummy of the king had been deposited in the sarcophagus inside the chamber within the pyramid, all the various pathways were filled up with blocks of stone.

^ Various elaborate theories have been propounded in respect of the building of the pyramids, and the reader is referred to Prof. Piazzi Smyth's works, and ' The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh,' by Mr. W. M. F. Pctrie.

58 THE DWELLERS ON THE NILE.

Even to the Egyptians, who were accustomed to build pyramids, such constructions must have appeared difficult ; and an idea will be obtained of the amount of labour necessary for the building of the pyramid of Cheops, when we consider that the causeway along which the stone was brought took ten years to build, the work being performed by a gang of one hundred thousand men, changed every three months ; thus four million men were employed on this work alone, w^hile it required seven millions more to build the pyramid itself^

The number of chambers in the pyramids has been accounted for by supposing that when the pyramid was begun a subterranean chamber was made for the royal tomb : but when the king lived long, and the pyramid grew larger, they built another chamber and left the first one empty. If the king should still continue to live, and the pyramid grew very large, another chamber was built to receive his sarcophagus and mummy. These first chambers v/ere then probably used for his queen or his relatives.

The family of Cheops was buried near his pyramid, and Lepsius, during his journey across the plains stretching from Meydoum to Memphis, found the remains of no less than seventy-five pyramids, including those of various members of the family of Cheops. Cheops waged war against his enemies, and the rocks in the Wady Maghara represent him not only in combat with them., but victorious over them. He is said to have been 1 Birch, ' Eg>^pt,' p. 35.

The Sphinx.

THE LAND OF EGYPT, ITS PEOPLE, ETC. 6 1

a great tyrant and a very wicked man ; but Manetho vvent so far as to say that in his old age he repented of his folly and wrote a book, which posterity considered holy. Another story is that the Egyptian nation hated him so bitterly on account of the forced labour which he imposed upon them, that it was necessary to bury him in a subterranean chamber surrounded on all sides by the waters of the Nile. During the reign of Cheops a medical papyrus, now in the British Museum, was found by a priest in a temple, by moonlight.^

(OS " — ° 1 X^f~-^^ ^^ Chephren, the successor of

Cheops, also built a pyramid, which he called ' Great,' near that of Cheops ; it is most beautifully made, but is not so large as that of his predecessor. Chephren is also justly renowned for having built the small temple behind the Sphinx. The Sphinx (called in Egyptian Hu) is really an immense lion with a man's head and represented the god Harmachis, or the sun on the horizon cOj. Between its paws is a narrow way leading to a temple which has been made in front of the figure ; and as the name of Chephren is found in inscriptions on the spot, it has been supposed by some that this king caused the Sphinx to be hewn out of the living rock ; but it is not certain. The total height of the monument is about 65 feet, and its length about 190 feet. The face of this magnificent monster was originally coloured red, and covered with polished stone, but almost every trace of this covering

' See ' Zeitschrift fvir Aegyptische Sprache,' 1871, p. 62.

62 THE DWELLERS ON THE NILE.

has now disappeared. The beard is in the British Museum. The features are said to have been solemn, majestic, and benignant. Its nose has been quite destroyed, and many visitors to the Sphinx now-a-days think that this magnificent figure, which has seen hundreds of generations rise and decay, which has gazed across the fiery sands of the desert for thousands of years, and to whom the duration of an empire is but a few years, exists solely for them to chip and carve their names upon.

(^O i!ii^ U U Ul Menkmi-Rd, or Mycerinus, like his

two predecessors, built for himself a pyramid, and is supposed to have reigned sixty-three years. Tradition makes him to have been a pious and good king, and one who was a devout worshipper of the god Osiris. An attempt was made in the year 1196 A.D. to entirely destroy the pyramid which he built ; but in reality, his pyramid, which is the third at Gizeh, is the least damaged. Colonel Vyse says that when he had reached the sarcophagus chamber inside the pyramid, he found there the stone sarcophagus of the king, and the wooden cover of the inside coffin, which was made of cedar. The body of the king had been carried to the upper chamber in the pyramid, and had literally been torn to pieces, most probably when the pyramid was broken open A.D. 1 196 in search of treasure. The sarcophagus and cover of the coffin were shipped on board an English vessel ; but, alas ! the ship was wrecked and the sarcophagus found a resting-place at the bottom

THE LAND OF EGYPT, ITS PEOPLE, ETC. 6^

of the sea near Gibraltar. Fortunately the wooden cover was cast up by the sea, and the British Museum (third Egyptian Room) possesses this, together with a small fragment of the stone sarcophagus, and some fragments of the mummy. On the cover are two lines of inscription, which are translated by Dr. Birch ■} ' Osiris, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Menkaura, the ever living, born of Nut (the goddess of the celestial waters), substance of Seb ; thy mother Nut is spread over thee ; she renders thee divine by annihilating thy enemies. O king Menkaura, living for ever.' These fragments of mummy, coffin, and sarcophagus are of the greatest interest ; for not only do they show that mummifying was at that time a well-understood art, but they speak to us across a gulf of five thousand five hundred j^ears, and tell us something of their religious views and ideas. Moreover, there is very little difference between the shape of the hieroglyphs of those days and those of a much later date ; and however far we go back, we never come to an inscription belonging to a period in which we can see that the Egyptians were learning to write.

Mycerinus was followed by a king called Sheps-es-kaf, and with him the great and important fourth dynasty closes.

We pass over the kings of the fifth and sixth dynasties, merely remarking that their united reigns occupied a period of about four hundred years, and that what is

• For other versions, see Brugsch, ' Eg)'pt under the Pharaohs,' p. S;^ ; and Wiedemann, ' Geschichte,' p. 192.

64 THE DWELLERS ON THE NILE.

generally known as the ' Old Empire ' came to an end with this dynasty about three thousand years before Christ.

Very little beyond the names of the kings who belonged to the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh dynasties is known ; and a gap of about five hundred years occurs in the history which it is absolutely impossible to fill up in detail.

The first king of the twelfth dynasty was called Amenemha ; he did battle with a Lybian tribe called the Mat'iu, and defeated the Uaua of Nubia in the twentyninth year of his reign. During his reign Egypt enjoyed great tranquillity, and the people from the highest to the lowest received the proper care due to them. In his later years a conspiracy was formed against him ; but he was fortunate enough to escape the death by which he was threatened at the hand of his foes, who attacked him in his bed-room at night. His son Usertsen I. was associated with him in the kingdom during the last years of his reign ; and he wrote a book for this son full of instructive sayings, a late copy of which is now in the British Museum.

Usertsen I. was occupied for some years in fighting a confederacy of Ethiopian tribes ; and during the first years of his reign he built some magnificent edifices in Heliopolis, and completed several of the works undertaken by his father ; he also had gold brought from Nubia, and turquoise from the peninsula of Sinai. A beautiful inscription at Beni-Hassan records that a

THE LAND OF EGYPT, ITS PEOPLE, ETC 65

prince named Amen, at the head of four hundred men, accompanied the king in one of his Ethiopian wars ; he describes himself as being an upright, honest, and indefatigable servant of the king, doing his behests in and out of season ; rendering up to him whatever was due to him without keeping back the least particle for himself, giving strict justice to all, showing kindness to the fatherless and widow, the poor and the distressed, taking nought of the poor man's crop, nor accepting the person of a great man before his humbler fellow ; and he boasts that having ploughed the whole of his land from the north to the south, there was not a hungry person in the whole land. Following the example of his father, Usertsen I. associated his son Amenemha II. in the rule of the kingdom during the last few years of his life, and the like was done by Amenemha in respect of his son Usertsen II. During the reign of this monarch there lived a prince called Khnum-hetep, the son of Nehara and his wife Bakat. His official position was that of chief of the district of Menat-Khufu, but our attention is drawn to him by his tomb, which still exists. Everything connected with the life of an Egyptian, the appliances of art, the tools of trade, sacrificial scenes, and scenes of life itself, are represented by picture and hieroglyph on Egyptian tombs with wonderful accuracy and beauty. One scene more than all others demands our attention, for in it some have seen a representation of Jacob's arrival in Egypt. It would appear that a family of thirty-seven people belonging to the Amu

E

66 THE DWELLERS ON THE NILE.

race emigrated to Egypt in the reign of Usertsen II., and brought with them an eye-paint called mestevi, which was considered of great value. The features of these people are Jewish, their garments are of different shape, pattern and colours from those of the Egyptians ; the leader is better dressed than his fellows, and is called Abesha. The rest of the company is composed of men (armed with bows and arrows, and spears), women, and children ; one man plays a seven-stringed lyre; and then follow the baggage animals. At all events such a picture will give an idea of what the arrival of a party of foreigners in Egypt would look like ; and when we read in the hieroglyphs that the chief of the party brought the valuable eye unguent to the chief of the land, we are reminded of Jacob's speech to his sons, ' Carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds.'^

The next king, Usertsen III., continued the wars against the Ethiopians, and built the fortress of Samneh. The struggle between the Ethiopians and the Egyptians appears to have been very severe ; and at Samneh there was a tablet erected which forbade any negroes to pass by this place, unless they were in boats laden with goats, oxen, or other animals. Eventually the Egyptians were victorious. About fifteen hundred years after, Thothmes II. deified king Usertsen III., and caused festivals to be celebrated in his honour.

Amenemha III., the successor of Usertsen III., is

^ Gen. xliii. ii. (See Frontispiece also.)

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renowned not for wars or conquests, but for a thoroughly useful piece of work, whose benefit to the people of that day it would be hard to estimate, and still harder to overrate. It is well known that the prosperity of Egypt depends upon a regular inundation, neither too great nor too little, of the Nile. If it is too little, then there ensues a famine, and if it is too great, there is also a famine. Amenemha III. sought to lessen the danger of the starvation of his people by building the enormous lake Moeris (in Egyptian Mi-iir, ' the great water '), in the district called the Fayoum, in the west of Egypt, in which the surplus water of the inundation might be stored up for use in time of need. It was surrounded on all sides by dams, and was connected by a canal with the Nile. The lake was stocked with fish. In the Museum at Boulak there is preserved part of a papyrus which gives a plan of the lake and canal. The constructor of this work also built a pyramid 246 feet high, and the wonderful palace called the Labyrinth, which some say had three hundred rooms above ground, and the same number below ; Herodotus, however, gives the immense number of four thousand five hundred.

The last king of the twelfth dynasty was Amenemha IV. ; and from this period (about 2200 B.C.) to the eighteenth dynasty there is a gap of about five hundred years. It is during this break that the rule of the Hyksos or 'Shepherd Kings' comes in. Having migrated into Egypt from the East, they established themselves at Memphis, and made themselves masters

E 2

6S THE DWELLERS ON THE NILE.

of the whole country ; but they were expelled from Egypt finally by Ahmes, the first king of the eighteenth dynasty, about 1700 B.C. Before their downfall wars had been going on for several years between these rulers from the East and such of the native chiefs as were able to muster armed men and to make an attempt to liberate their country.

The British Museum possesses a very valuable papyrus relating to this period, the importance of which was first recognized by De Rouge. It appears that the last * Shepherd King,' Apepi II., was a worshipper of the god Sutech, and wishing to build a magnificent temple to this god, he sent and demanded assistance in the shape of men and materials for his work from the Egyptian prince called Sekenen Ra. The prince called a council, and determined to refuse to comply with this demand ; but although Sekenen Ra began the rebellion against the usurpers of the throne of Egypt, he appears never to have attained the throne himself, for the next monarch of all Egypt was called Ahmes, i.e., ' the child of the Moon,' who was descended from the kings of the seventeenth dynasty ; the official position which he held under Sekenen Ra was 'chief of the sailors' in a vessel called the * Calf He distinguished himself by his valour in a number of victorious battles at Avaris and the fortress of Sharuhen, by which the power of the * Shepherd Kings ' was utterly broken ; and at length, having reconquered the land of Egypt, this mighty soldier took up the reins of government and became

THE LAND OF EGYPT, ITS PEOPLE, ETC. 69

king. Under his firm but mild rule the temples, which had been sadly neglected, were repaired, a temple dedicated to Ptah at Memphis, and another to AmenRa at Thebes.

Ahmes reigned twenty-two years, and married AhmesNefertari, a negress, who appears to have ruled for some time after her husband's death. Their son Amenhotep ruled eleven years. Following this monarch came Thothmes I., who made expeditions into Mesopotamia, attacked the Syrians, and among other buildings erected two granite obelisks before the temple of Amen-Ra at Thebes. He was succeeded by his daughter, queen Hatasu, who in compliance with public opinion associated her brother Thothmes 11. with her in the kingdom. Thothmes 11. ruled apparently for a short time only, and it is hard to say whether he was murdered, or whether he died in peace. After his death the queen became sole ruler, put on the dress of a man, and gave orders to have the name of her brother Thothmes 11. erased from the monuments. During her reign an expedition was undertaken to the land of Punt, or the spice country ; and spices, gold, ivory, precious stones, and all other products of this wonderful — and to the Egyptians new — land were brought home. Some trees were brought home so large that it took six men to carry each of them. This queen also ordered two magnificent monolith granite obelisks with shining metal tops to be made, which should stand before the gate of Thothmes I., and record her works for ever.

Later on in her reign she associated another brother, Thothmes III., with herself in the kingdom, but the same fate befell her as befell her brother Thothmes II. ; for wherever on the monuments she appears co-regent with Thothmes III., her name has been carefully chiselled out and destroyed.

Bust of Thothmes HL

After the death of Hatasu, {q t^^ ^J Thothmes III.

became sole ruler of Egypt. By his success in mighty wars, and by the enormous quantity of tribute with which he enriched the Egyptian nation, as well as by his numerous and beautiful buildings in Thebes, Memphis,

THE LAND OF EGYPT, ITS PEOPLE, ETC. 7 1

and Heliopolis, he deserves in all respects the name of 'great' among the Egyptian kings. He marched into Mesopotamia as far as Nineveh, and wherever he went the nations hastened to submit to him, and to pay tribute; the few that would not do this, but preferred to do battle with him, were ignominiously defeated. Ethiopia, Syria, and Phoenicia were among the principal countries that paid immense tribute ; and the record of the wars of this monarch, and the enumeration of the different amounts of tribute received, are sufficient to form a large decoration for the sandstone wall which surrounds the temple at Thebes, which he built. Among the lists of the peoples conquered by Thothmes III. occurs the name Aperti^ which some have considered to represent the Hebrews. The reader will be familiar with the name of Thothmes HI., for it was this king who had made, and inscribed with his own name, the obelisk which is commonly known as ' Cleopatra's Needle,' which now stands on the Thames Embankment^ Thothmes reigned fifty-four years, and was succeeded by Amenhotep H., who after a short reign made way for Thothmes IV., the king mentioned on the tablet between the forepaws of the Sphinx. A useful piece of work done by him was to remove the sand which almost buried this mighty figure and prevented people from fully appreciating its size.

Following Thothmes IV. comes Amenhotep HI,, in whose reign architecture and sculpture arrived at a high pitch of perfection. He was a great warrior, and

' See ' Cleopatra's Needle,' By-paths of Bible Knowledge, No. i.

72 THE DWELLERS ON THE NILE.

the sculptures represent him receiving tribute of all sorts from the people of Mesopotamia and Ethiopia. In the former land he says that he killed two hundred and ten lions with his own hand. He is renowned also for the famous statues of Memnon, about 68 feet high, which he erected before the palace of Luxor ; one of these was broken by an earthquake a few years before our era, and was afterwards repaired by the Emperor Severus about 190 A.D. Before this accident it was alleged that the figure sang when the rays of the sun fell upon it at dawn. Amenhotep III. was a devout worshipper of the god Amen, and during his reign he built a large number of temples to this god and to others. Amenhotep III. made his son, Amenhotep IV., king during his own reign. He is famous as having been the introducer of the worship of the sun's disk. According to the Egyptian priests, he was an unbeliever of the rankest type, for the most popular worship at that time was that of the god Amen. He seemed to have taken such a dislike to this god, that he changed his name from Amen-hotep to K/m-en-aten, i.e., 'the glory of the disk ;' and not content with this, he gave orders to have the name Amen erased from all the sculptures, and he determined to remove from the capital city and found a new one for himself, where he could erect temples to his favourite deity. In this place, which is known to-day by the name of Tel-el-Amarna, he built a magnificent temple in honour of the sun's disk, not far from the Nile on the eastern side. The

THE LAND OF EGYPT, ITS PEOPLE, ETC. 73

next important kings of this dynasty were called Ai and Har-em-hebi : but we pass on at once to the important nineteenth dynasty.

From the monuments we learn very little about Rameses, the first of that name, and the founder of the nineteenth dynasty (about 1400 B.C.). From later sources he is known to have joined battle with Saprer the king of the Khita or Hittites, but of this we shall speak further on ; his battles with the Khita and other nations were continued by his son Seti I. Seti took up arms against the Asiatics, and made war with the Shasu or Arabs, the Libyans and the Ethiopians : in the sculptures we see him not only directing the battle, but at times fighting hand to hand in mortal combat. The names of the towns and fortresses were abolished by him, and new Egyptian names given in their stead ; new fortresses were built where necessary, and great pains were taken to systematically reduce the countries around to the rule of the king. Among the names of the places to which he went are many which are met with in the Bible, such as Canaan, Migdol, and Kadesh. He built the Memnonium, a small temple to Sekhet at Beni-Hassan, a well in the desert, and set up in Heliopolis an obelisk, which is now in Rome, as well as many other great works. He reigned fifty-one years, and the visitor to Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields may there see his beautiful marble sarcophagus. . If Seti I. made Egypt great at home and abroad, it was only a fitting preparation of the country for the long

74 THE DWELLERS ON THE NILE.

and brilliant reign of his successor f 0 | jj © i> — . ^-^^^^ J

Rameses II. Under his rule the wars were carried out on a larger scale than had ever before been contemplated ; countries where the Egyptians had never been seen, learned to know them by the soldiers of Rameses ; and at home the arts and sciences advanced with such magnificent strides, that the civilised nations of to-day have not yet ceased to wonder at the ingenuity and skill which performed such wonderful deeds and works. Josiah the king of Judah began to reign at the age of eight years,^ and it is probable that Rameses the Great was at an equally early age associated with his father in the rule of the kingdom : only four or five years after this association he was already a man of war, having led an expedition against the enemies of Egypt and beaten them ; but, as we shall see soon, the youthful king had the utmost need of all his power and bravery to keep in check the immense number of nations which had been rendered tributary to Egypt.

The first war in which the young prince took part was that against the Ethiopians ; and in the fifth year of his reign the brave rebellion of the Khita or Hittites took place, which ended in the Khita being reckoned a nation of almost equal importance with the Egyptians. This war and its incidents have formed the subject of the prize poem of a scribe called Pentaur, and although Rameses II. did not come out of this fight with such

^ 2 Kings xxii. i.

THE LAND OF EGYPT, ITS PEOPLE, ETC. //

glory as he wished, yet the words of this song describing the bravery and deeds of the king in the highest terms of praise, were inscribed upon the walls of the temples at Abydos, and copies of it were made upon papyrus, to be handed down to future generations. Rameses II. was obliged to make a treaty with the Khita,^ a copy of which, mutilated in some parts, is still extant.

Mr. Lushington's translation of the poems of Pentaur on the war will be found in the chapter on Egyptian literature, p. lOO.

Not only in writing was this battle of Rameses II. celebrated, but the best artists of the day were employed to depict its various incidents at Abu-Simbel, Beit Oually, and elsewhere. At Kadesh on the Orontes a very fierce battle took place, and both sides fought with the greatest courage. The chariots of the Khita and their allies are depicted as having been overturned into the river. This battle cost them a number of very important lives : for the brother of the king of the Khita, the charioteer of the king, the chief general of the army, and the leader of the cavalry were all killed. One of the pictures shows the king of Khilibu or Khiribu, an ally of the Khita king, being rescued by his own men from drowning in the river. From the

^ A translation of this document was first made by Rosellini in 1839 ; another by De Rouge in 1866 ; and a third by Goodwin in 1862. English versions are given in Brugsch's ' Egypt under the Pharaohs,' vol. ii., p. 68 ; and in Prof. Sayce's 'Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments,' pp.191-197.

yS THE DWELLERS ON THE NILE.

description of the battle we learn that Rameses advanced too far into the thick of the fight, and so found himself surrounded on all sides. In this difficulty and dire necessity the king prayed to Amen, who appearing to him, encouraged him with words, and taking him by the hand, led him to victory over the foe. So ended this great war ; but whether Egypt gained much more than glory by it, is difficult to say. The treaty between Egypt and the Khita was, however, in later days firmly cemented by Rameses marrying, in his thirty-fourth year, the daughter of the king of the Khita, who took the Egyptian name of Ur-ma-neferu-Ra.

After the battle with the Khita Rameses in a series of wars reduced the Canaanites, the Amorites, the people of Syria, and others. He was a mighty builder, and erected temples to the principal gods of Egypt at Memphis, Thebes, and Abydos : he completed the great wall from Heliopolis to Pelusium, which his father Seti I. had begun to build, in order to keep out the never quiet Asiatics, who for ever desired to make inroads on the land of Egypt. It was on this wall that the ' treasure cities ' of Pithom and Raamses,^ which the children of Israel built, are supposed by some to have been placed ; but other scholars have placed Pithom elsewhere, and identified the Hebrew Succoth with a district of Egypt called TJiiikn. In the latter part of his reign Rameses II. erased his father's name from the monuments, inserting his own in its place : the reader

' Ex. i. II.

THE LAND OF ECxYPT, ITS PEOPLE, ETC. 79

will remember that this king caused his name to be inscribed on two of the faces of ' Cleopatra's Needle/ while the other two bear the name of the king Thothmes III. who erected it. Rameses II. reigned sixty-seven years ; as co-regent with his father Seti I. for more than one-half of the time, and the remainder of the period as sole monarch. The monuments inform us that he had several wives, and one hundred and sixty-two children, of whom one hundred and eleven were sons. He was succeeded by his thirteenth son, called Mer-en-Ptah, or Meneptah, who is remarkable for neither wars nor buildings, but who calls for our attention as being in all probability the ' Pharaoh ' of the Exodus.

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