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HISTORY OF EGYPT CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA

By G. MASPERO, Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of Queen'sCollege, Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at the College ofFrance

Edited by A. H. SAYCE, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford

Translated by M. L. McCLURE, Member of the Committee of the EgyptExploration Fund

CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Volume IV. 

LONDON

THE GROLIER SOCIETY

PUBLISHERS

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_THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE AND THE HYKSŌS IN EGYPT_

_SYRIA: THE PART PLAYED BY IT IN THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD--BABYLON AND THE FIRST CHALDĘAN EMPIRE--THE DOMINION OF THE HYKSŌS:ĀHMOSIS. _

_Syria, owing to its geographical position, condemned to be subject toneighbouring powers-Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon, the valley of the Orontesand of the Litāny, and surrounding regions: the northern table-land, thecountry about Damascus, the Mediterranean coast, the Jordan and the DeadSea-Civilization and primitive inhabitants, Semites and Asiatics: thealmost entire absence of Egyptian influence, the predominance of that ofChaldęa. _

_Babylon, its ruins and its environs--It extends its rule overMesopotamia; its earliest dynasty and its struggle with CentralChaldęa-Elam, its geographical position, its peoples; Kutur-Nakhuntaconquers Larsam-Bimsin (Eri-Aku); Khammurabi founds the first Babylonianempire; Ids victories, his buildings, his canals--The Elamites inSyria: Kudurlagamar--Syria recognizes the authority of Hammurabi and hissuccessors. _

_The Hyksōs conquer Egypt at the end of the XIVth dynasty; the foundingof Avaris--Uncertainty both of ancients and moderns with regard to theorigin of the Hyksōs: probability of their being the Khati--Their kingsadopt the manners and civilization of the Egyptians: the monuments ofKhiani and of Apōphis I. And II--The XVth dynasty. _

_Semitic incursions following the Hyksōs--The migration of thePhoenicians and the Israelites into Syria: Terah, Abraham and hissojourn in the land of Canaan--Isaac, Jacob, Joseph: the Israelites godown into Egypt and settle in the land of Goshen. _

_Thébes revolts against the Hyksōs: popular traditions as to the originof the war, the romance of Apōphis and Saquinri--The Theban princessesand the last Icings of the XVIIth dynasty: Tiūdqni Kamosis, AhmosisI. --The lords of El-Kab, and the part they played during the war ofindependence--The taking of Avaris and the expulsion of the Ilylcsōs. _

_The reorganization of Egypt--Ahmosis I. And his Nubian wars, thereopening of the quarries of Turah--Amenōthes I. And his motherNofrītari: the jewellery of Queen Āhhotpū--The wars of Amenōthes I. , the apotheosis of Nofrītari--The accession of Thūtmosis I. And there-generation of Egypt. _

CHAPTER I--THE FIRST CHALDĘAN EMPIRE AND THE HYKSŌS IN EGYPT

_Syria: the part played by it in the ancient world--Babylon and thefirst Chaldęan empire--The dominion of the Hyksōs: Āhmosis. _

Some countries seem destined from their origin to become thebattle-fields of the contending nations which environ them. Into suchregions, and to their cost, neighbouring peoples come from century tocentury to settle their quarrels and bring to an issue the questions ofsupremacy which disturb their little corner of the world. The nationsaround are eager for the possession of a country thus situated; itis seized upon bit by bit, and in the strife dismembered and troddenunderfoot: at best the only course open to its inhabitants is to joinforces with one of its invaders, and while helping the intruder toovercome the rest, to secure for themselves a position of permanentservitude. Should some unlooked-for chance relieve them from thepresence of their foreign lord, they will probably be quite incapable ofprofiting by the respite which fortune puts in their way, or of makingany effectual attempt to organize themselves in view of future attacks. They tend to become split up into numerous rival communities, of whicheven the pettiest will aim at autonomy, keeping up a perpetual frontierwar for the sake of becoming possessed of or of retaining a glorioussovereignty over a few acres of corn in the plains, or some woodedravines in the mountains. Year after year there will be scenes of bloodyconflict, in which petty armies will fight petty battles on behalf ofpetty interests, but so fiercely, and with such furious animosity, thatthe country will suffer from the strife as much as, or even more than, from an invasion. There will be no truce to their struggles until theyall fall under the sway of a foreign master, and, except in the intervalbetween two conquests, they will have no national existence, theirhistory being almost entirely merged in that of other nations. 

From remote antiquity Syria was in the condition just described, and thus destined to become subject to foreign rule. Chaldęa, Egypt, Assyria, and Persia presided in turn over its destinies, while Macedoniaand the empires of the West were only waiting their opportunity to layhold of it. By its position it formed a kind of meeting-place where mostof the military nations of the ancient world were bound sooner or laterto come violently into collision. Confined between the sea and thedesert, Syria offers the only route of easy access to an army marchingnorthwards from Africa into Asia, and all conquerors, whether attractedto Mesopotamia or to Egypt by the accumulated riches on the banks of theEuphrates or the Nile, were obliged to pass through it in order to reachthe object of their cupidity. It might, perhaps, have escaped this fatalconsequence of its position, had the formation of the country permittedits tribes to mass themselves together, and oppose a compact body tothe invading hosts; but the range of mountains which forms its backbonesubdivides it into isolated districts, and by thus restricting eachtribe to a narrow existence maintained among them a mutual antagonism. The twin chains, the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, which divide thecountry down the centre, are composed of the same kind of calcareousrocks and sandstone, while the same sort of reddish clay has beendeposited on their slopes by the glaciers of the same geologicalperiod. *

 * Drake remarked in the Lebanon several varieties of limestone, which have been carefully catalogued by Blanche and Lartet. Above these strata, which belong to the Jurassic formation, come reddish sandstone, then beds of very hard yellowish limestone, and finally marl. The name Lebanon, in Assyrian Libnana, would appear to signify "the white mountain;" the Amorites called the Anti-Lebanon Saniru, Shenir, according to the Assyrian texts and the Hebrew books. 

Arid and bare on the northern side, they sent out towards the southfeatureless monotonous ridges, furrowed here and there by short narrowvalleys, hollowed out in places into basins or funnel-shaped ravines, which are widened year by year by the down-rush of torrents. Theseridges, as they proceed southwards, become clothed with verdure andoffer a more varied outline, the ravines being more thickly wooded, andthe summits less uniform in contour and colouring. Lebanon becomes whiteand ice-crowned in winter, but none of its peaks rises to the altitudeof perpetual snows: the highest of them, Mount Timarun, reaches 10, 526feet, while only three others exceed 9000. * Anti-Lebanon is, speakinggenerally, 1000 or 1300 feet lower than its neighbour: it becomeshigher, however, towards the south, where the triple peak of MountHermon rises to a height of 9184 feet. The Orontes and the Litāny drainthe intermediate space. The Orontes rising on the west side of theAnti-Lebanon, near the ruins of Baalbek, rushes northwards in such aviolent manner, that the dwellers on its banks call it the rebel--Nahrel-Asi. ** About a third of the way towards its mouth it enters adepression, which ancient dykes help to transform into a lake; it flowsthence, almost parallel to the sea-coast, as far as the 36th degree oflatitude. There it meets the last spurs of the Amanos, but, failing tocut its way through them, it turns abruptly to the west, and then to thesouth, falling into the Mediterranean after having received an increaseto its volume from the waters of the Afrīn. 

 * Bukton-Drake, Unexplored Syria, vol. I. P. 88, attributed to it an altitude of 9175 English feet; others estimate it at 10, 539 feet. The mountains which exceed 3000 metres are Dahr el-Kozīb, 3046 metres; Jebel-Mislriyah, 3080 metres; and Jebel-Makhmal or Makmal, 3040 metres. As a matter of fact, these heights are not yet determined with the accuracy desirable. 

 ** The Egyptians knew it in early times by the name of Aūnrati, or Araūnti; it is mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions under the name of Arantū. All are agreed in acknowledging that this name is not Semitic, and an Aryan origin is attributed to it, but without convincing proof; according to Strabo (xvi. Ii. § 7, p. 750), it was originally called Typhon, and was only styled Orontes after a certain Orontes had built the first bridge across it. The name of Axios which it sometimes bears appears to have been given to it by Greek colonists, in memory of a river in Macedonia. This is probably the origin of the modern name of Asi, and the meaning, _rebellious river_, which Arab tradition attaches to the latter term, probably comes from a popular etymology which likened Axios to Asi, the identification was all the easier since it justifies the epithet by the violence of its current. 

The Litāny rises a short distance from the Orontes; it flows at firstthrough a wide and fertile plain, which soon contracts, however, andforces it into a channel between the spurs of the Lebanon and theGalilęan hills. The water thence makes its way between two cliffs ofperpendicular rock, the ravine being in several places so narrow thatthe branches of the trees on the opposite sides interlace, and an activeman could readily leap across it. Near Yakhmur some detached rocksappear to have been arrested in their fall, and, leaning like flyingbuttresses against the mountain face, constitute a natural bridge overthe torrent. The basins of the two rivers lie in one valley, extendingeighty leagues in length, divided by an almost imperceptible watershedinto two beds of unequal slope. The central part of the valley is givenup to marshes. It is only towards the south that we find cornfields, vineyards, plantations of mulberry and olive trees, spread out over theplain, or disposed in terraces on the hillsides. Towards the north, the alluvial deposits of, the Orontes have gradually formed a blackand fertile soil, upon which grow luxuriant crops of cereals and otherproduce. Cole-Syria, after having generously nourished the Orientalempires which had preyed upon her, became one of the granaries of theRoman world, under the capable rule of the Cęsars. 

Syria is surrounded on all sides by countries of varying aspect andsoil. That to the north, flanked by the Amanos, is a gloomy mountainousregion, with its greatest elevation on the seaboard: it slopes graduallytowards the interior, spreading out into chalky table-lands, dotted overwith bare and rounded hills, and seamed with tortuous valleys whichopen out to the Euphrates, the Orontes, or the desert. Vast, slightlyundulating plains succeed the table-lands: the soil is dry and stony, the streams are few in number and contain but little water. The Sajurflows into the Euphrates, the Afrīn and the Karasu when united yieldtheir tribute to the Orontes, while the others for the most part pourtheir waters into enclosed basins. The Khalus of the Greeks sluggishlypursues its course southward, and after reluctantly leaving the gardensof Aleppo, finally loses itself on the borders of the desert in a smallsalt lake full of islets: about halfway between the Khalus and theEuphrates a second salt lake receives the Nahr ed-Dahab, the "goldenriver. " The climate is mild, and the temperature tolerably uniform. Thesea-breeze which rises every afternoon tempers the summer heat: thecold in winter is never piercing, except when the south wind blows whichcomes from the mountains, and the snow rarely lies on the ground formore than twenty-four hours. It seldom rains during the autumn andwinter months, but frequent showers fall in the early days of spring. Vegetation then awakes again, and the soil lends itself to cultivationin the hollows of the valleys and on the table-lands whereverirrigation is possible. The ancients dotted these now all but desertspaces with wells and cisterns; they intersected them with canals, and covered them with farms and villages, with fortresses and populouscities. Primęval forests clothed the slopes of the Amanos, and pinewoodfrom this region was famous both at Babylon and in the towns of LowerChaldęa. The plains produced barley and wheat in enormous quantities, the vine throve there, the gardens teemed with flowers and fruit, andpistachio and olive trees grew on every slope. The desert was alwaysthreatening to invade the plain, and gained rapidly upon it whenevera prolonged war disturbed cultivation, or when the negligence of theinhabitants slackened the work of defence: beyond the lakes and saltmarshes it had obtained a secure hold. At the present time the greaterpart of the country between the Orontes and the Euphrates is nothingbut a rocky table-land, ridged with low hills and dotted over with someimpoverished oases, excepting at the foot of Anti-Lebanon, where tworivers, fed by innumerable streams, have served to create a garden ofmarvellous beauty. The Barada, dashing from cascade to cascade, flowsfor some distance through gorges before emerging on the plain: scarcelyhas it reached level ground than it widens out, divides, and formsaround Damascus a miniature delta, into which a thousand interlacingchannels carry refreshment and fertility. Below the town these streamsrejoin the river, which, after having flowed merrily along for a day'sjourney, is swallowed up in a kind of elongated chasm from whence itnever again emerges. At the melting of the snows a regular lake isformed here, whose blue waters are surrounded by wide grassy margins"like a sapphire set in emeralds. " This lake dries up almost completelyin summer, and is converted into swampy meadows, filled with giganticrushes, among which the birds build their nests, and multiply asunmolested as in the marshes of Chaldęa. The Awaj, unfed by anytributary, fills a second deeper though smaller basin, while tothe south two other lesser depressions receive the waters of theAnti-Lebanon and the Hauran. Syria is protected from the encroachmentsof the desert by a continuous barrier of pools and beds of reeds:towards the east the space reclaimed resembles a verdant promontorythrust boldly out into an ocean of sand. The extent of the cultivatedarea is limited on the west by the narrow strip of rock and clay whichforms the littoral. From the mouth of the Litāny to that of the Orontes, the coast presents a rugged, precipitous, and inhospitable appearance. There are no ports, and merely a few ill-protected harbours, or narrowbeaches lying under formidable headlands. One river, the Nahr el-Kebir, which elsewhere would not attract the traveller's attention, is herenoticeable as being the only stream whose waters flow constantly andwith tolerable regularity; the others, the Leon, the Adonis, * and theNahr el-Kelb, * can scarcely even be called torrents, being precipitatedas it were in one leap from the Lebanon to the Mediterranean. Olives, vines, and corn cover the maritime plain, while in ancient times theheights were clothed with impenetrable forests of oak, pine, larch, cypress, spruce, and cedar. The mountain range drops in altitude towardsthe centre of the country and becomes merely a line of low hills, connecting Gebel Ansarieh with the Lebanon proper; beyond the latterit continues without interruption, till at length, above the narrowPhoenician coast road, it rises in the form of an almost insurmountablewall. Near to the termination of Coele-Syria, but separated from itby a range of hills, there opens out on the western slopes of Hermon avalley unlike any other in the world. At this point the surface of theearth has been rent in prehistoric times by volcanic action, leaving achasm which has never since closed up. A river, unique in character--theJordan--flows down this gigantic crevasse, fertilizing the valley formedby it from end to end. ***

 * The Adonis of classical authors is now Nahr-Ibrahim. We have as yet no direct evidence as to the Phoenician name of this river; it was probably identical with that of the divinity worshipped on its banks. The fact of a river bearing the name of a god is not surprising: the Belos, in the neighbourhood of Acre, affords us a parallel case to the Adonis. 

 ** The present Nahr el-Kelb is the Lykos of classical authors. The Due de Luynes thought he recognized a corruption of the Phoenician name in that of Alcobile, which is mentioned hereabouts in the Itinerary of the pilgrim of Bordeaux. The order of the Itinerary does not favour this identification, and Alcobile is probably Jebail: it is none the less probable that the original name of the Nahr el Kelb contained from earliest times the Phoenician equivalent of the Arab word _kelb_, "dog. "

 *** The Jordan is mentioned in the Egyptian texts under the name of Yorduna: the name appears to mean _the descender, the down-flowing. _

Its principal source is at Tell el-Qadi, where it rises out of abasaltic mound whose summit is crowned by the ruins of Laish. *

 * This source is mentioned by Josephus as being that of the Little Jordan. 

[Illustration: 014. Jpg THE MOST NORTHERN SOURCE OF THE JORDAN, THENAIIR-EL-HASBANY]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by the Duc de Luynes. 

The water collects in an oval rocky basin hidden by bushes, and flowsdown among the brushwood to join the Nahr el-Hasbany, which brings thewaters of the upper torrents to swell its stream; a little lower down itmingles with the Banias branch, and winds for some time amidst desolatemarshy meadows before disappearing in the thick beds of rushes borderingLake Huleh. *

 * Lake Huleh is called the Waters of Merom, Mź-Merom, in the Book of Joshua, xi. 5, 7; and Lake Sammochonitis in Josephus. The name of Ulatha, which was given to the surrounding country, shows that the modern word Huleh is derived from an ancient form, of which unfortunately the original has not come down to us. 

[Illustration 014b. Jpg LAKE OF GENESARATH]

At this point the Jordan reaches the level of the Mediterranean, butinstead of maintaining it, the river makes a sudden drop on leaving thelake, cutting for itself a deeply grooved channel. It has a fall ofsome 300 feet before reaching the Lake of Grenesareth, where it is onlymomentarily arrested, as if to gather fresh strength for its headlongcareer southwards. 

[Illustration: 017. Jpg ONE OF THE REACHES OF THE JORDAN]

 Drawn by Boudier, from several photographs brought back by Lortet. 

Here and there it makes furious assaults on its right and left banks, as if to escape from its bed, but the rocky escarpments which hem it inpresent an insurmountable barrier to it; from rapid to rapid it descendswith such capricious windings that it covers a course of more than 62miles before reaching, the Dead Sea, nearly 1300 feet below the level ofthe Mediterranean. *

 * The exact figures are: the Lake of Hūleh 7 feet above the Mediterranean; the Lake of Genesareth 68245 feet, and the Dead Sea 1292 feet below the sea-level; to the south of the Dead Sea, towards the water-parting of the Akabah, the ground is over 720 feet higher than the level of the Red Sea. 

[Illustration: 018. Jpg THE DEAD SEA AND THE MOUNTAINS OF MOAB, SEEN FKOMTHE HEIGHTS OF ENGEDI]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by the Duc de Luynes. 

Nothing could offer more striking contrasts than the country on eitherbank. On the east, the ground rises abruptly to a height of about 3000feet, resembling a natural rampart flanked with towers and bastions:behind this extends an immense table-land, slightly undulating andintersected in all directions by the affluents of the Jordan and theDead Sea--the Yarmuk, * the Jabbok, ** and the Arnon. ***

 * The Yarmuk does not occur in the Bible, but we meet with its name in the Talmud, and the Greeks adopted it under the form Hieromax. 

 ** _Gen. _ xxxii. 22; Numb, xxi. 24. The name has been Grecized under the forms lōbacchos, labacchos, Iambykes. It is the present Nahr Zerqa. 

 *** _Numb. _ xxi. 13-26; Beut. Ii. 24; the present Wady Mōjib. [Shephelah = "low country, " plain (Josh. Xi. 16). With the article it means the plain along the Mediterranean from Joppa to Gaza. --Te. ]

The whole of this district forms a little world in itself, whoseinhabitants, half shepherds, half bandits, live a life of isolation, with no ambition to take part in general history. West of the Jordan, aconfused mass of hills rises into sight, their sparsely covered slopesaffording an impoverished soil for the cultivation of corn, vines, andolives. One ridge--Mount Carmel--detached from the principal chainnear the southern end of the Lake of Genesareth, runs obliquely tothe north-west, and finally projects into the sea. North of this rangeextends Galilee, abounding in refreshing streams and fertile fields;while to the south, the country falls naturally into three parallelzones--the littoral, composed alternately of dunes and marshes--anexpanse of plain, a "Shephelah, " dotted about with woods and watered byintermittent rivers, --and finally the mountains. The region of dunesis not necessarily barren, and the towns situated in it--Gaza, Jaffa, Ashdod, and Ascalon--are surrounded by flourishing orchards and gardens. The plain yields plentiful harvests every year, the ground needing nomanure and very little labour. The higher ground and the hill-tops aresometimes covered with verdure, but as they advance southwards, theybecome denuded and burnt by the sun. The valleys, too, are watered onlyby springs, which are dried up for the most part during the summer, andthe soil, parched by the continuous heat, can scarcely be distinguishedfrom the desert. In fact, till the Sinaitic Peninsula and the frontiersof Egypt are reached, the eye merely encounters desolate and almostuninhabited solitudes, devastated by winter torrents, and overshadowedby the volcanic summits of Mount Seir. The spring rains, however, cause an early crop of vegetation to spring up, which for a few weeksfurnishes the flocks of the nomad tribes with food. 

We may summarise the physical characteristics of Syria by saying thatNature has divided the country into five or six regions of unequalarea, isolated by rivers and mountains, each one of which, however, isadmirably suited to become the seat of a separate independent state. In the north, we have the country of the two rivers--theNaharaim--extending from the Orontes to the Euphrates and the Balikh, oreven as far as the Khabur:* in the centre, between the two ranges ofthe Lebanon, lie Coele-Syria and its two unequal neighbours, Aram ofDamascus and Phoenicia; while to the south is the varied collection ofprovinces bordering the valley of the Jordan. 

 * The Naharaim of the Egyptians was first identified with Mesopotamia; it was located between the Orontes and the Balikh or the Euphrates by Maspero. This opinion is now adopted by the majority of Egyptologists, with slight differences in detail. Ed. Meyer has accurately compared the Egyptian Naharaim with the Parapotamia of the administration of the Seleucidę. 

It is impossible at the present day to assert, with any approach toaccuracy, what peoples inhabited these different regions towards thefourth millennium before our era. Wherever excavations are made, relicsare brought to light of a very ancient semi-civilization, in which wefind stone weapons and implements, besides pottery, often elegant incontour, but for the most part coarse in texture and execution. Theseremains, however, are not accompanied by any monument of definitecharacteristics, and they yield no information with regard to theorigin or affinities of the tribes who fashioned them. * The study of thegeographical nomenclature in use about the XVIth century B. C. Revealsthe existence, at all events at that period, of several peoples andseveral languages. The mountains, rivers, towns, and fortresses inPalestine and Coele-Syria are designated by words of Semitic origin: itis easy to detect, even in the hieroglyphic disguise which they bearon the Egyptian geographical lists, names familiar to us in Hebrew orAssyrian. 

 * Researches with regard to the primitive inhabitants of Syria and their remains have not as yet been prosecuted to any extent. The caves noticed by Hedenborg at Ant-Elias, near Tripoli, and by Botta at Nahr el-Kelb, and at Adlun by the Duc de Luynes, have been successively explored by Lartet, Tristram, Lortet, and Dawson. The grottoes of Palestine proper, at Bethzur, at Gilgal near Jericho, and at Tibneh, have been the subject of keen controversy ever since their discovery. The Abbé Richard desired to identify the flints of Gilgal and Tibneh with the stone knives used by Joshua for the circumcision of the Israelites after the passage of the Jordan (_Josh. _ v- 2-9), some of which might have been buried in that hero's tomb. 

But once across the Orontes, other forms present themselves which revealno affinities to these languages, but are apparently connected with oneor other of the dialects of Asia Minor. * The tenacity with which theplace-names, once given, cling to the soil, leads us to believe that acertain number at least of those we know in Syria were in use there longbefore they were noted down by the Egyptians, and that they must havebeen heirlooms from very early peoples. As they take a Semitic ornon-Semitic form according to their geographical position, we mayconclude that the centre and south were colonized by Semites, and thenorth by the immigrant tribes from beyond the Taurus. Facts are notwanting to support this conclusion, and they prove that it is not soentirely arbitrary as we might be inclined to believe. The Asiaticvisitors who, under a king of the XIIth dynasty, came to offer gifts toKhnūmhotpū, the Lord of Beni-Hasan, are completely Semitic in type, and closely resemble the Bedouins of the present day. Theirchief--Abisha--bears a Semitic name, ** as too does the Sheikh Ammianshi, with whom Sinūhit took refuge. ***

 * The non-Semitic origin of the names of a number of towns in Northern Syria preserved in the Egyptian lists, is admitted by the majority of scholars who have studied the question. 

 ** His name has been shown to be cognate with the Hebrew Abishai (1 Sam. Xxvi. 6-9; 2 Sam. Ii. 18, 24; xxi. 17) and with the Chaldęo-Assyrian Abeshukh. 

 *** The name Ammianshi at once recalls those of Ammisatana, Ammiza-dugga, and perhaps Ammurabi, or Khammurabi, of one of the Babylonian dynasties; it contains, with the element Ammi, a final _anshi_. Chabas connects it with two Hebrew words _Am-nesh_, which he does not translate. 

Ammianshi himself reigned over the province of Kadimā, a word which inSemitic denotes the East. Finally, the only one of their gods known tous, Hadad, was a Semite deity, who presided over the atmosphere, andwhom we find later on ruling over the destinies of Damascus. Peoplesof Semitic speech and religion must, indeed, have already occupied thegreater part of that region on the shores of the Mediterranean which wefind still in their possession many centuries later, at the time of theEgyptian conquest. 

[Illustration: 028. Jpg ASIATIC WOMEN FROM THE TOMB OF KHNŪMHOTPŪ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger. 

For a time Egypt preferred not to meddle in their affairs. When, however, the "lords of the sands" grew too insolent, the Pharaoh sent acolumn of light troops against them, and inflicted on them such a severepunishment, that the remembrance of it kept them within bounds foryears. Offenders banished from Egypt sought refuge with the turbulentkinglets, who were in a perpetual state of unrest between Sinai andthe Dead Sea. Egyptian sailors used to set out to traffic along theseaboard, taking to piracy when hard pressed; Egyptian merchants wereaccustomed to penetrate by easy stages into the interior. The accountsthey gave of their journeys were not reassuring. The traveller had firstto face the solitudes which confronted him before reaching the Isthmus, and then to avoid as best he might the attacks of the pillaging tribeswho inhabited it. 

[Illustration: 024. Jpg TWO ASIATICS FKOM THE TOMB OF KHNŪMHOPTŪ. ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger

Should he escape these initial perils, the Amu--an agricultural andsettled people inhabiting the fertile region--would give the strangerbut a sorry reception: he would have to submit to their demands, andthe most exorbitant levies of toll did not always preserve caravans fromtheir attacks. * The country seems to have been but thinly populated;tracts now denuded were then covered by large forests in which herds ofelephants still roamed, ** and wild beasts, including lions and leopards, rendered the route through them dangerous. 

 * The merchant who sets out for foreign lands "leaves his possessions to his children--for fear of lions and Asiatics. "

 ** Thūtmosis III. Went elephant-hunting near the Syrian town of Niī. 

The notion that Syria was a sort of preserve for both big and smallgame was so strongly implanted in the minds of the Egyptians, that theirpopular literature was full of it: the hero of their romances betookhimself there for the chase, as a prelude to meeting with the princesswhom he was destined to marry, * or, as in the case of Kazarāti, chiefof Assur, that he might encounter there a monstrous hyena with which toengage in combat. 

 * As, for instance, the hero in the _Story of the Predestined Prince_, exiled from Egypt with his dog, pursues his way hunting till he reaches the confines of Naharaim, where he is to marry the prince's daughter. 

These merchants' adventures and explorations, as they were not followedby any military expedition, left absolutely no mark on the industries ormanners of the primitive natives: those of them only who were close tothe frontiers of Egypt came under her subtle charm and felt the powerof her attraction, but this slight influence never penetrated beyondthe provinces lying nearest to the Dead Sea. The remaining populationslooked rather to Chaldęa, and received, though at a distance, thecontinuous impress of the kingdoms of the Euphrates. The tradition whichattributes to Sargon of Agadź, and to his son Istaramsin, the subjectionof the people of the Amanos and the Orontes, probably contains but aslight element of truth; but if, while awaiting further information, wehesitate to believe that the armies of these princes ever crossed theLebanon or landed in Cyprus, we must yet admit the very early adventof their civilization in those western countries which are regarded ashaving been under their rule. More than three thousand years beforeour era, the Asiatics who figure on the tomb of Khnūmhotpū clothedthemselves according to the fashions of Uru and Lagash, and affectedlong robes of striped and spotted stuffs. We may well ask if they hadalso borrowed the cuneiform syllabary for the purposes of their officialcorrespondence, * and if the professional scribe with his stylus and claytablet was to be found in their cities. The Babylonian courtiers were, no doubt, more familiar visitors among them than the Memphite nobles, while the Babylonian kings sent regularly to Syria for statuary stone, precious metals, and the timber required in the building oftheir monuments: Urbau and Gudea, as well as their successors andcontemporaries, received large convoys of materials from the Amanos, andif the forests of Lebanon were more rarely utilised, it was not becausetheir existence was unknown, but because distance rendered theirapproach more difficult and transport more costly. The Mediterraneanmarches were, in their language, classed as a whole under onedenomination--Martu, Amurru, ** the West--but there were distinctivenames for each of the provinces into which they were divided. 

 * The most ancient cuneiform tablets of Syrian origin are not older than the XVIth century before our era; they contain the official, correspondence of the native princes with the Pharaohs Amenōthes III. And IV. Of the XVIIIth dynasty, as will be seen later on in this volume; they were discovered in the ruins of one of the palaces at Tel el- Amarna in Egypt. 

 ** Formerly read Akharru. Martu would be the Sumerian and Akharru the Semitic form, Akharru meaning _that which is behind_. The discovery of the Tel el-Amarna tablets threw doubt on the reading of the name Akharru: some thought that it ought to be kept in any case; others, with more or less certainty, think that it should be replaced by Amuru, Amurru, the country of the Amorites. But the question has now been settled by Babylonian contract and law tablets of the period of Khaminurabi, in which the name is written _A- mu-ur-ri (ki)_. Hommel originated the idea that Martu might be an abbreviation of Amartu, that is, Amar with the feminine termination of nouns in the Canaanitish dialect: Martu would thus actually signify _the country of the Amorites_. 

Probably even at that date they called the north Khati, * and Cole-Syria, Amurru, the land of the Amorites. The scattered references in theirwritings seem to indicate frequent intercourse with these countries, andthat, too, as a matter of course which excited no surprise among theircontemporaries: a journey from Lagash to the mountains of Tidanum andto Gubin, or to the Lebanon and beyond it to Byblos, ** meant to themno voyage of discovery. Armies undoubtedly followed the routes alreadyfrequented by caravans and flotillas of trading boats, and the time camewhen kings desired to rule as sovereigns over nations with whom theirsubjects had peaceably traded. 

 * The name of the Khati, Khatti, is found in the _Book of Omens_, which is supposed to contain an extract from the annals of Sargon and Naramsin; as, however, the text which we possess of it is merely a copy of the time of Assurbanipal, it is possible that the word Khati is merely the translation of a more ancient term, perhaps Martu. Winckler thinks it to be included in Lesser Armenia and the Melitōnź of classical authors. 

 ** Gubin is probably the Kūpūna, Kūpnū, of the Egyptians, the Byblos of Phoenicia. Amiaud had proposed a most unlikely identification with Koptos in Egypt. In the time of Inź-Sin, King of Ur, mention is found of Simurru, Zimyra. 

It does not appear, however, that the ancient rulers of Lagash everextended their dominion so far. The governors of the northern cities, onthe other hand, showed themselves more energetic, and inauguratedthat march westwards which sooner or later brought the peoples of theEuphrates into collision with the dwellers on the Nile: for the firstBabylonian empire without doubt comprised part if not the whole ofSyria. *

 * It is only since the discovery of the Tel el-Amarna tablets that the fact of the dominant influence of Chaldęa over Syria and of its conquest has been definitely realized. It is now clear that the state of things of which the tablets discovered in Egypt give us a picture, could only be explained by the hypothesis of a Babylonish supremacy of long duration over the peoples situated between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean. 

Among the most celebrated names in ancient history, that of Babylon isperhaps the only one which still suggests to our minds a sense of vaguemagnificence and undefined dominion. Cities in other parts of the world, it is true, have rivalled Babylon in magnificence and power: Egypt couldboast of more than one such city, and their ruins to this day present toour gaze more monuments worthy of admiration than Babylon ever containedin the days of her greatest prosperity. The pyramids of Memphis and thecolossal statues of Thebes still stand erect, while the ziggurāts andthe palaces of Chaldęa are but mounds of clay crumbling into the plain;but the Egyptian monuments are visible and tangible objects; we cancalculate to within a few inches the area they cover and the elevationof their summits, and the very precision with which we can gauge theirenormous size tends to limit and lessen their effect upon us. How is itpossible to give free rein to the imagination when the subject of it isstrictly limited by exact and determined measurements? At Babylon, onthe contrary, there is nothing remaining to check the flight of fancy: asingle hillock, scoured by the rains of centuries, marks the spot wherethe temple of Bel stood erect in its splendour; another represents thehanging gardens, while the ridges running to the right and left wereonce the ramparts. 

[Illustration: 029. Jpg THE RUINS OF BABYLON]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a drawing reproduced in Hofer. It shows the state of the ruins in the first half of our century, before the excavations carried out at European instigation. 

The vestiges of a few buildings remain above the mounds of rubble, and as soon as the pickaxe is applied to any spot, irregular layers ofbricks, enamelled tiles, and inscribed tablets are brought to light--infine, all those numberless objects which bear witness to the presenceof man and to his long sojourn on the spot. But these vestiges are somutilated and disfigured that the principal outlines of the buildingscannot be determined with any certainty, and afford us no data forguessing their dimensions. He who would attempt to restore the ancientappearance of the place would find at his disposal nothing but vagueindications, from which he might draw almost any conclusion he pleased. 

[Illustration: 030. Jpg PLAN OF THE RUINS OF BABYLON]

 Prepared by Thuillier, from a plan reproduced in G. Rawlinson, _Herodotus_

Palaces and temples would take a shape in his imagination on a planwhich never entered the architect's mind; the sacred towers as they rosewould be disposed in more numerous stages than they actually possessed;the enclosing walls would reach such an elevation that they must havequickly fallen under their own weight if they had ever been carriedso high: the whole restoration, accomplished without any certain data, embodies the concept of something vast and superhuman, well befittingthe city of blood and tears, cursed by the Hebrew prophets. Babylon was, however, at the outset, but a poor town, situated on both banks of theEuphrates, in a low-lying, flat district, intersected by canals andliable at times to become marshy. The river at this point runs almostdirectly north and south, between two banks of black mud, the base ofwhich it is perpetually undermining. As long as the city existed, thevertical thrust of the public buildings and houses kept the river withinbounds, and even since it was finally abandoned, the masses of _debris_have almost everywhere had the effect of resisting its encroachment;towards the north, however, the line of its ancient quays has givenway and sunk beneath the waters, while the stream, turning its coursewestwards, has transferred to the eastern bank the gardens and moundsoriginally on the opposite side. E-sagilla, the temple of the loftysummit, the sanctuary of Merodach, probably occupied the vacant space inthe depression between the Babil and the hill of the Kasr. *

 * The temple of Merodach, called by the Greeks the temple of Belos, has been placed on the site called Babīl by the two Rawlinsons; and by Oppert; Hormuzd Rassam and Fr. Delitzsch locate it between the hill of Junjuma and the Kasr, and considers Babīl to be a palace of Nebuchadrezzar. 

In early times it must have presented much the same appearance asthe sanctuaries of Central Chaldęa: a mound of crude brick formed thesubstructure of the dwellings of the priests and the household of thegod, of the shops for the offerings and for provisions, of the treasury, and of the apartments for purification or for sacrifice, while the wholewas surmounted by a ziggurāt. On other neighbouring platforms rose theroyal palace and the temples of lesser divinities, * elevated above thecrowd of private habitations. 

 * As, for instance, the temple E-temenanki on the actual hill of Amrān-ibn-Ali, the temple of Shamash, and others, which there will be occasion to mention later on in dealing with the second Chaldęan empire. 

[Illustration: 032. Jpg THE KASK SEEN FROM THE SOUTH]

 Drawn by Boudier, from the engraving by Thomas in Perrot- Chipiez. 

The houses of the people were closely built around these stately piles, on either side of narrow lanes. A massive wall surrounded the whole, shutting out the view on all sides; it even ran along the bank of theEuphrates, for fear of a surprise from that quarter, and excluded theinhabitants from the sight of their own river. On the right bank rosea suburb, which was promptly fortified and enlarged, so as to become asecond Babylon, almost equalling the first in extent and population. 

[Illustration: 033. Jpg THE TELL OF BORSIPPA, THE PRESENT BIRS-NIMRUD]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after the plate published in Ohesney. 

Beyond this, on the outskirts, extended gardens and fields, finding atlength their limit at the territorial boundaries of two other towns, Kutha and Borsippa, whose black outlines are visible to the east andsouth-west respectively, standing isolated above the plain. Sippara onthe north, Nippur on the south, and the mysterious Agadź, completed thecircle of sovereign states which so closely hemmed in the city of Bel. We may surmise with all probability that the history of Babylon in earlytimes resembled in the main that of the Egyptian Thebes. It was a smallseigneury in the hands of petty princes ceaselessly at war with pettyneighbours: bloody struggles, with alternating successes and reverses, were carried on for centuries with no decisive results, until the daycame when some more energetic or fortunate dynasty at length crushed itsrivals, and united under one rule first all the kingdoms of Northern andfinally those of Southern Chaldęa. 

The lords of Babylon had, ordinarily, a twofold function, religiousand military, the priest at first taking precedence of the soldier, butgradually yielding to the latter as the town increased in power. They were merely the priestly representatives or administrators ofBabel--_shakannaku Babili_--and their authority was not consideredlegitimate until officially confirmed by the god. Each ruler was obligedto go in state to the temple of Bel Merodach within a year of hisaccession: there he had to take the hands of the divine statue, justas a vassal would do homage to his liege, and those only of the nativesovereigns or the foreign conquerors could legally call themselves Kingsof Babylon--_sharru Babili_--who had not only performed this rite, butrenewed it annually. *

 * The meaning of the ceremony in which the kings of Babylon "took the hands of Bel" has been given by Winckler; Tiele compares it very aptly with the rite performed by the Egyptian kings--at Heliopolis, for example, when they entered alone the sanctuary of Rā, and there contemplated the god face to face. The rite was probably repeated annually, at the time of the Zakmuku, that is, the New Year festival. 

Sargon the Elder had lived in Babylon, and had built himself a palacethere: hence the tradition of later times attributed to this city theglory of having been the capital of the great empire founded by theAkkadian dynasties. The actual sway of Babylon, though arrested to thesouth by the petty states of Lower Chaldęa, had not encountered to thenorth or north-west any enemy to menace seriously its progress in thatsemi-fabulous period of its history. The vast plain extending betweenthe Euphrates and the Tigris is as it were a continuation of theArabian desert, and is composed of a grey, or in parts a whitish, soilimpregnated with selenite and common salt, and irregularly superimposedupon a bed of gypsum, from which asphalt oozes up here and there, forming slimy pits. Frost is of rare occurrence in winter, and rain isinfrequent at any season; the sun soon burns up the scanty herbagewhich the spring showers have encouraged, but fleshy plants successfullyresist its heat, such as the common salsola, the salsola soda, thepallasia, a small mimosa, and a species of very fragrant wormwood, forming together a vari-coloured vegetation which gives shelter tothe ostrich and the wild ass, and affords the flocks of the nomads agrateful pasturage when the autumn has set in. The Euphrates boundsthese solitudes, but without watering them. The river flows, as far asthe eye can see, between two ranges of rock or bare hills, at the footof which a narrow strip of alluvial soil supports rows of date-palmsintermingled here and there with poplars, sumachs, and willows. Whereverthere is a break in the two cliffs, or where they recede from the river, a series of shadufs takes possession of the bank, and every inch of thesoil is brought under cultivation. The aspect of the country remainsunchanged as far as the embouchure of the Khabur; but there a blackalluvial soil replaces the saliferous clay, and if only the water wereto remain on the land in sufficient quantity, the country would beunrivalled in the world for the abundance and variety of its crops. 

[Illustration: 036. Jpg THE BANKS OF THE EUPHRATES AT ZULEIBEH]

 Drawn by Boudier, from the plate in Chesney. 

The fields, which are regularly sown in the neighbourhood of the smalltowns, yield magnificent harvests of wheat and barley: while in theprairie-land beyond the cultivated ground the grass grows so high thatit comes up to the horses' girths. In some places the meadows are socovered with varieties of flowers, growing in dense masses, that theeffect produced is that of a variegated carpet; dogs sent in among themin search of game, emerge covered with red, blue, and yellow pollen. This fragrant prairie-land is the delight of bees, which produceexcellent and abundant honey, while the vine and olive find there acongenial soil. The population was unequally distributed in this region. Some half-savage tribes were accustomed to wander over the plain, dwelling in tents, and supporting life by the chase and by the rearingof cattle; but the bulk of the inhabitants were concentrated around theaffluents of the Euphrates and Tigris, or at the foot of the northernmountains wherever springs could be found, as in Assur, Singar, Nisibis, Tilli, * Kharranu, and in all the small fortified towns and namelesstownlets whose ruins are scattered over the tract of country between theKhabur and the Balikh. Kharranu, or Harran, stood, like an advance guardof Chaldęan civilization, near the frontiers of Syria and Asia Minor. **To the north it commanded the passes which opened on to the basins ofthe Upper Euphrates and Tigris; it protected the roads leading to theeast and south-east in the direction of the table-land of Iran and thePersian Gulf, and it was the key to the route by which the commerce ofBabylon reached the countries lying around the Mediterranean. We have nomeans of knowing what affinities as regards origin or race connectedit with Uru, but the same moon-god presided over the destinies of bothtowns, and the Sin of Harran enjoyed in very early times a renown nearlyequal to that of his namesake. 

 * Tilli, the only one of these towns mentioned with any certainty in the inscriptions of the first Chaldęan empire, is the Tela of classical authors, and probably the present Werānshaher, near the sources of the Balikh. 

 ** Kharranu was identified by the earlier Assyriologists with the Harran of the Hebrews (_Gen. _ v. 12), the Carrhse of classical authors, and this identification is still generally accepted. 

He was worshipped under the symbol of a conical stone, probably anaerolite, surmounted by a gilded crescent, and the ground-plan of thetown roughly described a crescent-shaped curve in honour of its patron. His cult, even down to late times, was connected with cruel practices;generations after the advent to power of the Abbasside caliphs, hisfaithful worshippers continued to sacrifice to him human victims, whoseheads, prepared according to the ancient rite, were accustomed to giveoracular responses. * The government of the surrounding country wasin the hands of princes who were merely vicegerents:** Chaldęancivilization before the beginnings of history had more or less laid holdof them, and made them willing subjects to the kings of Babylon. ***

 * Without seeking to specify exactly which were the doctrines introduced into Harranian religion subsequently to the Christian era, we may yet affirm that the base of this system of faith was merely a very distorted form of the ancient Chaldęan worship practised in the town. 

 ** Only one vicegerent of Mesopotamia is known at present, and he belongs to the Assyrian epoch. His seal is preserved in the British Museum. 

 *** The importance of Harran in the development of the history of the first Chaldęan empire was pointed out by Winckler; but the theory according to which this town was the capital of the kingdom, called by the Chaldęan and Assyrian scribes "the kingdom of the world, " is justly combated by Tiele. 

These sovereigns were probably at the outset somewhat obscurepersonages, without much prestige, being sometimes independent andsometimes subject to the rulers of neighbouring states, among others tothose of Agadź. In later times, when Babylon had attained to universalpower, and it was desired to furnish her kings with a continuoushistory, the names of these earlier rulers were sought out, and addedto those of such foreign princes as had from time to time enjoyed thesovereignty over them--thus forming an interminable list which formaterials and authenticity would well compare with that of the ThinitePharaohs. This list has come down to us incomplete, and its remains donot permit of our determining the exact order of reigns, or the statusof the individuals who composed it. We find in it, in the periodimmediately subsequent to the Deluge, mention of mythical heroes, followed by names which are still semi-legendary, such as Sargon theElder; the princes of the series were, however, for the most partreal beings, whose memories had been preserved by tradition, or whosemonuments were still existing in certain localities. Towards the end ofthe XXVth century before our era, however, a dynasty rose into power ofwhich all the members come within the range of history. *

 * This dynasty, which is known to us in its entirety by the two lists of G. Smith and by Pinches, was legitimately composed of only eleven kings, and was known as the Babylonian dynasty, although Sayce suspects it to be of Arabian origin. It is composed as follows:--

[Illustration: 039. Jpg TABLE]

The dates of this dynasty are not fixed with entire certainty. The firstof them, Sumuabīm, has left us some contracts bearing the dates of oneor other of the fifteen years of his reign, and documents of public orprivate interest abound in proportion as we follow down the line of hissuccessors. Sumulaīlu, who reigned after him, was only distantly relatedto his predecessor; but from Sumulaīlu to Sam-shusatana the kingly powerwas transmitted from father to son without a break for nine generations, if we may credit the testimony of the official lists. *

 * Simulaīlu, also written Samu-la-ilu, whom Mr. Pinches has found in a contract tablet associated with Pungunila as king, was not the son of Sumuabīm, since the lists do not mention him as such; he must, however, have been connected with some sort of relationship, or by marriage, with his predecessor, since both are placed in the same dynasty. A few contracts of Sumulaīlu are given by Meissner. Samsuiluna calls him "my forefather (d-gula-mu), the fifth king before me. "

 Hommel believes that the order of the dynasties has been reversed, and that the first upon the lists we possess was historically the second; he thus places the Babylonian dynasty between 2035 and 1731 B. C. His opinion has not been generally adopted, but every Assyriologist dealing with this period proposes a different date for the reigns in this dynasty; to take only one characteristic example, Khammurabi is placed by Oppert in the year 2394-2339, by Delitzsch- Murdter in 2287-2232, by Winckler in 2264-2210, and by Peiser in 2139-2084, and by Carl Niebuhr in 2081-2026. 

Contemporary records, however, prove that the course of affairs didnot always run so smoothly. They betray the existence of at leastone usurper--Immźru--who, even if he did not assume the royal titles, enjoyed the supreme power for several years between the reigns of Zabuand Abilsin. The lives of these rulers closely resembled those of theircontemporaries of Southern Chaldęa. They dredged the ancient canals, orconstructed new ones; they restored the walls of their fortresses, orbuilt fresh strongholds on the frontier;* they religiously kept thefestivals of the divinities belonging to their terrestrial domain, towhom they annually rendered solemn homage. 

 * Sumulaīlu had built six such large strongholds of brick, which were repaired by Samsuiluna five generations later. A contract of Sinmuballit is dated the year in which he built the great wall of a strong place, the name of which is unfortunately illegible on the fragment which we possess. 

They repaired the temples as a matter of course, and enriched themaccording to their means; we even know that Zabu, the third in orderof the line of sovereigns, occupied himself in building the sanctuaryEulbar of Anunit, in Sippara. There is evidence that they possessed thesmall neighbouring kingdoms of Kishu, Sippara, and Kuta, and that theyhad consolidated them into a single state, of which Babylon was thecapital. To the south their possessions touched upon those of the kingsof Uru, but the frontier was constantly shifting, so that at one time animportant city such as Nippur belonged to them, while at another it fellunder the dominion of the southern provinces. Perpetual war was wagedin the narrow borderland which separated the two rival states, resultingapparently in the balance of power being kept tolerably equal betweenthem under the immediate successors of Sumuabīm* --the obscure Sumulaīlu, Zabum, the usurper Immeru, Abīlsin and Sinmuballit--until the reign ofKhammurabi (the son of Sinmuballit), who finally made it incline tohis side. ** The struggle in which he was engaged, and which, after manyvicissitudes, he brought to a successful issue, was the more decisive, since he had to contend against a skilful and energetic adversary whohad considerable forces at his disposal. Birnsin*** was, in reality, ofElamite race, and as he held the province of Yamutbal in appanage, hewas enabled to muster, in addition to his Chaldęan battalions, the armyof foreigners who had conquered the maritime regions at the mouth of theTigris and the Euphrates. 

 * None of these facts are as yet historically proved: we may, however, conjecture with some probability what was the general state of things, when we remember that the first kings of Babylon were contemporaries of the last independent sovereigns of Southern Chaldęa. 

 ** The name of this prince has been read in several ways-- Hammurabi, Khammurabi, by the earlier Assyriologists, subsequently Hammuragash, Khammuragash, as being of Elamite or Cossoan extraction: the reading Khammurabi is at present the prevailing one. The bilingual list published by Pinches makes Khammurabi an equivalent of the Semitic names Kimta- rapashtum. Hence Halévy concluded that Khammurabi was a series of ideograms, and that Kimtarapashtum was the true reading of the name; his proposal, partially admitted by Hommel, furnishes us with a mixed reading of Khammurapaltu, Amraphel. [Hommel is now convinced of the identity of the Amraphel of _Gen. _ xiv. I with Khammurabi. --Te. ] Sayce, moreover, adopts the reading Khammurabi, and assigns to him an Arabian origin. The part played by this prince was pointed out at an early date by Menant. Recent discoveries have shown the important share which he had in developing the Chaldęan empire, and have, increased his reputation with Assyriologists. 

 *** The name of this king has been the theme of heated discussions: it was at first pronounced Aradsin, Ardusin, or Zikarsin; it is now read in several different ways--Rimsin, or Eriaku, Riaku, Rimagu. Others have made a distinction between the two forms, and have made out of them the names of two different kings. They are all variants of the same name. I have adopted the form Rimsin, which is preferred by a few Assyriologists. [The tablets recently discovered by Mr. Pinches, referring to Kudur-lagamar and Tudkhula, which he has published in a Paper road before the Victoria Institute, Jan. 20, 1896, have shown that the true reading is Eri-Aku. The Elamite name Eri-Aku, "servant of the moon- god, " was changed by some of his subjects into the Babylonian Rim-Sin, "Have mercy, O Moon-god!" just as Abźsukh, the Hebrew Absihu'a ("the father of welfare") was transformed into the Babylonian Ebisum ("the actor"). --Ed. ]

It was not the first time that Elam had audaciously interfered inthe affairs of her neighbours. In fabulous times, one of her mythicalkings--Khumbaba the Ferocious--had oppressed. Uruk, and Gilgames withall his valour was barely able to deliver the town. Sargon the Elder iscredited with having subdued Elam; the kings and vicegerents of Lagash, as well as those of Uru and. Larsam, had measured forces with Anshan, but with no decisive issue. From time to time they obtained anadvantage, and we find recorded in the annals victories gained by Gudea, Inź-sin, or Bursin, but to be followed only by fresh reverses; at theclose of such campaigns, and in order to seal the ensuing peace, ąprincess of Susa would be sent as a bride to one of the Chaldęan cities, or a Chaldęan lady of royal birth would enter the harem of a king ofAnshān. Elam was protected along the course of the Tigris and on theshores of the Nār-Marratum by a wide marshy region, impassable exceptat a few fixed and easily defended places. The alluvial plain extendingbehind the marshes was as rich and fertile as that of Chaldęa. Wheat andbarley ordinarily yielded an hundred and at times two hundredfold; thetowns were surrounded by a shadeless belt of palms; the almond, fig, acacia, poplar, and willow extended in narrow belts along the rivers'edge. The climate closely resembles that of Chaldaja: if the midday heatin summer is more pitiless, it is at least tempered by more frequenteast winds. The ground, however, soon begins to rise, ascendinggradually towards the north-east. The distant and uniform line ofmountain-peaks grows loftier on the approach of the traveller, and thehills begin to appear one behind another, clothed halfway up with thickforests, but bare on their summits, or scantily covered with meagrevegetation. They comprise, in fact, six or seven parallel ranges, resembling natural ramparts piled up between the country of the Tigrisand the table-land of Iran. The intervening valleys were formerly lakes, having had for the most part no communication with each other and nooutlet into the sea. In the course of centuries they had dried up, leaving a thick deposit of mud in the hollows of their ancient beds, from which sprang luxurious and abundant harvests. The rivers--theUknu, * the Ididi, ** and the Ulaī***--which water this region are, onreaching more level ground, connected by canals, and are constantlyshifting their beds in the light soil of the Susian plain: they soonattain a width equal to that of the Euphrates, but after a short timelose half their volume in swamps, and empty themselves at the presentday into the Shatt-el-Arab. They flowed formerly into that part of thePersian Gulf which extended as far as Kornah, and the sea thus formedthe southern frontier of the kingdom. 

 * The Uknu is the Kerkhah of the present day, the Choaspes of the Greeks. 

 ** The Ididi was at first identified with the ancient Pasitigris, which scholars then desired to distinguish from the Eulseos: it is now known to be the arm of the Karun which runs to Dizful, the Koprates of classical times, which has sometimes been confounded with the Eulaws. 

 *** The Ulaī, mentioned in the Hebrew texts (Ban. Viii. 2, 16), the Euloos of classical writers, also called Pasitigris. It is the Karun of the present day, until its confluence with the Shaūr, and subsequently the Shaūr itself, which waters the foot of the Susian hills. 

From earliest times this country was inhabited by three distinctpeoples, whose descendants may still be distinguished at the presentday, and although they have dwindled in numbers and become mixed withelements of more recent origin, the resemblance to their forefathersis still very remarkable. There were, in the first place, the shortand robust people of well-knit figure, with brown skins, black hair andeyes, who belonged to that negritic race which inhabited a considerablepart of Asia in prehistoric times. *

 * The connection of the negroid type of Susians with the negritic races of India and Oceania, has been proved, in the course of M. Dieulafoy's expedition to the Susian plains and the ancient provinces of Elam. 

[Illustration: 045. Jpg MAP OF CHALDĘA AND ELAM. ]

[Illustration: 046. Jpg AN ANCIENT SUSIAN OF NEGRETIC RACE]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief of Sargon II. In the Louvre. 

These prevailed in the lowlands and the valleys, where the warm, dampclimate favoured their development; but they also spread into themountain region, and had pushed their outposts as far as the firstslopes of the Iranian table-land. They there contact with white-skinnedof medium height, who were probably allied to the nations of Northernand Central Asia--to the Scythians, * for instance, if it is permissibleto use a vague term employed by the Ancients. 

 * This last-mentioned people is, by some authors, for reasons which, so far, can hardly be considered conclusive, connected with the so-called Sumerian race, which we find settled in Chaldęa. They are said to have been the first to employ horses and chariots in warfare. 

[Illustration: 047. Jpg NATIVE OF MIXED NEGRITIC RACE FROM SUSIANA]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph furnished by Marcel Dieulafoy. 

Semites of the same stock as those of Chaldęa pushed forward as far asthe east bank of the Tigris, and settling mainly among the marshes led aprecarious life by fishing and pillaging. * The country of the plainwas called Anzān, or Anshān, ** and the mountain region Numma, or Ilamma, "the high lands:" these two names were subsequently used to denote thewhole country, and Ilamma has survived in the Hebrew word Elam. *** Susa, the most important and flourishing town in the kingdom, was situatedbetween the Ulaī and the Ididi, some twenty-five or thirty miles fromthe nearest of the mountain ranges. 

 * From the earliest times we meet beyond the Tigris with names like that of Durilu, a fact which proves the existence of races speaking a Semitic dialect in the countries under the suzerainty of the King of Elam: in the last days of the Chaldęan empire they had assumed such importance that the Hebrews made out Elam to be one of the sons of Shem (_Gen. _ x. 22). 

 ** Anzān, Anshān, and, by assimilation of the nasal with the sibilant, Ashshān. This name has already been mentioned in the inscriptions of the kings and vicegerents of Lagash and in the _Book of Prophecies_ of the ancient Chaldęan astronomers; it also occurs in the royal preamble of Cyrus and his ancestors, who like him were styled "kings of Anshān. " It had been applied to the whole country of Elam, and afterwards to Persia. Some are of opinion that it was the name of a part of Elam, viz. That inhabited by the Turanian Medes who spoke the second language of the Achęmenian inscriptions, the eastern half, bounded by the Tigris and the Persian Gulf, consisting of a flat and swampy land. These differences of opinion gave rise to a heated controversy; it is now, however, pretty generally admitted that Anzān-Anshān was really the plain of Elam, from the mountains to the sea, and one set of authorities affirms that the word Anzān may have meant "plain" in the language of the country, while others hesitate as yet to pronounce definitely on this point. 

 *** The meaning of "Nunima, " "Ilamma, " "Ilamtu, " in the group of words used to indicate Elam, had been recognised even by the earliest Assyriologists; the name originally referred to the hilly country on the north and east of Susa. To the Hebrews, Elam was one of the sons of Shem (Gen. X. 22). The Greek form of the name is Elymais, and some of the classical geographers were well enough acquainted with the meaning of the word to be able to distinguish the region to which it referred from Susiana proper. 

[Illustration: 048. Jpg THE TUMULUS OF SUSA, AS IT APPEARED TOWARDS THEMIDDLE OF THE XIXth CENTURY]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after a plate in Chesney. 

Its fortress and palace were raised upon the slopes of a mound whichoverlooked the surrounding country:* at its base, to the eastward, stretched the town, with its houses of sun-dried bricks. **

 * Susa, in the language of the country, was called Shushun; this name was transliterated into Chaldęo-Assyrian, by Shushan, Shushi. 

 ** Strabo tells us, on the authority of Polycletus, that the town had no walls in the time of Alexander, and extended over a space two hundred stadia in length; in the VIII century B. C. It was enclosed by walls with bastions, which are shown on a bas-relief of Assurbanipal, but it was surrounded by unfortified suburbs. 

Further up the course of the Uknu, lay the following cities: Madaktu, the Badaca of classical authors, * rivalling Susa in strength andimportance; Naditu, ** Til-Khumba, *** Dur-Undash, **** Khaidalu.^--alllarge walled towns, most of which assumed the title of royal cities. Elam in reality constituted a kind of feudal empire, composed of severaltribes--the Habardip, the Khushshi, the Umliyash, the people of Yamutbaland of Yatbur^^--all independent of each other, but often united underthe authority of one sovereign, who as a rule chose Susa as the seat ofgovernment. 

 * Madaktu, Mataktu, the Badaka of Diodorus, situated on the Eulaaos, between Susa and Ecbatana, has been placed by Rawlinson near the bifurcation of the Kerkhah, either at Paipul or near Aiwān-i-Kherkah, where there are some rather important and ancient ruins; Billerbeck prefers to put it at the mouth of the valley of Zal-fer, on the site at present occupied by the citadel of Kala-i-Riza. 

 ** Naditu is identified by Finzi with the village of Natanzah, near Ispahan; it ought rather to be looked for in the neighbourhood of Sarna. 

 *** Til-Khumba, the Mound of Khumba, so named after one of the principal Elamite gods, was, perhaps, situated among the ruins of Budbar, towards the confluence of the Ab-i-Kirind and Kerkhah, or possibly higher up in the mountain, in the vicinity of Asmanabad. 

 **** Dur-Undash, Dur-Undasi, has been identified, without absolutely conclusive reason, with the fortress of Kala-i- Dis on the Disful-Rud. 

 ^ Khaidalu, Khidalu, is perhaps the present fortress of Dis- Malkan. 

 ^^ The countries of Yatbur and Yamutbal extended into the plain between the marshes of the Tigris and the mountain; the town of Durilu was near the Yamutbal region, if not in that country itself. Umliyash lay between the Uknu and the Tigris. 

[Illustration: 050. Jpg Page Image]

The language is not represented by any idioms now spoken, and itsaffinities with the Sumerian which some writers have attempted toestablish, are too uncertain to make it safe to base any theory uponthem. *

 * A great part of the Susian inscriptions have been collected by Fr. Lenormant. An attempt has been made to identify the language in which they are written with the Sumero-accadian, and authorities now generally agree in considering the Arcęmenian inscriptions of the second type as representative of its modern form. Hommel connects it with Georgian, and includes it in a great linguistic family, which comprises, besides these two idioms, the Hittite, the Cappadocian, the Armenian of the Van inscriptions, and the Cosstean. Oppert claims to have discovered on a tablet in the British Museum a list of words belonging to one of the idioms (probably Semitic) of Susiana, which differs alike from the Suso-Medic and the Assyrian. 

The little that we know of Elamite religion reveals to us a mysteriousworld, full of strange names and vague forms. Over their hierarchythere presided a deity who was called Shushinak (the Susian), Dimesh orSamesh, Dagbag, As-siga, Adaene, and possibly Khumba and Ęmmān, whomthe Chaldęns identified with their god Ninip; his statue was concealedin a sanctuary inaccessible to the profane, but it was dragged fromthence by Assurbanipal of Nineveh in the VIIth century B. C. * This deitywas associated with six others of the first rank, who were divided intotwo triads--Shumudu, Lagamaru, Partikira; Ammankasibar, Uduran, andSapak: of these names, the least repellent, Ammankasibar, may possiblybe the Memnon of the Greeks. The dwelling of these divinities was nearSusa, in the depths of a sacred forest to which the priests and kingsalone had access: their images were brought out on certain days toreceive solemn homage, and were afterwards carried back to their shrineaccompanied by a devout and reverent multitude. These deities receiveda tenth of the spoil after any successful campaign--the offeringscomprising statues of the enemies' gods, valuable vases, ingots ofgold and silver, furniture, and stuffs. The Elamite armies were wellorganized, and under a skilful general became irresistible. In otherrespects the Elamites closely resembled the Chaldęans, pursuing the sameindustries and having the same agricultural and commercial instincts. Inthe absence of any bas-reliefs and inscriptions peculiar to this people, we may glean from the monuments of Lagash and Babylon a fair idea of theextent of their civilization in its earliest stages. 

 * _Shushinak_ is an adjective derived from the name of the town of Susa. The real name of the god was probably kept secret and rarely uttered. The names which appear by the side of Shushinak in the text published by H. Rawlinson, as equivalents of the Babylonian Ninip, perhaps represent different deities; we may well ask whether the deity may not be the Khumba, Umma, Ummān, who recurs so frequently in the names of men and places, and who has hitherto never been met with alone in any formula or dedicatory tablet. 

The cities of the Euphrates, therefore, could have been sensible of butlittle change, when the chances of war transferred them from the rule oftheir native princes to that of an Elamite. The struggle once over, andthe resulting evils repaired as far as practicable, the people of thesetowns resumed their usual ways, hardly conscious of the presence oftheir foreign ruler. The victors, for their part, became assimilated sorapidly with the vanquished, that at the close of a generation or sothe conquering dynasty was regarded legitimate and national one, loyallyattached to the traditions and religion of its adopted country. In theyear 2285 B. C. , towards the close of the reign of Nurrammān, or inthe earlier part of that of Siniddinam, a King of Elam, by nameKudur-nakhunta, triumphantly marched through Chaldęa from end to end, devastating the country and sparing neither town nor temple: Uruk lostits statue of Nana, which was carried off as a trophy and placed in thesanctuary of Susa. The inhabitants long mourned the detention of theirgoddess, and a hymn of lamentation, probably composed for the occasionby one of their priests, kept the remembrance of the disaster fresh intheir memories. "Until when, oh lady, shall the impious enemy ravage thecountry!--In thy queen-city, Uruk, the destruction is accomplished, --inEulbar, the temple of thy oracle, blood has flowed like water, --upon thewhole of thy lands has he poured out flame, and it is spread abroad likesmoke. --Oh, lady, verily it is hard for me to bend under the yoke ofmisfortune!--? Oh, lady, thou hast wrapped me about, thou hast plungedme, in sorrow!--The impious mighty one has broken me in pieces like arečd, --and I know not what to resolve, I trust not in myself, --like abed of reeds I sigh day and night!--I, thy servant, I bow myself beforethee!" It would appear that the whole of Chaldęa, including Babylonitself, was forced to acknowledge the supremacy of the invader;* aSusian empire thus absorbed Chaldęa, reducing its states to feudalprovinces, and its princes to humble vassals. Kudur-nakhunta havingdeparted, the people of Larsa exerted themselves to the utmost to repairthe harm that he had done, and they succeeded but too well, since theirvery prosperity was the cause only a short time after of the outburstof another storm. Siniddinam, perhaps, desired to shake off the Elamiteyoke. Simtishilkhak, one of the successors of Kudur-nakhunta, hadconceded the principality of Yamutbal as a fief to Kudur-mabug, oneof his sons. Kudur-mabug appears to have been a conqueror of no meanability, for he claims, in his inscriptions, the possession of the wholeof Syria. **

 * The submission of Babylon is evident from the title Adda Martu, "sovereign of the West, " assumed by several of the Elamite princes (of. P. 65 of the present work): in order to extend his authority beyond the Euphrates, it was necessary for the King of Elam to be first of all master of Babylon. In the early days of Assyriology it was supposed that this period of Elamite supremacy coincided with the Median dynasty of Berosus. 

 ** His preamble contains the titles _adda Martu, _ "prince of Syria;" _adda lamutbal_, "prince of Yamutbal. " The word _adda_ seems properly to mean "lather, " and the literal translation of the full title would probably be "father of Syria, " "_father_ of Yamutbal, " whence the secondary meanings "master, lord, prince, " which have been provisionally accepted by most Assyriologists. Tiele, and Winckler after him, have suggested that Martu is here equivalent to Yamutbal, and that it was merely used to indicate the western part of Elam; Winckler afterwards rejected this hypothesis, and has come round to the general opinion. 

He obtained a victory over Siniddinam, and having dethroned him, placedthe administration of the kingdom in the hands of his own son Eimsin. This prince, who was at first a feudatory, afterwards associated in thegovernment with his father, and finally sole monarch after thelatter's death, married a princess of Chaldęan blood, and by this meanslegitimatized his usurpation in the eyes of his subjects. His domain, which lay on both sides of the Tigris and of the Euphrates, comprised, besides the principality of Yamutbal, all the towns dependent on Sumerand Accad--Uru, Larsa, Uruk, and Nippur, He acquitted himself as a goodsovereign in the sight of gods and men: he repaired the brickwork in thetemple of Nannar at Uru; he embellished the temple of Shamash at Larsa, and caused two statues of copper to be cast in honour of the god; healso rebuilt Lagash and Grirsu. The city of Uruk had been left a heap ofruins after the withdrawal of Kudur-nakhunta: he set about the work ofrestoration, constructed a sanctuary to Papsukal, raised the ziggurāt ofNana, and consecrated to the goddess an entire set of temple furnitureto replace that carried off by the Elamites. He won the adhesion of thepriests by piously augmenting their revenues, and throughout his reigndisplayed remarkable energy. Documents exist which attribute to him thereduction of Durilu, on the borders of Elam and the Chaldęan states;others contain discreet allusions to a perverse enemy who disturbedhis peace in the north, and whom he successfully repulsed. He droveSinmuballit out of Ishin, and this victory so forcibly impressedhis contemporaries, that they made it the starting-point of a newsemi-official era; twenty-eight years after the event, private contractsstill continued to be dated by reference to the taking of Ishin. Sinmuballit's son, Khammurabi, was more fortunate. Eimsin vainlyappealed for help against him to his relative and suzerainKudur-lagamar, who had succeeded Simtishilkhak at Susa. Eimsin wasdefeated, and disappeared from the scene of action, leaving no tracebehind him, though we may infer that he took refuge in his fief ofYamutbal. The conquest by Khammurabi was by no means achieved at oneblow, the enemy offering an obstinate resistance. He was forced todestroy several fortresses, the inhabitants of which had either risenagainst him or had refused to do him homage, among them being thoseof Meīr* and Malgu. When the last revolt had been put down, all thecountries speaking the language of Chaldęa and sharing its civilizationwere finally united into a single kingdom, of which Khammurabiproclaimed himself the head. Other princes who had preceded him hadenjoyed the same opportunities, but their efforts had never beensuccessful in establishing an empire of any duration; the variouselements had been bound together for a moment, merely to be dispersedagain after a short interval. The work of Khammurabi, on the contrary, was placed on a solid foundation, and remained unimpaired under hissuccessors. Not only did he hold sway without a rival in the south asin the north, but the titles indicating the rights he had acquired overSumer and Accad were inserted in his Protocol after those denoting hishereditary possessions, --the city of Bel and the four houses of theworld. Khammurabi's victory marks the close of those long centuries ofgradual evolution during which the peoples of the Lower Euphrates passedfrom division to unity. Before his reign there had been as many statesas cities, and as many dynasties as there were states; after him therewas but one kingdom under one line of kings. 

 * Maīru, Meīr, has been identified with Shurippak; but it is, rather, the town of Mar, now Tell-Id. A and Lagamal, the Elamite Lagamar, were worshipped there. It was the seat of a linen manufacture, and possessed large shipping. 

Khammurabi's long reign of fifty-five years has hitherto yielded us buta small number of monuments--seals, heads of sceptres, alabaster vases, and pompous inscriptions, scarcely any of them being of historicalinterest. He was famous for the number of his campaigns, no details ofwhich, however, have come to light, but the dedication of one of hisstatues celebrates his good fortune on the battlefield. "Bel has lentthee sovereign majesty: thou, what awaitest thou?--Sin has lent theeroyalty: thou, what awaitest thou?--Ninip has lent thee his supremeweapon: thou, what awaitest thou?--The goddess of light, Ishtar, has lent thee the shock of arms and the fray: thou, what awaitestthou?--Shamash and Bamman are thy varlets: thou, what awaitest thou?--Itis Khammurabi, the king, the powerful chieftain--who cuts the enemiesin pieces, --the whirlwind of battle--who overthrows the country of therebels--who stays combats, who crushes rebellions, --who destroysthe stubborn like images of clay, --who overcomes the obstacles ofinaccessible mountains. " The majority of these expeditions were, nodoubt, consequent on the victory which destroyed the power of Kimsin. It would not have sufficed merely to drive back the Elamites beyond theTigris; it was necessary to strike a blow within their own territory toavoid a recurrence of hostilities, which might have endangered the stillrecent work of conquest. Here, again, Khammurabi seems to have met withhis habitual success. 

[Illustration: 057. Jpg HEAD OF A SCEPTRE IN COPPER, BEARING THE NAME OFKHAM-MURABI]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a rapid sketch made at the British Museum. 

Ashnunak was a border district, and shared the fate of all the provinceson the eastern bank of the Tigris, being held sometimes by Elam andsometimes by Chaldęa; properly speaking, it was a country of Semiticspeech, and was governed by viceroys owning allegiance, now to Babylon, now to Susa. * Khammurabi seized this province, and permanently securedits frontier by building along the river a line of fortresses surroundedby earthworks. Following the example of his predecessors, he set himselfto restore and enrich the temples. 

 * Pognon discovered inscriptions of four of the vicegerents of Ashnunak, which he assigns, with some hesitation, to the time of Khammurabi, rather than to that of the kings of Telloh. Three of these names are Semitic, the fourth Sumerian; the language of the inscriptions bears a resemblance to the Semitic dialect of Chaldęa. 

The house of Zamama and Ninni, at Kish, was out of repair, and theziggurāt threatened to fall; he pulled it down and rebuilt it, carryingit to such a height that its summit "reached the heavens. " Merodach haddelegated to him the government of the faithful, and had raised him tothe rank of supreme ruler over the whole of Chaldęa. At Babylon, closeto the great lake which served as a reservoir for the overflow of theEuphrates, the king restored the sanctuary of Esagilla, the dimensionsof which did not appear to him to be proportionate to the growingimportance of the city. "He completed this divine dwelling with greatjoy and delight, he raised the summit to the firmament, " and thenenthroned Merodach and his spouse, Zarpanit, within it, amid greatfestivities. He provided for the ever-recurring requirements of thenational religion by frequent gifts; the tradition has come down to usof the granary for wheat which he built at Babylon, the sight of whichalone rejoiced the heart of the god. While surrounding Sippar with agreat wall and a fosse, to protect its earthly inhabitants, he didnot forget Shamash and Malkatu, the celestial patrons of the town. Heenlarged in their honour the mysterious Ebarra, the sacred seat of theirworship, and that which no king from the earliest times had known howto build for his divine master, that did he generously for Shamashhis master. He restored Ezida, the eternal dwelling of Merodach, at Borsippa; Eturka-lamma, the temple of Anu, Ninni, and Nana, thesuzerains of Kish; and also Ezikalamma, the house of the goddess Ninna, in the village of Zarilab. In the southern provinces, but recently addedto the crown, --at Larsa, Uruk, and Uru, --he displayed similar activity. 

[Illustration: 059. Jpg Page Image]

He had, doubtless, a political as well as a religious motive in all hedid; for if he succeeded in winning the allegiance of the priests bythe prodigality of his pious gifts, he could count on their gratitude insecuring for him the people's obedience, and thus prevent the outbreakof a revolt. He had, indeed, before him a difficult task in attemptingto allay the ills which had been growing during centuries of civildiscord and foreign conquest. The irrigation of the country demandedconstant attention, and from earliest times its sovereigns had directedthe work with real solicitude; but owing to the breaking up of thecountry into small states, their respective resources could not becombined in such general operations as were needed for controlling theinundations and effectually remedying the excess or the scarcity ofwater. Khammurabi witnessed the damage done to the whole province ofUmliyash by one of those terrible floods which still sometimes ravagethe regions of the Lower Tigris, * and possibly it may have been toprevent the recurrence of such a disaster that he undertook the work ofcanalization. 

 * Contracts dated the year of an inundation which laid waste Umliyash; cf. In our own time, the inundation of April 10, 1831, which in a single night destroyed half the city of Bagdad, and in which fifteen thousand persons lost their lives either by drowning or by the collapse of their houses. 

He was the first that we know of who attempted to organize and reduceto a single system the complicated network of ditches and channels whichintersected the territory belonging to the great cities between Babylonand the sea. Already, more than half a century previously, Siniddinamhad enlarged the canal on which Larsa was situated, while Bimsin hadprovided an outlet for the "River of the Gods" into the Persian Gulf:*by the junction of the two a navigable channel was formed between theEuphrates and the marshes, and an outlet was thus made for the surpluswaters of the inundation. Khammurabi informs us how Anu and Bel, havingconfided to him the government of Sumer and Accad, and having placed inhis hands the reins of power, he dug the Nār-Khammurabi, the source ofwealth to the people, which brings abundance of water to the countryof Sumir and Accad. "I turned both its banks into cultivated ground, Iheaped up mounds of grain and I furnished perpetual water for the peopleof Sumir and Accad. The country of Sumer and Accad, I gathered togetherits nations who were scattered, I gave them pasture and drink, I ruledover them in riches and abundance, I caused them to inhabit a peacefuldwelling-place. Then it was that Khammurabi, the powerful king, thefavourite of the great gods, I myself, according to the prodigiousstrength with which Merodach had endued me, I constructed a highfortress, upon mounds of earth; its summit rises to the height of themountains, at the head of the Nār-Khammurabi, the source of wealth tothe people. This fortress I called Dur-Sinmuballit-abim-uālidiya, theFortress of Sinmuballit, the father who begat me, so that the name ofSinmuballit, the father who begat me, may endure in the habitations ofthe world. "

 * Contract dated "the year the Tigris, river of the gods, was canalized down to the sea"; i. E. As far as the point to which the sea then penetrated in the environs of Kornah. 

This canal of Khammurabi ran from a little south of Babylon, joiningthose of Siniddinam and Rimsin, and probably cutting the alluvial plainin its entire length. * It drained the stagnant marshes on either sidealong its course, and by its fertilising effects, the dwellers on itsbanks were enabled to reap full harvests from the lands which previouslyhad been useless for purposes of cultivation. A ditch of minorimportance pierced the isthmus which separates the Tigris and theEuphrates in the neighbourhood of Sippar. ** Khammurabi did not restcontented with these; a system of secondary canals doubtless completedthe whole scheme of irrigation which he had planned after theachievement of his conquest, and his successors had merely to keep uphis work in order to ensure an unrivalled prosperity to the empire. 

 * Delattre is of opinion that the canal dug by Khammurabi is the Arakhtu of later epochs which began at Babylon and extended as far as the Larsa canal. It must therefore be approximately identified with the Shatt-en-Nil of the present day, which joins Shatt-el-Kaher, the canal of Siniddinam. 

 ** The canal which Khammurabi caused to be dug or dredged may be the Nār-Malkā, or "royal canal, " which ran from the Tigris to the Euphrates, passing Sippar on the way. The digging of this canal is mentioned in a contract. 

Their efforts in this direction were not unsuccessful. Samsuīluna, the son of Khammurabi, added to the existing system two or threefresh canals, one at least of which still bore his name nearly fifteencenturies later; it is mentioned in the documents of the second Assyrianempire in the time of Assurbanipal, and it is possible that traces ofit may still be found at the present day. Abiźshukh, * Ammisatana, **Ammizadugga, *** and Samsusatana, **** all either continued to elaboratethe network planned by their ancestors, or applied themselves to thebetter distribution of the overflow in those districts where cultivationwas still open to improvement. 

 * Abīshukh (the Hebrew Abishua) is the form of the name which we find in contemporary contracts. The official lists contain the variant Ebishu, Ebīshum. 

 ** Ammiditana is only a possible reading: others prefer Ammisatana. The Nār-Ammisatana is mentioned in a Sippar contract. Another contract is dated "the year in which Ammisatana, the king, repaired the canal of Samsuīluna. "

 *** This was, at first, read Ammididugga. Ammizadugga is mentioned in the date of a contract as having executed certain works--of what nature it is not easy to say--on the banks of the Tigris; another contract is dated "the year in which Ammizadugga, the king, by supreme command of Sha-mash, his master, [dug] the Ndr-Ammizadugga-nulchus-nishi (canal of Ammizadugga), prosperity of men. " In the Minęan inscriptions of Southern Arabia the name is found under the form of Ammi-Zaduq. 

 **** Sometimes erroneously read Samdiusatana; but, as a matter of fact, we have contracts of that time, in which a royal name is plainly written as Samsusatana. 

We should know nothing of these kings had not the scribes of those timesbeen in the habit of dating the contracts of private individuals byreference to important national events. They appear to have chosenby preference incidents in the religious life of the country; as, forinstance, the restoration of a temple, the annual enthronisation of oneof the great divinities, such as Shamash, Merodach, Ishtar, or Nana, as the eponymous god of the current year, the celebration of a solemnfestival, or the consecration of a statue; while a few scatteredallusions to works of fortification show that meanwhile the defence ofthe country was jealously watched over. * These sovereigns appear to haveenjoyed long reigns, the shortest extending over a period of five andtwenty years; and when at length the death of any king occurred, he wasimmediately replaced by his son, the notaries' acts and the judicialdocuments which have come down to us betraying no confusion or abnormaldelay in the course of affairs. We may, therefore, conclude that thelast century and a half of the dynasty was a period of peace andof material prosperity. Chaldęa was thus enabled to fully reap theadvantage of being united under the rule of one individual. It is quitepossible that those cities--Uru, Larsa, Ishin, Uruk, and Nippur--whichhad played so important a part in the preceding centuries, suffered fromthe loss of their prestige, and from the blow dealt to their traditionalpretensions. 

 * Samsuīluna repaired the five fortresses which his ancestor Sumulaīlu had built. Contract dated "the year in which Ammisatana, the king, built Dur-Ammisatana, near the Sin river, " and "the year in which Ammisatana, the king, gave its name to Dur-Iskunsin, near the canal of Ammisatana. " Contract dated "the year in which the King Ammisatana repaired Dur-Iskunsin. " Contract dated "the year in which Samsuīluna caused 'the wall of Uru and Uruk' to be built. "

Up to this time they had claimed the privilege of controlling thehistory of their country, and they had bravely striven among themselvesfor the supremacy over the southern states; but the revolutions whichhad raised each in turn to the zenith of power, had never exalted anyone of them to such an eminence as to deprive its rivals of all hope ofsupplanting it and of enjoying the highest place. The rise of Babylondestroyed the last chance which any of them had of ever becoming thecapital; the new city was so favourably situated, and possessed so muchwealth and so many soldiers, while its kings displayed such tenaciousenergy, that its neighbours were forced to bow before it and resignthemselves to the subordinate position of leading provincial towns. Theygave a loyal obedience to the officers sent them from the north, andsank gradually into obscurity, the loss of their political supremacybeing somewhat compensated for by the religious respect in which theywere always held. Their ancient divinities--Nana, Sin, Anu, and Ra--wereadopted, if we may use the term, by the Babylonians, who claimed theprotection of these gods as fully as they did that of Merodach or ofNebo, and prided themselves on amply supplying all their needs. As theinhabitants of Babylon had considerable resources at their disposal, their appeal to these deities might be regarded as productive of moresubstantial results than the appeal of a merely local kinglet. Theincrease of the national wealth and the concentration, under one head, of armies hitherto owning several chiefs, enabled the rulers, notof Babylon or Larsa alone, but of the whole of Chaldęa, to offeran invincible resistance to foreign enemies, and to establish theirdominion in countries where their ancestors had enjoyed merely aprecarious sovereignty. Hostilities never completely ceased betweenElam and Babylon; if arrested for a time, they broke out again insome frontier disturbance, at times speedily suppressed, but at othersentailing violent consequences and ending in a regular war. No documentfurnishes us with any detailed account of these outbreaks, but itwould appear that the balance of power was maintained on the whole withtolerable regularity, both kingdoms at the close of each generationfinding themselves in much the same position as they had occupied at itscommencement. The two empires were separated from south to north bythe sea and the Tigris, the frontier leaving the river near the presentvillage of Amara and running in the direction of the mountains. Durīluprobably fell ordinarily under Chaldęan jurisdiction. Umliyash wasincluded in the original domain of Kham-murabi, and there is no reasonto believe that it was evacuated by his descendants. There is everyprobability that they possessed the plain east of the Tigris, comprisingNineveh and Arbela, and that the majority of the civilized peoplesscattered over the lower slopes of the Kurdish mountains rendered themhomage. They kept the Mesopotamian table-land under their suzerainty, and we may affirm, without exaggeration, that their power extendednorthwards as far as Mount Masios, and westwards to the middle course ofthe Euphrates. 

At what period the Chaldęans first crossed that river is as yet unknown. Many of their rulers in their inscriptions claim the title of suzerainsover Syria, and we have no evidence for denying their pretensions. Kudur-mabug proclaims himself "adda" of Martu, Lord of the countries ofthe West, and we are in the possession of several facts which suggestthe idea of a great Blamite empire, with a dominion extending for someperiod over Western Asia, the existence of which was vaguely hintedat by the Greeks, who attributed its glory to the fabulous Memnon. *Contemporary records are still wanting which might show whetherKudur-mabug inherited these distant possessions from one of hispredecessors--such as Kudur-nakhunta, for instance--or whether hewon them himself at the point of the sword; but a fragment of an oldchronicle, inserted in the Hebrew Scriptures, speaks distinctly ofanother Elamite, who made war in person almost up to the Egyptianfrontier. ** This is the Kudur-lagamar (Chedorlaomer) who helped Eimsinagainst Hammurabi, but was unable to prevent his overthrow. 

 * We know that to Herodotus (v. 55) Susa was the city of Memnon, and that Strabo attributes its foundation to Tithonus, father of Memnon. According to Oppert, the word Memnon is the equivalent of the Susian Umman-anīn, "the house of the king:" Weissbach declares that "anin" does not mean king, and contradicts Oppert's view, though he does not venture to suggest a new explanation of the name. 

 ** _Gen. _ xiv. Prom the outset Assyriologists have never doubted the historical accuracy of this chapter, and they have connected the facts which it contains with those which seem to be revealed by the Assyrian monuments. The two Rawlinsons intercalate Kudur-lagamar between Kudur-nakhunta and Kudur-mabug, and Oppert places him about the same period. Fr. Lenormant regards him as one of the successors of Kudur-mabug, possibly his immediate successor. G. Smith does not hesitate to declare positively that the Kudur-mabug and Kudur-nakhunta of the inscriptions are one and the same with the Kudur-lagamar (Chedor-laomer) of the Bible. Finally, Schrader, while he repudiates Smith's view, agrees in the main fact with the other Assyriologists. On the other hand, the majority of modern Biblical critics have absolutely refused to credit the story in Genesis. Sayce thinks that the Bible story rests on an historic basis, and his view is strongly confirmed by Pinches'discovery of a Chaldęan document which mentions Kudur-lagamar and two of his allies. The Hebrew historiographer reproduced an authentic fact from the chronicles of Babylon, and connected it with one of the events in the life of Abraham. The very late date generally assigned to Gen. Xiv. In no way diminishes the intrinsic probability of the facts narrated by the Chaldęan document which is preserved to us in the pages of the Hebrew book. 

In the thirteenth year of his reign over the East, the cities of theDead Sea--Sodom, Gomorrah, Adamah, Zeboīm, and Belā--revolted againsthim: he immediately convoked his great vassals, Amraphel of Chaldęa, Ariōch of Ellasar, * Tida'lo the Guti, and marched with them to theconfines of his dominions. Tradition has invested many of the tribesthen inhabiting Southern Syria with semi-mythical names and attributes. They are represented as being giants--Rephalm; men of prodigiousstrength--Zuzīm; as having a buzzing and indistinct manner ofspeech--Zamzummīm; as formidable monsters**--Emīm or Anakīm, beforewhom other nations appeared as grasshoppers;*** as the Horīm who wereencamped on the confines of the Sinaitic desert, and as the Amalekiteswho ranged over the mountains to the west of the Dead Sea. Kudur-lagamardefeated them one after another--the Rephaīm near to Ashtaroth-Karnaīm, the Zuzīm near Ham, **** the Amīm at Shaveh-Kiriathaim, and the Horīmon the spurs of Mount Seir as far as El-Paran; then retracinghis footsteps, he entered the country of the Amalekites by way ofEn-mishpat, and pillaged the Amorites of Hazazōn-Tamar. 

 * Ellasar has been identified with Larsa since the researches of Rawlin-son and Norris; the Goīm, over whom Tidal was king, with the Guti. 

 ** Sayce considers Zuzīm and Zamzummīm to be two readings of the same word Zamzum, written in cuneiform characters on the original document. The sounds represented, in the Hebrew alphabet, by the letters m and w, are expressed in the Chaldęan syllabary by the same character, and a Hebrew or Babylonian scribe, who had no other means of telling the true pronunciation of a race-name mentioned in the story of this campaign, would have been quite as much at a loss as any modern scholar to say whether he ought to transcribe the word as Z-m-z-m or as Z-w-z-vo; some scribes read it _Zuzīm, _ others preferred _Zamzummīm. _

 *** _Numb. _ xiii. 33. 

 **** In Deut. Ii. 20 it is stated that the Zamzummīm lived in the country of Ammon. Sayce points out that we often find the variant Am for the character usually read _Ham_ or _Kham_--the name Khammurabi, for instance, is often found written Ammurabi; the Ham in the narrative of Genesis would, therefore, be identical with the land of Ammon in Deuteronomy, and the difference between the spelling of the two would be due to the fact that the document reproduced in the XIVIIth chapter of Genesis had been originally copied from a cuneiform tablet in which the name of the place was expressed by the sign _Ham-Am. _

In the mean time, the kings of the five towns had concentrated theirtroops in the vale of Siddīm, and were there resolutely awaitingKudur-lagamar. They were, however, completely routed, some of thefugitives being swallowed up in the pits of bitumen with which thesoil abounded, while others with difficulty reached the mountains. Kudur-lagamar sacked Sodom and Gomorrah, re-established his dominion onall sides, and returned laden with booty, Hebrew tradition addingthat he was overtaken near the sources of the Jordan by the patriarchAbraham. *

 * An attempt has been made to identify the three vassals of Kudur-lagamar with kings mentioned on the Chaldęan monuments. Tidcal, or, if we adopt the Septuagint variant, Thorgal, has been considered by some as the bearer of a Sumorian name, Turgal= "great chief, " "great son, " while others put him on one side as not having been a Babylonian; Pinches, Sayce, and Hommel identify him with Tudkhula, an ally of Kudur-lagamar against Khammurabi. Schrader was the first to suggest that Amraphel was really Khammurabi, and emended the Amraphel of the biblical text into Amraphi or Amrabi, in order to support this identification. Halévy, while on the whole accepting this theory, derives the name from the pronunciation Kimtarapashtum or Kimtarapaltum, which he attributes to the name generally read Khammurabi, and in this he is partly supported by Hommel, who reads "Khammurapaltu. "

After his victory over Kudur-lagamar, Khammurabi assumed the title ofKing of Martu, * which we find still borne by Ammisatana sixty yearslater. ** We see repeated here almost exactly what took place in Ethiopiaat the time of its conquest by Egypt: merchants had prepared the way formilitary occupation, and the civilization of Babylon had taken holdon the people long before its kings had become sufficiently powerfulto claim them as vassals. The empire may be said to have been virtuallyestablished from the day when the states of the Middle and LowerEuphrates formed but one kingdom in the hands of a single ruler. We mustnot, however, imagine it to have been a compact territory, divided intoprovinces under military occupation, ruled by a uniform code of lawsand statutes, and administered throughout by functionaries of variousgrades, who received their orders from Babylon or Susa, according asthe chances of war favoured the ascendency of Chaldęa or Elam. It wasin reality a motley assemblage of tribes and principalities, whose solebond of union was subjection to a common yoke. 

 * It is, indeed, the sole title which he attributes to himself on a stone tablet now in the British Museum. 

 ** In an inscription by this prince, copied probably about the time of Nabonidus by the scribe Belushallīm, he is called "king of the vast land of Martu. "

They were under obligation to pay tribute, and furnish militarycontingents and show other external marks of obedience, but theirparticular constitution, customs, and religion were alike respected:they had to purchase, at the cost of a periodical ransom, the right tolive in their own country after their own fashion, and the head of theempire forbore all interference in their affairs, except in cases wherethe internecine quarrels and dissensions threatened the security of hissuzerainty. Their subordination lasted as best it could, sometimes for ayear or for ten years, at the end of which period they would neglectthe obligations of their vassalage, or openly refuse to fulfil them:a revolt would then break out at one point or another, and it wasnecessary to suppress it without delay to prevent the bad examplefrom spreading far and wide. The empire was maintained by perpetualre-conquests, and its extent varied with the energy shown by its chiefs, or with the resources which were for the moment available. 

Separated from the confines of the empire by only a narrow isthmus, Egypt loomed on the horizon, and appeared to beckon to her rival. Hernatural fertility, the industry of her inhabitants, the stores of goldand perfumes which she received from the heart of Ethiopia, were wellknown by the passage to and fro of her caravans, and the recollection ofher treasures must have frequently provoked the envy of Asiatic courts. Egypt had, however, strangely declined from her former greatness, andthe line of princes who governed her had little in common with thePharaohs who had rendered her name so formidable under the XIIthdynasty. She was now under the rule of the Xoites, whose influence wasprobably confined to the Delta, and extended merely in name overthe Said and Nubia. The feudal lords, ever ready to reassert theirindependence as soon as the central power waned, shared between them thepossession of the Nile valley below Memphis: the princes of Thebes, whowere probably descendants of Usirtasen, owned the largest fiefdom, andthough some slight scruple may have prevented them from donningthe pschėnt or placing their names within a cartouche, they assumednotwithstanding the plenitude of royal power. A favourable opportunitywas therefore offered to an invader, and the Chaldęans might haveattacked with impunity a people thus divided among themselves. * Theystopped short, however, at the southern frontier of Syria, or if theypushed further forward, it was without any important result: distancefrom head-quarters, or possibly reiterated attacks of the Elamites, prevented them from placing in the field an adequate force for such amomentous undertaking. What they had not dared to venture, others moreaudacious were to accomplish. At this juncture, so runs the Egyptianrecord, "there came to us a king named Timaios. Under this king, then, I know not wherefore, the god caused to blow upon us a baleful wind, andin the face of all probability bands from the East, people of ignoblerace, came upon us unawares, attacked the country, and subdued it easilyand without fighting. "

 * The theory that the divisions of Egypt, under the XIVth dynasty, and the discords between its feudatory princes, were one of the main causes of the success of the Shepherds, is now admitted to be correct. 

It is possible that they owed this rapid victory to the presencein their armies of a factor hitherto unknown to the African--thewar-chariot--and before the horse and his driver the Egyptians gave wayin a body. * The invaders appeared as a cloud of locusts on the banks ofthe Nile. Towns and temples were alike pillaged, burnt, and ruined;they massacred all they could of the male population, reduced to slaverythose of the women and children whose lives they spared, and thenproclaimed as king Salatis, one of their chiefs. ** He established asemblance of regular government, chose Memphis as his capital, andimposed a tax upon the vanquished. Two perils, however, immediatelythreatened the security of his triumph: in the south the Theban lords, taking matters into their own hands after the downfall of the Xoites, refused the oath of allegiance to Salatis, and organized an obstinateresistance;*** in the north he had to take measures to protecthimself against an attack of the Chaldęans or of the Élamites who wereoppressing Chaldęa. ****

 * The horse was unknown, or at any rate had not been employed in. Egypt prior to the invasion; we find it, however, in general use immediately after the expulsion of the Shepherds, see the tomb of Pihiri. Moreover, all historians agree in admitting that it was introduced into the country under the rule of the Shepherds. The use of the war-chariot in Chaldęa at an epoch prior to the Hyksōs invasion, is proved by a fragment of the Vulture Stele; it is therefore, natural to suppose that the Hyksōs used the chariot in war, and that the rapidity of their conquest was due to it. 

 ** The name Salatis (var. Saitōs) seems to be derived from a Semitic word, Siialīt = "the chief, " "the governor;" this was the title which Joseph received when Pharaoh gave him authority over the whole of Egypt (Gen. Xli. 43). Salatis may not, therefore, have been the real name of the first Hyksōs king, but his title, which the Egyptians misunderstood, and from which they evolved a proper name: Uhlemann has, indeed, deduced from this that Manetho, being familiar with the passage referring to Joseph, had forged the name of Salatis. Ebers imagined that he could decipher the Egyptian form of this prince's name on the Colossus of Tell-Mokdam, where Naville has since read with certainty the name of a Pharaoh of the XIIIth and XIVth dynasties, Nahsiri. 

 *** The text of Manetho speaks of taxes which he imposed on the high and low lands, which would seem to include the Thebaid in the kingdom; it is, however, stated in the next few pages that the successors of Salatis waged an incessant war against the Egyptians, which can only refer to hostilities against the Thebans. We are forced, therefore, to admit, either that Manetho took the title of lord of the high and low lands which belonged to Salatis, literally, or that the Thebans, after submitting at first, subsequently refused to pay tribute, thus provoking a war. 

 **** Manetho here speaks of Assyrians; this is an error which is to be explained by the imperfect state of historical knowledge in Greece at the time of the Macedonian supremacy. We need not for this reason be led to cast doubt upon the historic value of the narrative: we must remember the suzerainty which the kings of Babylon exercised over Syria, and read _Chaldęans_ where Manetho has written _Assyrians_. In Herodotus "Assyria" is the regular term for "Babylonia, " and Babylonia is called "the land of the Assyrians. "

From the natives of the Delta, who were temporarily paralysed by theirreverses, he had, for the moment, little to fear: restricting himself, therefore, to establishing forts at the strategic points in the Nilevalley in order to keep the Thebans in check, he led the main body ofhis troops to the frontier on the isthmus. Pacific immigrations hadalready introduced Asiatic settlers into the Delta, and thus preparedthe way for securing the supremacy of the new rulers; in the midst ofthese strangers, and on the ruins of the ancient town of Hāwārīt-Avaris, in the Sethro'ifce nome--a place connected by tradition with the mythof Osiris and Typhon--Salatis constructed an immense entrenched camp, capable of sheltering two hundred and forty thousand men. He visited ityearly to witness the military manoeuvres, to pay his soldiers, andto preside over the distribution of rations. This permanent garrisonprotected him from a Chaldęan invasion, a not unlikely event as long asSyria remained under the supremacy of the Babylonian kings; it furnishedhis successors also with an inexhaustible supply of trained soldiers, thus enabling them to complete the conquest of Lower Egypt. Yearselapsed before the princes of the south would declare themselvesvanquished, and five kings--Anōn, Apachnas, Apōphis I. , Iannas, andAsses--passed their lifetime "in a perpetual warfare, desirous oftearing up Egypt to the very root. " These Theban kings, who werecontinually under arms against the barbarians, were subsequently classedin a dynasty by themselves, the XVth of Manetho, but they at lastsuccumbed to the invader, and Asses became master of the entire country. His successors in their turn formed a dynasty, the XVIth, the fewremaining monuments of which are found scattered over the length andbreadth of the valley from the shores of the Mediterranean to the rocksof the first cataract. 

The Egyptians who witnessed the advent of this Asiatic people calledthem by the general term Amūū, Asiatics, or Monātiū, the men of thedesert. * They had already given the Bedouin the opprobrious epithet ofShaūsū--pillagers or robbers--which aptly described them;** and theysubsequently applied the same name to the intruders--Hiq Shaūsū--fromwhich the Greeks derived their word Hyksōs, or Hykoussōs, for thispeople. ***

 * The meaning of the term _Monīti_ was discovered by E. De Rougé, who translated it _Shepherd_, and applied it to the Hyksōs; from thence it passed into the works of all the Egyptologists who concerned themselves with this question, but _Shepherd_ has not been universally accepted as the meaning of the word. It is generally agreed that it was a generic term, indicating the races with which their conquerors were supposed to be connected, and not the particular term of which Manetho's word _Hoiveves_ would be the literal translation. 

 ** The name seems, in fact, to be derived from a word which meant "to rob, " "to pillage. " The name Shausu, Shosu, was not used by the Egyptians to indicate a particular race. It was used of all Bedouins, and in general of all the marauding tribes who infested the desert or the mountains. The Shausu most frequently referred to on the monuments are those from the desert between Egypt and Syria, but there is a reference, in the time of Ramses II. , to those from the Lebanon and the valley of Orontes. Krall finds an allusion to them in a word (_Shosim_) in _Judges_ ii. 14, which is generally translated by a generic expression, "the spoilers. "

 *** Manetho declares that the people were called Hyksōs, from _Syk_, which means "king" in the sacred language, and _sōs_, which means "shepherd" in the popular language. As a matter of fact, the word _Hyku_ means "prince "in the classical language of Egypt, or, as Manetho styles it, the _sacred language_, i. E. In the idiom of the old religious, historical, and literary texts, which in later ages the populace no longer understood. Shōs, on the contrary, belongs to the spoken language of the later time, and does not occur in the ancient inscriptions, so that Manetho's explanation is valueless; there is but one material fact to be retained from his evidence, and that is the name _Hyk- Shōs_ or _Hyku-Shōs_ given by its inventors to the alien kings. Cham-pollion and Rosellini were the first to identify these Shōs with the Shaūsū whom they found represented on the monuments, and their opinion, adopted by some, seems to me an extremely plausible one: the Egyptians, at a given moment, bestowed the generic name of Shaūsū on these strangers, just as they had given those of Amūū and Manātiū. The texts or writers from whom Manetho drew his information evidently mentioned certain kings _hyku_-Shaūsū; other passages, or, the same passages wrongly interpreted, were applied to the race, and were rendered _hyku_-Shaūsū = "the _prisoners_ taken from the Shaūsū, " a substantive derived from the root _haka_ = "to take" being substituted for the noun _hyqu_ = "prince. " Josephus declares, on the authority of Manetho, that some manuscripts actually suggested this derivation--a fact which is easily explained by the custom of the Egyptian record offices. I may mention, in passing, that Mariette recognised in the element "_Sōs_" an Egyptian word _shōs_ = "soldiers, " and in the name of King Mīrmāshāū, which he read Mīrshōsū, an equivalent of the title Hyq- Shōsū. 

But we are without any clue as to their real name, language, or origin. The writers of classical times were unable to come to an agreement onthese questions: some confounded the Hyksōs with the Phoenicians, othersregarded them as Arabs. * Modern scholars have put forward at leasta dozen contradictory hypotheses on the matter. The Hyksōs have beenasserted to have been Canaanites, Elamites, Hittites, Accadians, Scythians. The last opinion found great favour with the learned, aslong as they could believe that the sphinxes discovered by Marietterepresented Apōphis or one of his predecessors. As a matter of fact, these monuments present all the characteristics of the Mongoloid typeof countenance--the small and slightly oblique eyes, the arched butsomewhat flattened nose, the pronounced cheekbones and well-coveredjaw, the salient chin and full lips slightly depressed at the corners. **These peculiarities are also observed in the three heads found atDamanhur, in the colossal torso dug up at Mit-Farźs in the Fayum, inthe twin figures of the Nile removed to the Bulaq Museum from Tanis, andupon the remains of a statue in the collection at the Villa Ludovisi inRome. The same foreign type of face is also found to exist among thepresent inhabitants of the villages scattered over the eastern partof the Delta, particularly on the shores of Lake Menzaleh, and theconclusion was drawn that these people were the direct descendants ofthe Hyksōs. 

 * Manetho takes them to be Phoenicians, but he adds that certain writers thought them to be Arabs: Brugsch favours this latter view, but the Arab legend of a conquest of Egypt by Sheddād and the Adites is of recent origin, and was inspired by traditions in regard to the Hyksōs current during the Byzantine epoch; we cannot, therefore, allow it to influence us. We must wait before expressing a definite opinion in regard to the facts which Glaser believes he has obtained from the Minoan inscriptions which date from the time of the Hyksōs. 

 ** Mariette, who was the first to describe these curious monuments, recognised in them all the incontestable characteristics of a Semitic type, and the correctness of his view was, at first, universally admitted. Later on Hamy imagined that he could distinguish traces of Mongolian influences, and Er. Lenormant, and then Mariette himself came round to this view; it has recently been supported in England by Flower, and in Germany by Virchow. 

This theory was abandoned, however, when it was ascertained that thesphinxes of San had been carved, many centuries before the invasion, forAmenemhāīt III. , a king of the XIIth dynasty. In spite of the facts wepossess, the problem therefore still remains unsolved, and the origin ofthe Hyksōs is as mysterious as ever. We gather, however, that the thirdmillennium before our era was repeatedly disturbed by considerablemigratory movements. The expeditions far afield of Elamite and Chaldęanprinces could not have taken place without seriously perturbing theregions over which they passed. They must have encountered by theway many nomadic or unsettled tribes whom a slight shock would easilydisplace. An impulse once given, it needed but little to accelerateor increase the movement: a collision with one horde reacted on itsneighbours, who either displaced or carried others with them, and thewhole multitude, gathering momentum as they went, were precipitated inthe direction first given. *

 * The Hyksōs invasion has been regarded as a natural result of the Elamite conquest. 

A tradition, picked up by Herodotus on his travels, relates that thePhoenicians had originally peopled the eastern and southern shores ofthe Persian Gulf;* it was also said that Indathyrses, a Scythian king, had victoriously scoured the whole of Asia, and had penetrated as far asEgypt. ** Either of these invasions may have been the cause of the Syrianmigration. In. Comparison with the meagre information which has comedown to us under the form of legends, it is provoking to think how muchactual fact has been lost, a tithe of which would explain the causeof the movement and the mode of its execution. The least improbablehypothesis is that which attributes the appearance of the Shepherdsabout the XXIIIrd century B. C. , to the arrival in Naharaim of thoseKhati who subsequently fought so obstinately against the armies both ofthe Pharaohs and the Ninevite kings. They descended from the mountainregion in which the Halys and the Euphrates take their rise, and if thebulk of them proceeded no further than the valleys of the Taurus and theAmanos, some at least must have pushed forward as far as the provinceson the western shores of the Dead Sea. The most adventurous among them, reinforced by the Canaanites and other tribes who had joined them ontheir southward course, crossed the isthmus of Suez, and finding apeople weakened by discord, experienced no difficulty in replacing thenative dynasties by their own barbarian chiefs. ***

 * It was to the exodus of this race, in the last analysis, that the invasion of the shepherds may be attributed

 ** A certain number of commentators are of opinion that the wars attributed to Indathyrses have been confounded with what Herodotus tells of the exploits of Madyes, and are nothing more than a distorted remembrance of the great Scythian invasion which took place in the latter half of the VIIth century B. C. 

 *** At the present time, those scholars who admit the Turanian origin of the Hyksōs are of opinion that only the nucleus of the race, the royal tribe, was composed of Mongols, while the main body consisted of elements of all kinds--Canaanitish, or, more generally, Semitic. 

[Illustration: 079. Jpg PALLATE OF HYKSŌS SCRIBE]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by M. De Mertons. It is the palette of a scribe, now in the Berlin Museum, and given by King Apōpi II Āusirrī to a scribe named Atu. 

Both their name and origin were doubtless well known to the Egyptians, but the latter nevertheless disdained to apply to them any term but thatof "she-maū, "* strangers, and in referring to them used the samevague appellations which they applied to the Bedouin of the Sinaiticpeninsula, --Monātiū, the shepherds, or Sātiū, the archers. Theysucceeded in hiding the original name of their conquerors so thoroughly, that in the end they themselves forgot it, and kept the secret of itfrom posterity. 

The remembrance of the cruelties with which the invaders sullied theirconquest lived long after them; it still stirred the anger of Manethoafter a lapse of twenty centuries. ** The victors were known as the"Plagues" or "Pests, " and every possible crime and impiety was attributedto them. 

 * The term _shamamil, _ variant of _sliemaū, _ is applied to them by Queen Hātshopsītu: the same term is employed shortly afterward by Thutmosis III. , to indicate the enemies whom he had defeated at Megiddo. 

 ** He speaks of them in contemptuous terms as _men of ignoble race_. The epithet _Aīti, Iaīti, Iadīti_, was applied to the Nubians by the writer of the inscription of Ahmosi- si-Abīna, and to the Shepherds of the Delta by the author of the _Sallier Papyrus_. Brugsch explained it as "the rebels, " or "disturbers, " and Goodwin translated it "invaders"; Chabas rendered it by "plague-stricken, " an interpretation which was in closer conformity with its etymological meaning, and Groff pointed out that the malady called Ait, or Adit in Egyptian, is the malignant fever still frequently to be met with at the present day in the marshy cantons of the Delta, and furnished the proper rendering, which is "The Fever-stricken. "

[Illustration: 080. Jpg A HYKSŌS PRISONER GUIDING THE PLOUGH, AT EL-KAB]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger. 

But the brutalities attending the invasion once past, the invaderssoon lost their barbarity and became rapidly civilized. Those of themstationed in the encampment at Avaris retained the military qualitiesand characteristic energy of their race; the remainder becameassimilated to their new compatriots, and were soon recognisable merelyby their long hair, thick beard, and marked features. Their sovereignsseemed to have realised from the first that it was more to theirinterest to exploit the country than to pillage it; as, however, none ofthem was competent to understand the intricacies of the treasury, theywere forced to retain the services of the majority of the scribes, whohad managed the public accounts under the native kings. * Once schooledto the new state of affairs, they readily adopted the refinements ofcivilized life. 

 * The same thing took place on every occasion when Egypt was conquered by an alien race: the Persian Achęmenians and Greeks made use of the native employés, as did the Romans after them; and lastly, the Mussulmans, Arabs, and Turks. 

The court of the Pharaohs, with its pomp and its usual assemblage ofofficials, both great and small, was revived around the person ofthe new sovereign;* the titles of the Amenemhāīts and the Usirtasens, adapted to these "princes of foreign lands, "** legitimatised them asdescendants of Horus and sons of the Sun. *** They respected thelocal religions, and went so far as to favour those of the gods whoseattributes appeared to connect them with some of their own barbarousdivinities. The chief deity of their worship was Baal, the lord ofall, **** a cruel and savage warrior; his resemblance to Sit, the brotherand enemy of Osiris, was so marked, that he was identified with theEgyptian deity, with the emphatic additional title of Sutkhū, the GreatSit.^

 * The narrative of the _Sallier Papyrus, _ No. 1, shows us the civil and military chiefs collected round the Shepherd- king Apōpi, and escorting him in the solemn processions in honour of the gods. They are followed by the scribes and magicians, who give him advice on important occasions. 

 ** Hiqu Situ: this is the title of Abīsha at Beni-Hassan, which is also assumed by Khiani on several small monuments; Steindorff has attempted to connect it with the name of the Hyksōs. 

 *** The preamble of the two or three Shepherd-kings of whom we know anything, contains the two cartouches, the special titles, and the names of Horus, which formed part of the title of the kings of pure Egyptian race; thus Apōphis IL is proclaimed to be the living Horus, who joins the two earths in peace, the good god, Aqnunrī, son of the Sun, Apōpi, who lives for ever, on the statues of Mīrmāshāu, which he had appropriated, and on the pink granite table of offerings in the Gizeh Museum. 

 **** The name of Baal, transcribed Baālu, is found on that of a certain Petebaālū, "the Gift of Baal, " who must have flourished in the time of the last shepherd-kings, or rather under the Theban kings of the XVIIth dynasty, who were their contemporaries, whose conclusions have been adopted by Brugsch. 

 ^ Sutikhū, Sutkhū, are lengthened forms of Sūtū, or Sītū; and Chabas, who had at first denied the existence of the final _Jehū_, afterwards himself supplied the philological arguments which proved the correctness of the reading: he rightly refused, however, to recognise in Sutikhū or Sutkhū --the name of the conquerors' god--a transliteration of the Phoenician Sydyk, and would only see in it that of the nearest Egyptian deity. This view is now accepted as the right one, and Sutkhū is regarded as the indigenous equivalent of the great Asiatic god, elsewhere called Baal, or supreme lord. [Professor Pétrie found a scarab bearing the cartouche of "Sutekh" Apepi I. At Koptos. --Te. ]

He was usually represented as a fully armed warrior, wearing a helmetof circular form, ornamented with two plumes; but he also borrowedthe emblematic animal of Sīt, the fennec, and the winged griffin whichhaunted the deserts of the Thebaid. His temples were erected in thecities of the Delta, side by side with the sanctuaries of the feudalgods, both at Bubastis and at Tanis. Tanis, now made the capital, reopened its palaces, and acquired a fresh impetus from the royalpresence within its walls. Apōphis Aq-nūnrī, one of its kings, dedicatedseveral tables of offerings in that city, and engraved his cartouchesupon the sphinxes and standing colossi of the Pharaohs of the XIIth andXIIIth dynasties. 

[Illustration: 082. Jpg TABLE OF OFFERINGS BEARING THE NAME OF APŌTIĀQNŪNRĪ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by E. Brugsch. 

[Illustration: 083. Jpg Page Image]

He was, however, honest enough to leave the inscriptions of hispredecessors intact, and not to appropriate to himself the credit ofworks belonging to the Amenemhāīts or to Mirmāshāū. Khianī, who ispossibly the Iannas of Manetho, was not, however, so easily satisfied. *The statue bearing his inscription, of which the lower part wasdiscovered by Naville at Bubastis, appears to have been really carvedfor himself or for one of his contemporaries. It is a work possessing nooriginality, though of very commendable execution, such as would renderit acceptable to any museum; the artist who conceived it took 'hisinspiration with considerable cleverness from the best examplesturned out by the schools of the Delta under the Sovkhotpfts and theNofirhotpūs. But a small grey granite lion, also of the reign of Khianī, which by a strange fate had found its way to Bagdad, does not raise ourestimation of the modelling of animals in the Hyksōs period. 

 * Naville, who reads the name Rāyan or Yanrā, thinks that this prince must be the Annas or Iannas mentioned by Manetho as being one of the six shepherd-kings of the XVth dynasty. Mr. Pétrie proposed to read Khian, Khianī, and the fragment discovered at Gebeleīn confirms this reading, as well as a certain number of cylinders and scarabs. Mr. Pétrie prefers to place this Pharaoh in the VIIIth dynasty, and makes him one of the leaders in the foreign occupation to which he supposes Egypt to have submitted at that time; but it is almost certain that he ought to be placed among the Hyksōs of the XVIth dynasty. The name Khianī, more correctly Khiyanī or Kheyanī, is connected by Tomkins, and Hilprecht with that of a certain Khayanū or Khayan, son of Gabbar, who reigned in Amanos in the time of Salmanasar II. , King of Assyria. 

[Illustration: 084. Jpg BROKEN STATUE OF KHIANI]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Naville. 

It is heavy in form, and the muzzle in no way recalls the fine profileof the lions executed by the sculptors of earlier times. The pursuitof science and the culture of learning appear to have been moresuccessfully perpetuated than the fine arts; a treatise on mathematics, of which a copy has come down to us, would seem to have been recopied, if not remodelled, in the twenty-second year of Apōphis IL Aūsirrī. Ifwe only possessed more monuments or documents treating of this period, we should doubtless perceive that their sojourn on the banks of theNile was instrumental in causing a speedy change in the appearance andcharacter of the Hyksōs. The strangers retained to a certain extenttheir coarse countenances and rude manners: they showed no aptitude fortilling the soil or sowing grain, but delighted in the marshy expansesof the Delta, where they gave themselves up to a semi-savage lifeof hunting and of tending cattle. The nobles among them, clothed andschooled after the Egyptian fashion, and holding fiefs, or positions atcourt, differed but little from the native feudal chiefs. We see here acase of what generally happens when a horde of barbarians settles downin a highly organised country which by a stroke of fortune they may haveconquered; as soon as the Hyksōs had taken complete possession of Egypt, Egypt in her turn took possession of them, and those who survived theenervating effect of her civilization were all but transformed intoEgyptians. 

If, in the time of the native Pharaohs, Asiatic tribes had been drawntowards Egypt, where they were treated as subjects or almost as slaves, the attraction which she possessed for them must have increased inintensity under the shepherds. They would now find the country in thehands of men of the same races as themselves--Egyptianised, it is true, but not to such an extent as to have completely lost their own languageand the knowledge of their own extraction. Such immigrants were the morereadily welcomed, since there lurked a feeling among the Hyksōs that itwas necessary to strengthen themselves against the slumbering hostilityof the indigenous population. The royal palace must have more than onceopened its gates to Asiatic counsellors and favourites. Canaanites andBedouin must often have been enlisted for the camp at Avaris. Invasions, famines, civil wars, all seem to have conspired to drive into Egypt notonly isolated individuals, but whole families and tribes. That of theBeni-Israel, or Israelites, who entered the country about this time, hassince acquired a unique position in the world's history. They belongedto that family of Semitic extraction which we know by the monumentsand tradition to have been scattered in ancient times along the westernshores of the Persian Gulf and on the banks of the Euphrates. Thosesituated nearest to Chaldęa and to the sea probably led a settledexistence; they cultivated the soil, they employed themselves incommerce and industries, their vessels--from Dilmun, from Māgan, andfrom Milukhkha--coasted from one place to another, and made their way tothe cities of Sumer and Accad. They had been civilized from very earlytimes, and some of their towns were situated on islands, so as tobe protected from sudden incursions. Other tribes of the same familyoccupied the interior of the continent; they lived in tents, anddelighted in the unsettled life of nomads. There appeared to be in thisdistant corner of Arabia an inexhaustible reserve of population, whichperiodically overflowed its borders and spread over the world. It wasfrom this very region that we see the Kashdim, the true Chaldęans, issuing ready armed for combat, --a people whose name was subsequentlyused to denote several tribes settled between the lower waters of theTigris and the Euphrates. It was there, among the marshes on either sideof these rivers, that the Aramoans established their first settlementsafter quitting the desert. There also the oldest legends of the raceplaced the cradle of the Phoenicians; it was even believed, about thetime of Alexander, that the earliest ruins attributable to this peoplehad been discovered on the Bahrein Islands, the largest of which, Tylosand Arados, bore names resembling the two great ports of Tyre and Arvad. We are indebted to tradition for the cause of their emigration and theroute by which they reached the Mediterranean. The occurrence of violentearthquakes forced them to leave their home; they travelled as far asthe Lake of Syria, where they halted for some time; then resuming theirmarch, did not rest till they had reached the sea, where they foundedSidon. The question arises as to the position of the Lake of Syria onwhose shores they rested, some believing it to be the Bahr-ī-Nedjifand the environs of Babylon; others, the Lake of Bambykźs near theEuphrates, the emigrants doubtless having followed up the course of thatriver, and having approached the country of their destination on itsnorth-eastern frontier. Another theory would seek to identify the lakewith the waters of Merom, the Lake of Galilee, or the Dead Sea; in thiscase the horde must have crossed the neck of the Arabian peninsula, from the Euphrates to the Jordan, through one of those long valleys, sprinkled with oases, which afforded an occasional route for caravans. *Several writers assure us that the Phoenician tradition of this exoduswas misunderstood by Herodotus, and that the sea which they rememberedon reaching Tyre was not the Persian Gulf, but the Dead Sea. If this hadbeen the case, they need not have hesitated to assign their departure tocauses mentioned in other documents. The Bible tells us that, soon afterthe invasion of Kudur-lagamar, the anger of God being kindled by thewickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, He resolved to destroy the five citiessituated in the valley of Siddim. A cloud of burning brimstone brokeover them and consumed them; when the fumes and smoke, as "of afurnace, " had passed away, the very site of the towns had disappeared. **Previous to their destruction, the lake into which the Jordan emptiesitself had had but a restricted area: the subsidence of the southernplain, which had been occupied by the impious cities, doubled the sizeof the lake, and enlarged it to its present dimensions. The earthquakewhich caused the Phoenicians to leave their ancestral home may have beenthe result of this cataclysm, and the sea on whose shores they sojournedwould thus be our Dead Sea. 

 * They would thus have arrived at the shores of Lake Merom, or at the shores either of the Dead Sea or of the Lake of Gennesareth; the Arab traditions speak of an itinerary which would have led the emigrants across the desert, but they possess no historic value is so far as these early epochs are concerned. 

 ** _Gen. _ xix. 24-29; the whole of this episode belongs to the Jehovistic narrative. 

One fact, however, appears to be certain in the midst of manyhypotheses, and that is that the Phoenicians had their origin in theregions bordering on the Persian Gulf. It is useless to attempt, withthe inadequate materials as yet in our possession, to determine by whatroute they reached the Syrian coast, though we may perhaps conjecturethe period of their arrival. Herodotus asserts that the Tyrians placedthe date of the foundation of their principal temple two thousandthree hundred years before the time of his visit, and the erection of asanctuary for their national deity would probably take place very soonafter their settlement at Tyre: this would bring their arrival there toabout the XXVIIIth century before our era. The Elamite and Babylonianconquests would therefore have found the Phoenicians already establishedin the country, and would have had appreciable effect upon them. 

The question now arises whether the Beni-Israel belonged to the group oftribes which included the Phoenicians, or whether they were of Chaldęanrace. Their national traditions leave no doubt upon that point. They areregarded as belonging to an important race, which we find dispersed overthe country of Padan-Aram, in Northern Mesopotamia, near the base ofMount Masios, and extending on both sides of the Euphrates. *

 * The country of Padan-Aram is situated between the Euphrates and the upper reaches of the Khabur, on both sides of the Balikh, and is usually explained as the "plain" or "table-land" of Aram, though the etymology is not certain; the word seems to be preserved in that of Tell-Faddān, near Harrān. 

Their earliest chiefs bore the names of towns or of peoples, --Nakhor, Peleg, and Serug:* all were descendants of Arphaxad, ** and itwas related that Terakh, the direct ancestor of the Israelites, haddwelt in Ur-Kashdīm, the Ur or Uru of the Chaldęans. *** He is said tohave had three sons--Abraham, Nakhōr, and Harān. Harān begat Lot, butdied before his father in Ur-Kashdīm, his own country; Abraham andNakhor both took wives, but Abraham's wife remained a long time barren. Then Terakh, with his son Abraham, his grandson Lot, the son of Harān, and his daughter-in-law Sarah, **** went forth from Ur-Kashdīm (Ur of theChaldees) to go into the land of Canaan. 

 * Nakhōr has been associated with the ancient village of Khaura, or with the ancient village of Hāditha-en-Naura, to the south of Anah; Peleg probably corresponds with Phalga or Phaliga, which was situated at the mouth of the Khabur; Serug with the present Sarudj in the neighbourhood of Edessa, and the other names in the genealogy were probably borrowed from as many different localities. 

 ** The site of Arphaxad is doubtful, as is also its meaning: its second element is undoubtedly the name of the Chaldęans, but the first is interpreted in several ways--"frontier of the Chaldęans, " "domain of the Chaldęans. " The similarity of sound was the cause of its being for a long time associated with the Arrapakhitis of classical times; the tendency is now to recognise in it the country nearest to the ancient domain of the Chaldęans, i. E. Babylonia proper. 

 *** Ur-Kashdīm has long been sought for in the north, either at Orfa, in accordance with the tradition of the Syrian Churches still existing in the East, or in a certain Ur of Mesopotamia, placed by Ammianus Marcellinus between Nisibis and the Tigris; at the present day Halévy still looks for it on the Syrian bank of the Euphrates, to the south-east of Thapsacus. Rawlin-son's proposal to identify it with the town of Uru has been successively accepted by nearly all Assyriologists. Sayce remarks that the worship of Sin, which was common to both towns, established a natural link between them, and that an inhabitant of Uru would have felt more at home in Harrān than in any other town. 

 **** The names of Sarah and Abraham, or rather the earlier form, Abram, have been found, the latter under the form Abirāmu, in the contracts of the first Chaldęan empire. 

And they came unto Kharān, and dwelt there, and Terakh died in Kharān. *It is a question whether Kharān is to be identified with Harrān inMesopotamia, the city of the god Sin; or, which is more probable, withthe Syrian town of Haurān, in the neighbourhood of Damascus. The tribeswho crossed the Euphrates became subsequently a somewhat importantpeople. They called themselves, or were known by others, as the 'Ibrīm, or Hebrews, the people from beyond the river;** and this appellation, which we are accustomed to apply to the children of Israel only, embraced also, at the time when the term was most extended, theAmmonites, Moabites, Edomites, Ishmaelites, Midianites, and many othertribes settled on the borders of the desert to the east and south of theDead Sea. 

 * Gen. Xi. 27-32. In the opinion of most critics, verses 27, 31 32 form part of the document which was the basis of the various narratives still traceable in the Bible; it is thought that the remaining verses bear the marks of a later redaction, or that they may be additions of a later date. The most important part of the text, that relating the migration from Ur-Kashdīm to Kharān, belongs, therefore, to the very oldest part of the national tradition, and may be regarded as expressing the knowledge which the Hebrews of the times of the Kings possessed concerning the origin of their race. 

 ** The most ancient interpretation identified this nameless river with the Euphrates; an identification still admitted by most critics; others prefer to recognise it as being the Jordan. Halévy prefers to identify it with one of the rivers of Damascus, probably the Abana. 

These peoples all traced their descent from Abraham, the son of Terakh, but the children of Israel claimed the privilege of being the onlylegitimate issue of his marriage with Sarah, giving naļve or derogatoryaccounts of the relations which connected the others with their commonancestor; Ammon and Moab were, for instance, the issue of the incestuousunion of Lot and his daughters. Midian and his sons were descended fromKeturah, who was merely a concubine, Ishmael was the son of an Egyptianslave, while the "hairy" Esau had sold his birthright and the primacy ofthe Edomites to his brother Jacob, and consequently to the Israelites, for a dish of lentils. Abraham left Kharān at the command of Jahveh, hisGod, receiving from Him a promise that his posterity should be blessedabove all others. Abraham pursued his way into the heart of Canaantill he reached Shechem, and there, under the oaks of Moreh, Jahveh, appearing to him a second time, announced to him that He would give thewhole land to his posterity as an inheritance. Abraham virtually tookpossession of it, and wandered over it with his flocks, building altarsat Shechem, Bethel, and Mamre, the places where God had revealed Himselfto him, treating as his equals the native chiefs, Abīmelech of Gerar andMelchizedek of Jerusalem, * and granting the valley of the Jordan asa place of pasturage to his nephew Lot, whose flocks had increasedimmensely. ** His nomadic instinct having led him into Egypt, he was hererobbed of his wife by Pharaoh. ***

 * Cf. The meeting with Melchizedek after the victory over the Elamites (_Gen_. Xiv. 18-20) and the agreement with Abīmelech about the well (Gen. Xxi. 22-34). The mention of the covenant of Abraham with Abīmelech belongs to the oldest part of the national tradition, and is given to us in the Jehovistic narrative. Many critics have questioned the historical existence of Melchizedek, and believed that the passage in which he is mentioned is merely a kind of parable intended to show the head of the race paying tithe of the spoil to the priest of the supreme God residing at Jerusalem; the information, however, furnished by the Tel- el-Amarna tablets about the ancient city of Jerusalem and the character of its early kings have determined Sayce to pronounce Melchizedek to be an historical personage. 

 ** _Gen. _ xiii. 1-13. Lot has been sometimes connected of late with the people called on the Egyptian monuments Rotanu, or Lotanu, whom we shall have occasion to mention frequently further on: he is supposed to have been their eponymous hero. Lōtan, which is the name of an Edomite clan, (_Gen_. Xxxvi. 20, 29), is a racial adjective, derived from Lot. 

 *** _Gen. _ xii. 9-20, xiii. 1. Abraham's visit to Egypt reproduces the principal events of that of Jacob. 

[Illustration: 093. Jpg THE TRADITIONAL OAK OF ABRAHAM AT HEBRON]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph brought home by Lortet. 

On his return he purchased the field of Ephron, near Kirjath-Arba, andthe cave of Machpelah, of which he made a burying-place for his family*Kirjath-Arba, the Hebron of subsequent times, became from henceforwardhis favourite dwelling-place, and he was residing there when theElamites invaded the valley of Siddīm, and carried off Lot among theirprisoners. 

 * _Gen_. Xiii. 18, xxiii. (Elohistic narrative). The tombs of the patriarchs are believed by the Mohammedans to exist to the present day in the cave which is situated within the enclosure of the mosque at Hebron, and the tradition on which this belief is based goes back to early Christian times. 

Abraham set out in pursuit of them, and succeeded in delivering hisnephew. * God (Jahveh) not only favoured him on every occasion, butexpressed His will to extend over Abraham's descendants His shelteringprotection. He made a covenant with him, enjoining the use on theoccasion of the mysterious rites employed among the nations wheneffecting a treaty of peace. Abraham offered up as victims a heifer, agoat, and a three-year-old ram, together with a turtle-dove and a youngpigeon; he cut the animals into pieces, and piling them in two heaps, waited till the evening. "And when the sun was going down, a deep sleepfell upon Abraham; and lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him, "and a voice from on high said to him: "Know of a surety that thy seedshall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them;and they shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come outwith great substance.... And it came to pass, that when the sun wentdown, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp thatpassed between those pieces. " Jahveh sealed the covenant by consuming theoffering. 

 * _Gen. _ xiv. 12-24. 2 Gen. Xv. , Jehovistic narrative. 

Two less important figures fill the interval between the Divineprediction of servitude and its accomplishment. The birth of one ofthem, Isaac, was ascribed to the Divine intervention at a period whenSarah had given up all hope of becoming a mother. Abraham was sittingat his tent door in the heat of the day, when three men presentedthemselves before him, whom he invited to repose under the oak while heprepared to offer them hospitality. After their meal, he who seemed tobe the chief of the three promised to return within a year, when Sarahshould be blessed with the possession of a son. The announcement camefrom Jahveh, but Sarah was ignorant of the fact, and laughed to herselfwithin the tent on hearing this amazing prediction; for she said, "AfterI am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?" The childwas born, however, and was called Isaac, "the laugher, " in remembranceof Sarah's mocking laugh. * There is a remarkable resemblance between hislife and that of his father. ** Like Abraham he dwelt near Hebron, ***and departing thence wandered with his household round the wells ofBeersheba. Like him he was threatened with the loss of his wife. 

 * _Gen_. Xviii. 1-16, according to the Jehovistic narrative. _Gen_. Xvii. 15-22 gives another account, in which the Elohistic writer predicts the birth of Isaac in a différent way. The name of Isaac, "the laugher, " possibly abridged from Isaak-el, "he on whom God smiles, " is explained in three different ways: first, by the laugh of Abraham (ch. Xvii. 17); secondly, by that of Sarah (xviii. 12) when her son's birth was foretold to her; and lastly, by the laughter of those who made sport of the delayed maternity of Sarah (xxi. 6). 

 ** Many critics see in the life of Isaac a colourless copy of that of Abraham, while others, on the contrary, consider that the primitive episodes belonged to the former, and that the parallel portions of the two lives were borrowed from the biography of the son to augment that of his father. 

 *** _Gen_. Xxxv. 27, Elohistic narrative. 

Like him, also, he renewed relations with Abīmelech of Gerar. * He marriedhis relative Rebecca, the granddaughter of Nākhor and the sister ofLaban. ** After twenty years of barrenness, his wife gave birth to twins, Esau and Jacob, who contended with each other from their mother's womb, and whose descendants kept up a perpetual feud. We know how Esau, underthe influence of his appetite, deprived himself of the privileges ofhis birthright, and subsequently went forth to become the founder ofthe Edomites. Jacob spent a portion of his youth in Padan-Aram; here heserved Laban for the hands of his cousins Rachel and Leah; then, owingto the bad faith of his uncle, he left him secretly, after twentyyears' service, taking with him his wives and innumerable flocks. Atfirst he wandered aimlessly along the eastern bank of the Jordan, where Jahveh revealed Himself to him in his troubles. Laban pursued andovertook him, and, acknowledging his own injustice, pardoned him forhaving taken flight. Jacob raised a heap of stones on the site oftheir encounter, known at Mizpah to after-ages as the "Stone of Witness"--G-al-Ed (Galeed). *** This having been accomplished, his difficultiesbegan with his brother Esau, who bore him no good will. 

 * _Gen. _ xxvi. 1--31, Jehovistic narrative. In _Gen. _ xxv. 11 an Elohistic interpolation makes Isaac also dwell in the south, near to the "Well of the Living One Who seeth me. "

 ** _Gen. _ xxiv. , where two narratives appear to have been amalgamated; in the second of these, Abraham seems to have played no part, and Eliezer apparently conducted Rebecca direct to her husband Isaac (vers. 61-67). 

 *** _Gen. _ xxxi. 45-54, where the writer evidently traces the origin of the word Gilead to Gal-Ed. We gather from the context that the narrative was connected with the cairn at Mizpah which separated the Hebrew from the Aramęan speaking peoples. 

One night, at the ford of the Jabbok, when he had fallen behind hiscompanions, "there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of theday, " without prevailing against him. The stranger endeavoured to escapebefore daybreak, but only succeeded in doing so at the cost of givingJacob his blessing. "What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And hesaid, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for thou haststriven with God and with men, and hast prevailed. " Jacob called theplace Penīel, "for, " said he, "I have seen God face to face, and my lifeis preserved. " The hollow of his thigh was "strained as he wrestled withhim, " and he became permanently lame. * Immediately after the strugglehe met Esau, and endeavoured to appease him by his humility, building ahouse for him, and providing booths for his cattle, so as to secure forhis descendants the possession of the land. From this circumstance theplace received the name of Succōth--the "Booths "--by which appellationit was henceforth known. Another locality where Jahveh had met Jacobwhile he was pitching his tents, derived from this fact the designationof the "Two Hosts"--Mahanaīm. ** On the other side of the river, atShechem, *** at Bethel, **** and at Hebron, near to the burial-place ofhis family, traces of him are everywhere to be found blent with those ofAbraham. 

 * _Gen. _ xxxii. 22-32. This is the account of the Jehovistic writer. The Elohist gives a different version of the circumstances which led to the change of name from Jacob to Israel; he places the scene at Bethel, and suggests no precise etymology for the name Israel (_Gen. _ xxxv. 9-15). 

 ** _Gen. _ xxxii. 2, 3, where the theophany is indicated rather than directly stated. 

 *** _Gen. _ xxxiii. 18-20. Here should be placed the episode of Dinah seduced by an Amorite prince, and the consequent massacre of the inhabitants by Simeon and Levi (_Gen. _ xxxiv. ). The almost complete dispersion of the two tribes of Simeon and Levi is attributed to this massacre: cf. _Gen. _ xlix. 5-7. 

 **** _Gen. _ xxxv. 1-15, where is found the Elohistic version (9-15) of the circumstances which led to the change of name from Jacob to Israel. 

By his two wives and their maids he had twelve sons. Leah was the motherof Keuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zabulon; Gad. And Asherwere the children of his slave Zilpah; while Joseph and Benjamin werethe only sons of Rachel--Dan and Naphtali being the offspring of herservant Bilhah. The preference which his father showed to him causedJoseph to be hated by his brothers; they sold him to a caravan ofMidianites on their way to Egypt, and persuaded Jacob that a wild beasthad devoured him. Jahveh was, however, with Joseph, and "made all thathe did to prosper in his hand. " He was bought by Potiphar, a greatEgyptian lord and captain of Pharaoh's guard, who made him his overseer;his master's wife, however, "cast her eyes upon Joseph, " but findingthat he rejected her shameless advances, she accused him of havingoffered violence to her person. Being cast into prison, he astonishedhis companions in misfortune by his skill in reading dreams, and wassummoned to Court to interpret to the king his dream of the seven leankine who had devoured the seven fat kine, which he did by representingthe latter as seven years of abundance, of which the crops should beswallowed up by seven years of famine. Joseph was thereupon raised byPharaoh to the rank of prime minister. He stored up the surplus of theabundant harvests, and as soon as the famine broke out, distributedthe corn to the hunger-stricken people in exchange for their silver andgold, and for their flocks and fields. Hence it was, that the wholeof the Nile valley, with the exception of the lands belonging to thepriests, gradually passed into the possession of the royal treasury. Meanwhile his brethren, who also suffered from the famine, came downinto Egypt to buy corn. Joseph revealed himself to them, pardoned thewrong they had done him, and presented them to the Pharaoh. "And Pharaohsaid unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan: and take your father and yourhousehold, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land ofEgypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. " Jacob thereupon raised hiscamp and came to Beersheba, where he offered sacrifices to the Godof his father Isaac; and Jahveh commanded him to go down into Egypt, saying, "I will there make of thee a great nation: I will go down withthee into Egypt: and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Josephshall put his hand upon thine eyes. " The whole family were installed byPharaoh in the province of Goshen, as far as possible from the centresof the native population, "for every shepherd is an abomination unto theEgyptians. "

In the midst of these stern yet touching narratives in which the Hebrewsof the times of the Kings delighted to trace the history of their remoteancestors, one important fact arrests our attention: the Beni-Israelquitted Southern Syria and settled on the banks of the Nile. Theyhad remained for a considerable time in what was known later as themountains of Judah. Hebron had served as their rallying-point; the broadbut scantily watered wadys separating the cultivated lands from thedesert, were to them a patrimony, which they shared with the inhabitantsof the neighbouring towns. Every year, in the spring, they led theirflocks to browse on the thin herbage growing in the bottoms of thevalleys, removing them to another district only when the supply offodder was exhausted. The women span, wove, fashioned garments, bakedbread, cooked the viands, and devoted themselves to the care of theyounger children, whom they suckled beyond the usual period. The menlived like the Bedouin--periods of activity alternating regularly withtimes of idleness, and the daily routine, with its simple duties andcasual work, often gave place to quarrels for the possession of somerich pasturage or some never-failing well. 

A comparatively ancient tradition relates that the Hebrews arrived inEgypt during the reign of Aphōbis, a Hyksōs king, doubtless one of theApōpi, and possibly the monarch who restored the monuments of the ThebanPharaohs, and engraved his name on the sphinxes of Amenemhāīt III. Andon the colossi of Mīrmāshāū. * The land which the Hebrews obtained isthat which, down to the present day, is most frequently visited bynomads, who find there an uncertain hospitality. 

 * The year XVII. Of Apōphis has been pointed out as the date of their arrival, and this combination, probably proposed by some learned Jew of Alexandria, was adopted by Christian chroniclers. It is unsupported by any fact of Egyptian history, but it rests on a series of calculations founded on the information contained in the Bible. Starting from the assumption that the Exodus must have taken place under Ahmosīs, and that the children of Israel had been four hundred and thirty years on the banks of the Nile, it was found that the beginning of their sojourn fell under the reign of the Apōphis mentioned by Josephus, and, to be still more correct, in the XVIIth year of that prince. 

The tribes of the isthmus of Suez are now, in fact, constantly shiftingfrom one continent to another, and their encampments in any place aremerely temporary. The lord of the soil must, if he desire to keep themwithin his borders, treat them with the greatest prudence and tact. Should the government displease them in any way, or appear to curtailtheir liberty, they pack up their tents and take flight into the desert. The district occupied by them one day is on the next vacated and left todesolation. Probably the same state of things existed in ancient times, and the border nomes on the east of the Delta were in turn inhabited ordeserted by the Bedouin of the period. The towns were few in number, but a series of forts protected the frontier. These were merevillage-strongholds perched on the summit of some eminence, andsurrounded by a strip of cornland. Beyond the frontier extended a regionof bare rock, or a wide plain saturated with the ill-regulated surpluswater of the inundation. The land of Goshen was bounded by the cities ofHeliopolis on the south, Bubastis on the west, and Tanis and Mendes onthe north: the garrison at Avaris could easily keep watch over it andmaintain order within it, while they could at the same time defend itfrom the incursions of the Monatiū and the Hīrū-Shāītū. *

 * Goshen comprised the provinces situated on the borders of the cultivable cornland, and watered by the infiltration of the Nile, which caused the growth of a vegetation sufficient to support the flocks during a few weeks; and it may also have included the imperfectly irrigated provinces which were covered with pools and reedy swamps after each inundation. 

The Beni-Israel throve in these surroundings so well adapted to theirtraditional tastes. Even if their subsequent importance as a nationhas been over-estimated, they did not at least share the fate of manyforeign tribes, who, when transplanted into Egypt, waned and died out, or, at the end of two or three generations, became merged in the nativepopulation. * In pursuing their calling as shepherds, almost within sightof the rich cities of the Nile valley, they never forsook the God oftheir fathers to bow down before the Enneads or Triads of Egypt; whetherHe was already known to them as Jahveh, or was worshipped under thecollective name of Elohīm, they served Him with almost unbroken fidelityeven in the presence of Rā and Osiris, of Phtah and Sūtkhū. 

 * We are told that when the Hebrews left Ramses, they were "about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks and herds, even very much cattle" (_Exod. _ xii. 37, 38). 

The Hyksōs conquest had not in any way modified the feudal system of thecountry. The Shepherd-kings must have inherited the royal domain just asthey found it at the close of the XIVth dynasty, but doubtless the wholeDelta, from Avaris to Sais, and from Memphis to Buto, was their personalappanage. Their direct authority probably extended no further south thanthe pyramids, and their supremacy over the fiefs of the Said was at bestprecarious. The turbulent lords who shared among them the possession ofthe valley had never lost their proud or rebellious spirit, and underthe foreign as under the native Pharaohs regulated their obedienceto their ruler by the energy he displayed, or by their regard forthe resources at his disposal. Thebes had never completely lost theascendency which it obtained over them at the fall of the Memphitedynasty. The accession of the Xoite dynasty, and the arrival of theShepherd-kings, in relegating Thebes unceremoniously to a second rank, had not discouraged it, or lowered its royal prestige in its own eyes orin those of others: the lords of the south instinctively rallied aroundit, as around their natural citadel, and their resources, combined withits own, rendered it as formidable a power as that of the masters of theDelta. If we had fuller information as to the history of this period, weshould doubtless see that the various Theban princes took occasion, asin the Heracleopolitan epoch, to pick a quarrel with their sovereignlord, and did not allow themselves to be discouraged by any check. *

 * 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 Hyksōs 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 Hyksōs of theXVIth dynasty was not probably, as far as they were concerned, years ofperfect tranquillity, or of undisputed authority. In inscribing theirsole names on the lists, the compilers denoted merely the shorteror longer period during which their Theban vassals failed in theirrebellious efforts, and did not dare to assume openly the title orensigns of royalty. A certain Apōphis, probably the same who took theprsenomen of Aqnūnrī, was reigning at Tanis when the decisive revoltbroke out, and Saqnūnrī Tiūāa I. , who was the leader on the occasion, had no other title of authority over the provinces of the south thanthat of _hiqu, _ or regent. We are unacquainted with the cause of theoutbreak or with its sequel, and the Egyptians themselves seem to havebeen not much better informed on the subject than ourselves. They gavefree 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 hundredyears later, asserted that the real cause of the war was a kind ofreligious quarrel. "It happened that the land of Egypt belonged tothe Fever-stricken, and, as there was no supreme king at that time, ithappened then that King Saqnūnrī was regent of the city of the south, and that the Fever-stricken of the city of Rā were under the rule ofRā-Apōpi in Avaris. The Whole Land tribute to the latter in manufacturedproducts, and the north did the same in all the good things of theDelta. Now, the King Rā-Apōpi took to himself Sūtkhū for lord, and hedid not serve any other god in the Whole Land except Sūtkhū, and hebuilt a temple of excellent and everlasting work at the gate of the KingRā-Apōpi, and he arose every morning to sacrifice the daily victims, and the chief vassals were there with garlands of flowers, as it wasaccustomed to be done for the temple of Phrā-Harmākhis. " Having finishedthe 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 hadrecourse to stratagem. He took counsel with his princes and generals, but they were unable to propose any plan. The college of diviners andscribes was more complaisant: "Let a messenger go to the regent of thecity of the South to tell him: The King Rā-Apōpi commands thee: 'Thatthe hippopotami which are in the pool of the town are to be exterminatedin 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 himanother messenger: The King Rā-Apōpi commands thee: 'If the chief of theSouth does not reply to my message, let him serve no longer any god butSūtkhū. But if he replies to it, and will do that which I tell himto do, then I will impose nothing further upon him, and I will not infuture bow before any other god of the Whole Land than Amonrā, king ofthe gods!'" Another Pharaoh of popular romance, Nectanebo, possessed, at a much later date, mares which conceived at the neighing of thestallions of Babylon, and his friend Lycerus had a cat which went forthevery night to wring the necks of the cocks of Memphis:* the hippopotamiof the Theban lake, which troubled the rest of the King of Tanis, wereevidently 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 Ęsop. 

The sequel is unfortunately lost. We may assume, however, without muchrisk of error, that Saqnūnrī came forth safe and sound from the ordeal;that Apōpi was taken in his own trap, and saw himself driven to the direextremity of giving up Sūtkhū for Amonrā or of declaring war. He waslikely to adopt the latter alternative, and the end of the manuscriptwould probably have related his defeat. 

[Illustration: 106. Jpg PALLATE OF Tiūāa]

 Drawn from the original by Faucher-Gudin. 

Hostilities continued for a century and a half from the time whenSaqnūnrī Tiūāa declared himself son of the Sun and king of thetwo Egypts. From the moment in which he surrounded his name with acartouche, the princes of the Said threw in their lot with him, and theXVIIth dynasty had its beginning on the day of his proclamation. Thestrife at first was undecisive and without marked advantage to eitherside: at length the Pharaoh whom the Greek copyists of Manetho callAlisphragmouthosis, defeated the barbarians, drove them away fromMemphis and from the western plains of the Delta, and shut them up intheir entrenched camp at Avaris, between the Sebennytic branch of theNile and the Wady Tumilāt. The monuments bearing on this period ofstrife and misery are few in number, and it is a fortunate circumstanceif some insignificant object tarns up which would elsewhere be passedover as unworthy of notice. One of the officials of Tiūāa I. Has left ushis writing palette, on which the cartouches of his master are incisedwith a rudeness baffling description. 

We have also information of a prince of the blood, a king's son, Tūaū, who accompanied this same Pharaoh in his expeditions; and the GīzehMuseum is proud of having in its possession the i wooden sabre whichthis individual placed on the mummy of a certain Aqhorū, to enable himto defend himself against the monsters of the lower world. A secondSaqnūnrī Tiūāa succeeded the first, and like him was buried in a littlebrick pyramid on the border of the Theban necropolis. At his death theseries of rulers was broken, and we meet with several names whichare difficult to classify--Sakhontinibrī, Sanakhtū-niri, Hotpūrī, Manhotpūrī, Eāhotpū. *

 * Hotpūrī and Manhotpūrī 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 Hotpūrī's 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 Manhotpūrī is mentioned in a passage of the story as being the date of the death of a personage born under Hotpūrī. 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 Nūbhotpūrī, of whom we possess a few rather coarse scarabs. 

As we proceed, however, information becomes more plentiful, and the listof reigns almost complete. The part which the princesses of oldertimes played in the transmission of power had, from the XIIth dynastydownward, considerably increased in importance, and threatened toovershadow that of the princes. The question presents itself whether, during these centuries of perpetual warfare, there had not been a momentwhen, all the males of the family having perished, the women alonewere left to perpetuate the solar race on the earth and to keep thesuccession unbroken. As soon as the veil over this period of historybegins to be lifted, we distinguish among the personages emerging fromthe obscurity as many queens as kings presiding over the destinies ofEgypt. The sons took precedence of the daughters when both were theoffspring of a brother and sister born of the same parents, and when, consequently, they were of equal rank; but, on the other hand, the sonsforfeited this equality when there was any inferiority in origin on thematernal side, and their prospect of succession to the throne diminishedin proportion to their mother's remoteness from the line of Rā. In thelatter case all their sisters, born of marriages which to us appearincestuous, took precedence of them, and the eldest daughter became thelegitimate Pharaoh, who sat in the seat of Horus on the death of herfather, or even occasionally during his lifetime. The prince whom shemarried governed for her, and discharged those royal duties which couldbe legally performed by a man only, --such as offering worship to thesupreme gods, commanding the army, and administering justice; but hiswife never ceased to be sovereign, and however small the intelligenceor firmness of which she might be possessed, her husband was obligedto leave to her, at all events on certain occasions, the direction ofaffairs. 

[Illustration: 109. Jpg NOFRĪTARI, FROM TUE WOODEN STATUETTE IN THE TURINMUSEUM]

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

At her death her children inherited the crown: their father had formallyto invest the eldest of them with royal, authority in the room of thedeceased, and with him he shared the externals, if not the reality, ofpower. * It is doubtful whether the third Saq-nūnrī Tiūāa known to us--hewho added an epithet to his name, and was commonly known as Tiūāqni, "Tiūāa the brave"** --united in his person all the requisites of aPharaoh qualified to reign in his own right. However this may have been, at all events his wife, Queen Ahhotpū, possessed them. 

 * Thus we find Thūtmosis I. Formally enthroning his daughter Hāt-shopsītū, 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 Tiūāa 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 Ahhotpū I. 

His eldest son Ahmosū died prematurely; the two younger brothers, Kamosūand a second Ahmosū, the Amosis of the Greeks, assumed the crown afterhim. It is possible, as frequently happened, that their young sisterAhmasi-Nofrītari entered the harem of both brothers consecutively. 

[Illustration: 110. Jpg THE HEAD OF SAQNURI]

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

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

Tiūāqni, Kamosū, * and Ahmosis** quickly succeeded each other. Tiūāqnivery probably waged war against the Shepherds, and it is not knownwhether 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 whenabout forty years of age. Two or three men, whether assassins orsoldiers, must have surrounded and despatched him before help wasavailable. A blow from an axe must have severed part of his left cheek, exposed the teeth, fractured the jaw, and sent him senseless to theground; another blow must have seriously injured the skull, and a daggeror javelin has cut open the forehead on the right side, a little abovethe eye. His body must have remained lying where it fell for sometime: when found, decomposition had set in, and the embalming had tobe hastily performed as best it might. The hair is thick, rough, andmatted; the face had been shaved on the morning of his death, but bytouching the cheek we can ascertain how harsh and abundant the hair musthave been. The mummy is that of a fine, vigorous man, who might havelived to a hundred years, and he must have defended himself resolutelyagainst his assailants; his features bear even now an expression offury. A flattened patch of exuded brain appears above one eye, theforehead is wrinkled, and the lips, which are drawn back in a circleabout the gums, reveal the teeth still biting into the tongue. Kamosūdid not reign long;'we know nothing of the events of his life, but weowe to him one of the prettiest examples of the Egyptian goldsmith'sart--the gold boat mounted on a carriage of wood and bronze, whichwas to convey his double on its journeys through Hades. This boat wasafterwards appropriated by his mother Ahhotpū. 

 * With regard to Kamosū, we possess, in addition to the miniature bark which was discovered on the sarcophagus of Queen Ahhotpū, and which is now in the museum at Gīzeh, a few scattered references to his worship existing on the monuments, on a stele at Gīzeh, 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- Abu'l-Neggah, beside those of Ilūāa and Amenōthźs I. 

 ** The name Amosū 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 ascendedthe throne; he was of medium height, as his body when mummied measuredonly 5 feet 6 inches in length, but the development of the neck andchest indicates extraordinary strength. The head is small in proportionto the bust, the forehead low and narrow, the cheek-bones project, andthe hair is thick and wavy. The face exactly resembles that of Tiūācrai, and the likeness alone would proclaim the affinity, even if we wereignorant of the close relationship which united these two Pharaohs. *Ahmosis seems to have been a strong, active, warlike man; he wassuccessful 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 ispossible that modern writers have exaggerated the credit due to Ahmosisfor expelling the Hyksōs. He found the task already half accomplished, and the warfare of his forefathers for at least a century must haveprepared the way for his success; if he appears to have played the mostimportant _rōle_ in the history of the deliverance, it is owing to ourignorance of the work of others, and he thus benefits by the oblivioninto which their deeds have passed. Taking this into consideration, wemust still admit that the Shepherds, even when driven into Avaris, werenot adversaries to be despised. Forced by the continual pressure of theEgyptian armies into this corner of the Delta, they were as a compactbody the more able to make a protracted resistance against very superiorforces. 

 * Here again my description is taken from the present appearance of the mummy, which is now in the Gīzeh 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. 

[Illustration: 113. Jpg THE SMALL GOLD VOTIVE BARQUE OF PHARAOH KAMOSŪ, IN THE GĪZEH MUSEUM. ]

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

The impenetrable marshes of Menzaleh on the north, and the desert of theRed Sea on the south, completely covered both their wings; the shiftingnetwork of the branches of the Nile, together with the artificialcanals, protected them as by a series of moats in front, while Syria intheir rear offered them inexhaustible resources for revictualling theirtroops, or levying recruits among tribes of kindred race. As long asthey could hold their ground there, a re-invasion was always possible;one victory would bring them to Memphis, and the whole valley wouldagain fall under then-suzerainty. Ahmosis, by driving them from theirlast stronghold, averted this danger. It is, therefore, not withoutreason that the official chroniclers of later times separated him fromhis ancestors and made him the head of a new dynasty. 

[Illustration: 114. Jpg Page Image]

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 toattain to the suzerainty of the whole country. They were reckoned inthe XVIIth dynasty together with the Hyksōs sovereigns of uncontestedlegitimacy, while their successors were chosen to constitutethe XVIIIth, comprising Pharaohs with full powers, tolerating nocompetitors, and uniting under their firm rule the two regions ofwhich Egypt was composed--the possessions of Sit and the possessions ofHorus. *

 * Manetho, or his abridgers, call the king who drove out the Shepherds Amōsis or Tethmōsis. Lepsius thought he saw grounds for preferring the second reading, and identified this Tethmōsis with Thūtmosi Manakhpirri, the ļhūtmosis 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, andcontinued during the first five years of his reign. * One of hislieutenants, the king's namesake--Āhmosi-si-Abīna--who belonged to thefamily of the lords of Nekhabīt, has left us an account, in one of theinscriptions in his tomb, of the numerous exploits in which he took partside by side with his royal master, and thus, thanks to this fortunaterecord of his vanity, we are not left in complete ignorance of theevents which took place during this crucial struggle between the Asiaticsettlers and their former subjects. Nekhabīt had enjoyed considerableprosperity in the earlier ages of Egyptian history, marking as itdid the extreme southern limit of the kingdom, and forming an outpostagainst the barbarous tribes of Nubia. As soon as the progress ofconquest had pushed the frontier as far south as the first cataract, it declined in importance, and the remembrance of its former greatnessfound an echo only in proverbial expressions or in titles used at thePharaonic court. * The nomes situated to the south of Thebes, unlikethose of Middle Egypt, did not comprise any extensive fertile orwell-watered territory calculated to enrich its possessors or to affordsufficient support for a large population: they consisted of long stripsof alluvial soil, shut in between the river and the mountain range, but above the level of the inundation, and consequently difficult toirrigate. 

 * This is evident from passage in the biography of Ahmosi- si-Abīna, 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 Nekhabīt is used to indicate the south, while the urseus of Buto denotes the extreme north; the title Rā-Nekhnīt, "Chief of Nekhnīt, " which is, hypothetically, supposed to refer to a judicial function, is none the less associated with the expression, "Nekhabīt- Tekhnīt, " as an indication of the south, and, therefore, can be traced to the prehistoric epoch when Nekhabīt was the primary designation of the south. 

[Illustration: 116. Jpg THE WALLS OF EL-KAB SEEN FROM THE TOMB OF PIHIRI]

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

[Illustration: 116a. Jpg COLLECTION OF VASES] MODELLED AND PAINTED IN THEGRAND TEMPLE. PHILAE ISLAND. 

These nomes were cultivated, moreover, by a poor and sparse population. It needed a fortuitous combination of circumstances to relieve them fromtheir poverty-stricken condition--either a war, which would bring intoprominence their strategic positions; or the establishment ofmarkets, such as those of Syźnź and Elephantine, where the commerceof neighbouring regions would naturally centre; or the erection, as atOmbos or Adfū, of a temple which would periodically attract a crowdof pilgrims. The principality of the Two Feathers comprised, besidesNekhabīt, āt least two such towns--Anīt, on its northern boundary, andNekhnīt almost facing Nekhabīt on the left bank of the river. * Thesethree towns sometimes formed separate estates for as many independentlords:** even when united they constituted a fiefdom of but restrictedarea and of slender revenues, its chiefs ranking below those of thegreat feudal princes of Middle Egypt. The rulers of this fiefdom led anobscure existence during the whole period of the Memphite empire, andwhen at length Thebes gained the ascendency, they rallied to the latterand acknowledged her suzerainty. One of them, Sovkūnakhīti, gained thefavour of Sovkhotpū III. Sakhemūaztaūirī, who granted him lands whichmade the fortune of his house; another of them, Aļ, married Khonsu, one of the daughters of Sovkūmsaūf I. And his Queen Nūbkhās, and it ispossible that the misshapen pyramid of Qūlah, the most southern in Egyptproper, was built for one of these royally connected personages. 

 * Nekhnīt is the Hieracōnpolis of Greek and Roman times, Hāīt-Baūkū, the modern name of which is Kom-el-Ahmar. 

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

The descendants of Aļ attached themselves faithfully to the Pharaohsof the XVIIth dynasty, and helped them to the utmost in their struggleagainst the invaders. Their capital, Nekhabīt, was situated between theNile and the Arabian chain, at the entrance to a valley which penetratessome distance into the desert, and leads to the gold-mines on the RedSea. The town profited considerably from the precious metals broughtinto it by the caravans, and also from the extraction of natron, whichfrom prehistoric times was largely employed in embalming. It had beena fortified place from the outset, and its walls, carefully repairedby successive ages, were still intact at the beginning of this century. They described at this time a rough quadrilateral, the two longer sidesof which measured some 1900 feet in length, the two shorter being aboutone-fourth less. The southern face was constructed in a fashion commonin brick buildings in Egypt, being divided into alternate panels ofhorizontally laid courses, and those in which the courses were concave;on the north and west faēades the bricks were so laid as to presentan undulating arrangement running uninterruptedly from one end to theother. 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 areunsymmetrically placed, there being one on the north, east, and westsides respectively; while the southern side is left without an opening. These walls afforded protection to a dense but unequally distributedpopulation, the bulk of which was housed towards the north and westsides, where the remains of an immense number of dwellings may stillbe seen. The temples were crowded together in a small square enclosure, concentric with the walls of the enceinte, and the principal sanctuarywas dedicated to Nekhabīt, the vulture goddess, who gave her name to thecity. * This enclosure formed a kind of citadel, where the garrison couldhold out when the outer part had fallen into the enemy's hands. Thetimes were troublous; the open country was repeatedly wasted by war, andthe peasantry had more than once to seek shelter behind the protectingramparts of the town, leaving their lands to lie fallow. 

 * A part of the latter temple, that which had been rebuilt in the Saīte 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. 

[Illustration: 119. Jpg THE RUINS OF THE PYRAMID OF QŪLAH, NEARMOHAMMERIEH]

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

Famine constantly resulted from these disturbances, and it taxed all thepowers of the ruling prince to provide at such times for his people. Achief of the Commissariat, Bebī by name, who lived about this period, gives us a lengthy account of the number of loaves, oxen, goats, andpigs, 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 tostore up for them: his prudence was always justified by the issue, for"during the many years in which the famine recurred, he distributedgrain in the city to all those who hungered. "

Babaī, the first of the lords of El-Kab whose name has come down tous, was a captain in the service of Saqnūnrī Tiūāqni. * His son Ahmosi, having approached the end of his career, cut a tomb for himself in thehill which overlooks the northern side of the town. He relates onthe walls of his sepulchre, for the benefit of posterity, the mostpraiseworthy actions of his long life. He had scarcely emerged fromchildhood when he was called upon to act for his father, and before hismarriage he was appointed to the command of the barque _The Calf. _ Fromthence he was promoted to the ship _The North_, and on account of hisactivity he was chosen to escort his namesake the king on foot, wheneverhe drove in his chariot. He repaired to his post at the moment when thedecisive war against the Hyksōs 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 Abīna that of his grandfather; others think that Babai was his father and Abīna his mother; others, again, make out Babai and Abīna 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 numberof men under the command of King Ahmosis when he encamped beforeAvaris at 480, 000. This immense multitude failed to bring matters to asuccessful issue, and the siege dragged on indefinitely. The king afclength preferred to treat with the Shepherds, and gave them permissionto retreat into Syria safe and sound, together with their wives, theirchildren, and all their goods. This account, however, in no way agreeswith the all too brief narration of events furnished by the inscriptionin the tomb. The army to which Egypt really owed its deliverance wasnot 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 canalsand arms of the river in a vigorous condition and ready for the battle. *

 * It may be pointed out that Ahmosi, son of Abīna, 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, theengagement began. Ahmosi-si-Abīna conducted the manouvres under theking's eye, and soon gave such evidence of his capacity, that he wastransferred by royal favour to the _Rising in Memphis_--a vessel witha high freeboard. He was shortly afterwards appointed to a post in adivision told off for duty on the river Zadiku, which ran under thewalls of the enemy's fortress. * Two successive and vigorous attacksmade in this quarter were barren of important results. Ahmosi-si-Abīnasucceeded in each of the attacks in killing an enemy, bringing back astrophies a hand of each of his victims, and his prowess, made known tothe king by one of the heralds, twice procured for him, "the gold ofvalour, " 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 "Zadikū, " and, with the Egyptian article, Pa-zadikū, or Pzadikū. 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. 

[Illustration: 122. Jpg THE TOMBS OF THE PRINCES OF NEKHABĪT, IN THEHILLSIDE ABOVE EL-KAB]

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

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

 * The site of Taqimīt is unknown. 

 ** The prisoner who was given to Ahmosis after the victory, is probably Paāmū, 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 himselfin Asia, and the same dread of the unknown which had restrained hisancestors of the XIIth dynasty, doubtless arrested Ahmosis also on thethreshold of the continent. He did not penetrate further than the borderprovinces of Zahi, situated on the edge of the desert, and contentedhimself with pillaging the little town of Sharūhana. * Ahmosi-si-Abīnawas again his companion, together with his cousin, Ahmosi-Pannekhabit, then at the beginning of his career, who brought away on this occasiontwo young girls for his household. **

 * Sharūhana, which is mentioned again under Thūtmosis 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-Sheriāh, 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 returnedhome with their spoil, and did not revisit Asia for a long period. Ifthe Hyksōs generals had fostered in their minds the idea that they couldrecover their lost ground, and easily re-enter upon the possession oftheir African domain, this reverse must have cruelly disillusioned them. They must have been forced to acknowledge that their power was at anend, and to renounce all hope of returning to the country which had sosummarily ejected them. The majority of their own people did not followthem into exile, but remained attached to the soil on which theylived, and the tribes which had successively settled down besidethem--including the Beni-Israel themselves--no longer dreamed ofa return to their fatherland. The condition of these people variedaccording to their locality. Those who had taken up a position in theplain of the Delta were subjected to actual slavery. Ahmosis destroyedthe camp at Avails, quartered his officers in the towns, and constructedforts at strategic points, or rebuilt the ancient citadels to resist theincursions of the Bedouin. The vanquished people in the Delta, hemmed inas they were by a network of fortresses, were thus reduced to a rabbleof serfs, to be taxed and subjected to the _corvée_ without mercy. But further north, the fluctuating population which roamed between theSebennytic and Pelusiac branches of the Nile were not exposed to suchrough treatment. The marshes of the coast-line afforded them a saferetreat, in which they could take refuge at the first threat ofexactions on the part of the royal emissaries. Secure within densethickets, upon islands approached by interminable causeways, oftencovered with water, or by long tortuous canals concealed in the thickgrowth of reeds, they were able to defy with impunity the efforts of themost disciplined troops, and treason alone could put them at the mercyof their foes. Most of the Pharaohs felt that the advantages to begained by conquering them would be outweighed by the difficulty ofthe enterprise; all that could result from a campaign would be thedestruction of one or two villages, the acquisition of a few hundredrefractory captives, of some ill-favoured cattle, and a trophy of netsand worm-eaten boats. The kings, therefore, preferred to keep a closewatch over these undisciplined hordes, and as long as their depredationswere kept within reasonable limits, they were left unmolested to theirwild and precarious life. 

The Asiatic invasion had put a sudden stop to the advance of Egyptianrule in the vast plains of the Upper Nile. The Theban princes, to whomNubia was directly subject, had been too completely engrossed inthe wars against their hereditary enemy, to devote much time to thecontinuation of that work of colonization in the south which had beencarried on so vigorously by their forefathers of the XIIth and XIIIthdynasties. The inhabitants of the Nile valley, as far as the secondcataract, rendered them obedience, but without any change in theconditions and mode of their daily life, which appear to have remainedunaltered for centuries. The temples of Usirtasen and Amenemhaītwere allowed to fall into decay one after another, the towns waned inprosperity, and were unable to keep their buildings and monuments inrepair; the inundation continued to bring with it periodically itsfleet of boats, which the sailors of Kūsh had laden with timber, gum, elephants' tusks, and gold dust: from time to time a band of Bedouin fromUaūaīt or Mazaiū would suddenly bear down upon some village and carryoff its spoils; the nearest garrison would be called to its aid, or, oncritical occasions, the king himself, at the head of his guards, wouldfall 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 ofNubia the greatness of his conquest. On this occasion it was the peopleof Khonthanūnofir, settled in the wadys east of the Nile, above Semneh, which required a lesson. The army which had just expelled the Hyksōs wasrapidly conveyed to the opposite borders of the country by the fleet, the two Ahmosi of Nekhabīt occupying the highest posts. The Egyptians, as was customary, landed at the nearest point to the enemy's territory, and succeeded in killing a few of the rebels. Ahmosi-si-Abīna broughtback two prisoners and three hands, for which he was rewarded by a giftof two female Bedouin slaves, besides the "gold of valour. " This victoryin the south following on such decisive success in the north, filled theheart of the Pharaoh with pride, and the view taken of it by those whosurrounded him is evident even in the brief sentences of the narrative. He is described as descending the river on the royal galley, elatedin spirit and flushed by his triumph in Nubia, which had followed soclosely on the deliverance of the Delta. But scarcely had he reachedThebes, when an unforeseen catastrophe turned his confidence into alarm, and compelled him to retrace his steps. It would appear that at thevery moment when he was priding himself on the successful issue of hisEthiopian expedition, one of the sudden outbreaks, which frequentlyoccurred in those regions, had culminated in a Sudanese invasion ofEgypt. We are not told the name of the rebel leader, nor those of thetribes who took part in it. The Egyptian people, threatened in a momentof such apparent security by this inroad of barbarians, regarded themas a fresh incursion of the Hyksōs, and applied to these southernersthe opprobrious term of "Fever-stricken, " already used to denote theirAsiatic conquerors. The enemy descended the Nile, committing terribleatrocities, and polluting every sanctuary of the Theban gods which camewithin their reach. They had reached a spot called Tentoā, * before theyfell in with the Egyptian troops. Ahmosi-si-Abīna again distinguishedhimself in the engagement. The vessel which he commanded, probably the_Rising in Memphis_, ran alongside the chief galliot of the Sudanesefleet, and took possession of it after a struggle, in which Ahmosimade two of the enemy's sailors prisoners with his own hand. The kinggenerously rewarded those whose valour had thus turned the day in hisfavour, for the danger had appeared to him critical; he allotted toevery man on board the victorious vessel five slaves, and five ancra ofland situated in his native province of each respectively. The invasionwas 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 Tantoā may be the modern Tantah in the Delta. 

A certain Titiānu, who appears to have been at the head of a powerfulfaction, rose in rebellion at some place not named in the narrative, butin the rear of the army. The rapidity with which Ahmosis repulsed theNubians, and turned upon his new enemy, completely baffled the latter'splans, and he and his followers were cut to pieces, but the dangerhad for the moment been serious. * It was, if not the last expeditionundertaken in this reign, at least the last commanded by the Pharaoh inperson. By his activity and courage Ahmosis had well earned the right topass 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 Titiānu 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 Pentauīrīt; Titiānu 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 thespoils of war must be satisfied before those of men, because the victoryand the booty obtained through it were alike owing to the divine helpgiven in battle. A tenth, therefore, of the slaves, cattle, and preciousmetals was set apart for the service of the gods, and even fields, towns, and provinces were allotted to them, the produce of which wasapplied to enhance the importance of their cult or to repair and enlargetheir temples. The main body of the building was strengthened, halls andpylons were added to the original plan, and the impulse once given toarchitectural work, the co-operation of other artificers soonfollowed. Sculptors and painters whose art had been at a standstill forgenerations during the centuries of Egypt's humiliation, and whosehands had lost their cunning for want of practice, were now once more indemand. They had probably never completely lost the technical knowledgeof their calling, and the ancient buildings furnished them with varioustypes of models, which they had but to copy faithfully in order torevive their old traditions. A few years after this revival a new schoolsprang up, whose originality became daily more patent, and whose leaderssoon showed themselves to be in no way inferior to the masters of theolder schools. Ahmosis could not be accused of ingratitude to the gods;as soon as his wars allowed him the necessary leisure, he began his workof temple-building. The accession to power of the great Theban familieshad been of little advantage to Thebes itself. Its Pharaohs, on assumingthe sovereignty of the whole valley, had not hesitated to abandon theirnative city, and had made Heracleopolis, the Fayum or even Memphis, their seat of government, only returning to Thebes in the time of theXIIIth dynasty, when the decadence of their power had set in. The honourof 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 Egypthad come to regard Thebes as their metropolis from the time when theyhad temples. The main body of the building was strengthened, halls andpylons were added to the original plan, and the impulse once given toarchitectural work, the co-operation of other artificers soonfollowed. Sculptors and painters whose art had been at a standstill forgenerations during the centuries of Egypt's humiliation, and whosehands had lost their cunning for want of practice, were now once more indemand. They had probably never completely lost the technical knowledgeof their calling, and the ancient buildings furnished them with varioustypes of models, which they had but to copy faithfully in order torevive their old traditions. A few years after this revival a new schoolsprang up, whose originality became daily more patent, and whose leaderssoon showed themselves to be in no way inferior to the masters of theolder schools. Ahmosis could not be accused of ingratitude to the gods;as soon as his wars allowed him the necessary leisure, he began his workof temple-building. The accession to power of the great Theban familieshad been of little advantage to Thebes itself. Its Pharaohs, on assumingthe sovereignty of the whole valley, had not hesitated to abandon theirnative city, and had made Heracleopolis, the Fayum or even Memphis, their seat of government, only returning to Thebes in the time of theXIIIth dynasty, when the decadence of their power had set in. The honourof 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. 

[Illustration: 130. Jpg PAINTING IN TOMB OF THE KINGS THEBES]

The other cities of Egypt had come to regard Thebes as their metropolisfrom the time when they had learned to rally round its princes to wagewar against the Hyksōs. It had been the last town to lay down arms atthe time of the invasion, and the first to take them up again in thestruggle for liberty. Thus the Egypt which vindicated her position amongthe nations of the world was not the Egypt of the Memphite dynasties. Itwas the great Egypt of the Amenemhāīts and the Usirtasens, still furtheraggrandised by recent victories. Thebes was her natural capital, andits kings could not have chosen a more suitable position from whence tocommand effectually the whole empire. Situated at an equal distance fromboth frontiers, the Pharaoh residing there, on the outbreak of a wareither in the north or south, had but half the length of the country totraverse in order to reach the scene of action. Ahmosis spared no painsto improve the city, but his resources did not allow of his embarking onany very extensive schemes; he did not touch the temple of Amon, andif he undertook any buildings in its neighbourhood, they must have beenminor edifices. He could, indeed, have had but little leisure to attemptmuch else, for it was not till the XXIInd year of his reign that he wasable to set seriously to work. *

 * In the inscription of the year XXII. , Āhmosis expressly states that he opened new chambers in the quarries of Tūrah 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 intodisuse under the foreign kings, and to set once more in motion anessential part of the machinery of Egyptian administration. The quarriesof Turah, as is well known, enjoyed the privilege of furnishing thefinest materials to the royal architects; nowhere else could be foundlimestone of such whiteness, so easy to cut, or so calculated to lenditself to the carving of delicate inscriptions and bas-reliefs. Thecommoner veins had never ceased to be worked by private enterprise, gangs of quarrymen being always employed, as at the present day, incutting small stone for building purposes, or in ruthlessly chipping itto pieces to burn for lime in the kilns of the neighbouring villages;but the finest veins were always kept for State purposes. Contemporarychroniclers might have formed a very just estimate of nationalprosperity by the degree of activity shown in working these royalpreserves; when the amount of stone extracted was lessened, prosperitywas on the wane, and might be pronounced to be at its lowest ebb whenthe noise of the quarryman's hammer finally ceased to be heard. 

[Illustration: 132. Jpg A CONVOY OF TŪRAH QUARRYMEN DRAWING STONE]

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

Every dynasty whose resources were such as to justify their resumptionof the work proudly recorded the fact on stelae which linedthe approaches to the masons' yards. Ahmosis reopened the Tūrahquarry-chambers, and procured for himself "good stone and white" for thetemples of Anion at Thebes and of Phtah at Memphis. No monument has asyet been discovered to throw any light on the fate of Memphis subsequentto the time of the Amenemhāīts. It must have suffered quite as muchas any city of the Delta from the Shepherd invasion, and from the warswhich preceded their expulsion, since it was situated on the highwayof an invading army, and would offer an attraction for pillagers. By acurious turn of fortune it was the "Fankhūi, " or Asiatic prisoners, whowere set to quarry the stone for the restoration of the monuments whichtheir own forefathers had reduced to ruins. * The bas-reliefs sculpturedon the stelę of Ahmosis show them in full activity under the _corvée;_we see here the stone block detached from the quarry being squared bythe chisel, or transported on a sledge drawn by oxen. 

 * The _Fankhūi_ are, properly speaking, all white prisoners, without distinction of race. Their name is derived from the root _fōkhu, 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 "Fankhūi" 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 ownedNofrītari for their mother and possessed near claims to the crown, butshe may have borne him others whose existence is unrecorded. The eldestappears to have been a son, Sipiri; he received all the honours due toan hereditary prince, but died without having reigned, and his secondbrother, Amenhotpū--called by the Greeks Amenōthes*--took his place. 

 * The form Amenōphis, which is usually employed, is, properly speaking, the equivalent of the name _Amenemaupitu, _ or Amenaupīti, 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 Amenōthes. 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 himselfin the cemetery of Drah-abu'l-Neggah, among the modest pyramids of theXIth, XIIIth, and XVIIth dynasties. * He was venerated as a god, andhis cult was continued for six or eight centuries later, until theincreasing insecurity of the Theban necropolis at last necessitatedthe removal of the kings from their funeral chambers. ** The coffin ofAhmosis 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; itrepresents the king with the false beard depending from his chin, andhis breast covered with a pectoral ornament, the features, hair, and accessories being picked out in blue. His name has been hastilyinscribed in ink on the front of the winding-sheet, and when the lid wasremoved, garlands of faded pink flowers were still found about the neck, laid there as a last offering by the priests who placed the Pharaoh andhis 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- abu'l-Neggah. 

 ** His priests and the minor _employés_ of his cult are mentioned on a stele in the museum at Turin, and on a brick in the Berlin Museum. He is worshipped as a god, along with Osiris, Horus, and Isis, on a stele in the Lyons Museum, brought from Abydos: he had, probably, during one of his journeys across Egypt, made a donation to the temple of that city, on condition that he should be worshipped there for ever; for a stele at Marseilles shows him offering homage to Osiris in the bark of the god itself, and another stele in the Louvre informs us that Pharaoh Thūtmosis IV. Several times sent one of his messengers to Abydos for the purpose of presenting land to Osiris and to his own ancestor Ahmosis. 

[Illustration: 135. Jpg COFFIN OF AHMOSIS IN THE GĪZEH MUSEUM]

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

Amenōthes I. Had not attained his majority when his father "thus wingedhis way to heaven, " leaving him as heir to the throne. * Nofrītariassumed the authority; after having shared the royal honours for nearlytwenty-five years with her husband, she resolutely refused to resignthem. ** She was thus the first of those queens by divine right who, scorning the inaction of the harem, took on themselves the right tofulfil the active duties of a sovereign, and claimed the recognition ofthe equality or superiority of their titles to those of their husbandsor sons. 

 * The last date known is that of the year XXII. At Tūrah; Manetho's lists give, in one place, twenty-five years and four months after the expulsion; in another, twenty-six years in round numbers, as the total duration of his reign, which has every appearance of probability. 

 ** There is no direct evidence to prove that Amenōthes I. Was a minor when he came to the throne; still the presumptions in favour of this hypothesis, afforded by the monuments, are so strong that many historians of ancient Egypt have accepted it. Queen Nofrītari is represented as reigning, side by side with her reigning son, on some few Theban tombs which can be attributed to their epoch. 

[Illustration: 136. Jpg NOFRITARI, HIE BLACK-SKINNED GODDESS]

 Drawn by Bouclier, from the photograph by M. De Mertens taken in the Berlin Museum. 

The aged Ahhotpu, who, like Nofrītari, was of pure royal descent, andwho might well have urged her superior rank, had been content to retirein favour of her children; she lived to the tenth year of her grandson'sreign, respected by all her family, but abstaining from all interferencein political affairs. When at length she passed away, full of days andhonour, she was embalmed with special care, and her body was placed ina gilded mummy-case, the head of which presented a faithful copy ofher features. Beside her were piled the jewels she had received in herlifetime from her husband and son. The majority of them a fan with ahandle plated with gold, a mirror of gilt bronze with ebony handle, bracelets and ankle-rings, some of solid and some of hollow gold, edgedwith fine chains of plaited gold wire, others formed of beads of gold, lapis-lazuli, cornelian, and green felspar, many of them engraved withthe cartouche of Ahmosis. Belonging also to Ahmosis we have a beautifulquiver, in which figures of the king and the gods stand out in highrelief on a gold plaque, delicately chased with a graving tool; thebackground is formed of small pieces of lapis and blue glass, cunninglycut to fit each other. One bracelet in particular, found on thequeen's wrist, consisted of three parallel bands of solid gold set withturquoises, and having, a vulture with extended wings on the front. Thequeen's hair was held in place by a gold circlet, scarcely as large asa bracelet; a cartouche was affixed to the circlet, bearing the name ofAhmosis in blue paste, and flanked by small sphinxes, one on each side, as supporters. A thick flexible chain of gold was passed several timesround her neck, and attached to it as a pendant was a beautiful scarab, partly of gold and partly of blue porcelain striped with gold. Thebreast ornament was completed by a necklace of several rows of twistedcords, from which depended antelopes pursued by tigers, sittingjackals, hawks, vultures, and the winged urasus, all attached to thewinding-sheet by means of a small ring soldered on the back of eachanimal. The fastening of this necklace was formed of the heads of twogold hawks, the details of the heads being worked out in blue enamel. Both weapons and amulets were found among the jewels, including threegold flies suspended by a thin chain, nine gold and silver axes, alion's head in gold of most minute workmanship, a sceptre of black woodplated with gold, daggers to defend the deceased from the dangers of theunseen world, boomerangs of hard wood, and the battle-axe of Ahmosis. Besides these, there were two boats, one of gold and one of silver, originally intended for the Pharaoh Kamosū--models of the skiff in whichhis mummy crossed the Nile to reach its last resting-place, and to sailin the wake of the gods on the western sea. 

[Illustration: 136b. Jpg THE JEWELS AND WEAPONS OF QUEEN ĀHHHOTPŪ I. INTHE GĪZEH MUSEUM]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Bechard. 

Nofrītari thus reigned conjointly with Amenōthes, and even if we have norecord of any act in which she was specially concerned, we know at leastthat her rule was a prosperous one, and that her memory was revered byher subjects. While the majority of queens were relegated after death tothe crowd of shadowy ancestors to whom habitual sacrifice was offered, the worshippers not knowing even to which sex these royal personagesbelonged, the remembrance of Nofrītari always remained distinct in theirminds, and her cult spread till it might be said to have become a kindof popular religion. In this veneration Ahmosis was rarely associatedwith the queen, but Amenōthes and several of her other children sharedin it--her son Sipiri, for instance, and her daughters Sītamon, *Sītkamosi, and Marītamon; Nofrītari became, in fact, an actual goddess, taking her place beside Amon, Khonsū, and Maut, ** the members ofthe Theban Triad, or standing alone as an object of worship for herdevotees. 

 * Sītamon is mentioned, with her mother, on the Karnak stele and on the coffin of Būtehamon. 

 ** She is worshipped with the Theban Triad by Brihor, at Karnak, in the temple of Khonsū. 

[Illustration: 141. Jpg THE TWO COFFINS OF AHHOTP II. AND NOFRITARISTANDING IN TUB VESTIBULE OF THE OLD BŪLAK MUSEUM. ]

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

She was identified with Isis, Hathor, and the mistresses of Hades, andadopted their attributes, even to the black or blue coloured skin ofthese funerary divinities. *

 * Her statue in the Turin Museum represents her as having black skin. She is also painted black standing before Amenōthes (who is white) in the Deir el-Medineh tomb, now preserved in the Berlin Museum, in that of Nibnūtīrū, and hi that of Unnofir, at Sheikh Abd el-Qūrnah. Her face is painted blue in the tomb of Kasa. The representations of this queen with a black skin have caused her to be taken for a negress, the daughter of an Ethiopian Pharaoh, or at any rate the daughter of a chief of some Nubian tribe; it was thought that Ahmosis must have married her to secure the help of the negro tribes in his wars, and that it was owing to this alliance that he succeeded in expelling the Hyksōs. Later discoveries have not confirmed these hypotheses. Nofrītari was most probably an Egyptian of unmixed race, as we have seen, and daughter of Ahhotpū I. , and the black or blue colour of her skin is merely owing to her identification with the goddesses of the dead. 

Considerable endowments were given for maintaining worship at her tomb, and were administered by a special class of priests. Her mummy reposedamong those of the princes of her family, in the hiding-place atDeīr-el-Baharī: it was enclosed in an enormous wooden sarcophaguscovered with linen and stucco, the lower part being shaped to the body, while the upper part representing the head and arms could be lifted offin one piece. The shoulders are covered with a network in relief, themeshes of which are painted blue on a yellow background. The Queen'shands are crossed over her breast, and clasp the _crux ansata_, thesymbol of life. The whole mummy-case measures a little over nine feetfrom the sole of the feet to the top of the head, which is furthermoresurmounted by a cap, and two long ostrich-feathers. The appearance isnot so much that of a coffin as of one of those enormous caryatideswhich we sometimes find adorning the front of a temple. 

We may perhaps attribute to the influence of Nofrītari the lack of zestevinced by Amenōthes for expeditions into Syria. Even the most energetickings had always shrunk from penetrating much beyond the isthmus. Thosewho ventured so far as to work the mines of Sinai had neverthelessfelt a secret fear of invading Asia proper--a dread which they neversucceeded in overcoming. When the raids of the Bedouin obliged theEgyptian sovereign to cross the frontier into their territory, he wouldretire as soon as possible, without attempting any permanent conquest. After the expulsion of the Hyksōs, Ahmosis seemed inclined to pursue aless timorous course. He made an advance on Sharūhana and pillaged it, and the booty he brought back ought to have encouraged him to attemptmore important expeditions; but he never returned to this region, and itwould seem that when his first enthusiasm had subsided, he was paralysedby the same fear which had fallen on his ancestors. Nofrītari may havecounselled her son not to break through the traditions which his fatherhad so strictly followed, for Amenōthes I. Confined his campaigns toAfrica, and the traditional battle-fields there. He embarked for theland of Kūsh on the vessel of Ahmosi-si-Abīna "for the purpose ofenlarging the frontiers of Egypt. " It was, we may believe, a thoroughlyconventional campaign, conducted according to the strictest precedentsof the XIIth dynasty. The Pharaoh, as might be expected, came intopersonal contact with the enemy, and slew their chief with his ownhand; the barbarian warriors sold their lives dearly, but were unableto protect their country from pillage, the victors carrying off whateverthey could seize--men, women, and cattle. The pursuit of the enemy hadled the army some distance into the desert, as far as a halting-placecalled the "Upper cistern"--_Khnūmīt hirīt_; instead of retracing hissteps to the Nile squadron, and returning slowly by boat, Amenōthesresolved to take a short cut homewards. Ahmosi conducted him backoverland in two days, and was rewarded for his speed by the gift ofa quantity of gold, and two female slaves. An incursion into Libyafollowed quickly on the Ethiopian campaign. 

[Illustration: 144. Jpg STATUE OF AMENŌTHES I. IN THE TURIN MUSEUM]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph supplied by Flinders Pétrie. 

The tribe of the Kihaka, settled between Lake Mareotis and the Oasis ofAmon, had probably attacked in an audacious manner the western provincesof the Delta; a raid was organized against them, and the issue wascommemorated by a small wooden stele, on which we see the victorrepresented as brandishing his sword over a barbarian lying prostrate athis feet. The exploits of Amenōthes appear to have ended with this raid, for we possess no monument recording any further victory gained by him. This, however, has not prevented his contemporaries from celebrating himas a conquering and 'victorious king. He is portrayed standing erect inhis chariot ready to charge, or as carrying off two barbarians whom heholds half suffocated in his sinewy arms, or as gleefully smiting theprinces of foreign lands. He acquitted himself of the duties of thechase as became a true Pharaoh, for we find him depicted in the act ofseizing a lion by the tail and raising him suddenly in mid-air previousto despatching him. These are, indeed, but conventional pictures ofwar, to which we must not attach an undue importance. Egypt had need ofrepose in order to recover from the losses it had sustained during theyears of struggle with the invaders. If Amenōthes courted peace frompreference and not from political motives, his own generation profitedas much by his indolence as the preceding one had gained by the energyof Ahrnosis. The towns in his reign resumed their ordinary life, agriculture flourished, and commerce again followed its accustomedroutes. Egypt increased its resources, and was thus able to preparefor future conquest. The taste for building had not as yet sufficientlydeveloped to become a drain upon the public treasury. We have, however, records showing that Amenōthes excavated a cavern in the mountainof Ibrīm in Nubia, dedicated to Satīt, one of the goddesses of thecataract. 

[Illustration: 146. Jpg Page Image]

It is also stated that he worked regularly the quarries of Silsileh, but we do not know for what buildings the sandstone thus extracted wasdestined. * Karnak was also adorned with chapels, and with at least onecolossus, ** while several chambers built of the white limestone of Tūrahwere added to Ombos. Thebes had thus every reason to cherish the memoryof this pacific king. 

 * A bas-relief on the western bank of the river represents him deified: Panaīti, the name of a superintendent of the quarries who lived in his reign, has been preserved in several graffiti, while another graffito gives us only the protocol of the sovereign, and indicates that the quarries were worked in his reign. 

 ** The chambers of white limestone are marked I, K, on Mariette's plan; it is possible that they may have been merely decorated under Thūtmosis III. , whose cartouches alternate with those of Amenōthes I. The colossus is now in front of the third Pylon, and Wiedemann concluded from this fact that Amenōthes had begun extensive works for enlarging the temple of Amon; Mariette believed, with greater probability, that the colossus formerly stood at the entrance to the XIIth dynasty temple, but was removed to its present position by Thūtmosis III. 

As Nofrītari had been metamorphosed into a form of Isis, Amenōthes wassimilarly represented as Osiris, the protector of the Necropolis, and hewas depicted as such with the sombre colour of the funerary divinities;his image, moreover, together with those of the other gods, was usedto decorate the interiors of coffins, and to protect the mummies of hisdevotees. *

 * Wiedemann has collected several examples, to which it would be easy to add others. The names of the king are in this case constantly accompanied by unusual epithets, which are enclosed in one or other of his cartouches: Mons. Kevillout, deceived by these unfamiliar forms, has made out of one of these variants, on a painted cloth in the Louvre, a new Amenōthes, whom he styles Amenōthes V. 

[Illustration: 147. Jpg THE COFFIN AND MUMMY OF AMENOTHES]

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

One of his statues, now in the Turin Museum, represents him sitting onhis throne in the posture of a king giving audience to his subjects, orin that of a god receiving the homage of his worshippers. The modellingof the bust betrays a flexibility of handling which is astonishing in awork of art so little removed from barbaric times; the head is a marvelof delicacy and natural grace. We feel that the sculptor has taken adelight in chiselling the features of his sovereign, and in reproducingthe benevolent and almost dreamy expression which characterised them. *The cult of Amenōthes lasted for seven or eight centuries, until thetime when his coffin was removed and placed with those of the othermembers of his family in the place where it remained concealed until ourown times. **

 * Another statue of very fine workmanship, but mutilated, is preserved in the Gizeh Museum; this statue is of the time of Seti I. , and, as is customary, represents Amenōthes in the likeness of the king then reigning. 

 ** We know, from the Abbott Papyrus, that the pyramid of Amenōthes I. Was situated at Dr-ah Abou'l-Neggah, among those of the Pharaohs of the XIth, XIIth, and XVIIth dynasties. The remains of it have not yet been discovered. 

It is shaped to correspond with the form of the human body and paintedwhite; the face resembles that of his statue, and the eyes of enamel, touched with kohl, give it a wonderful appearance of animation. The bodyis swathed in orange-coloured linen, kept in place by bands of brownishlinen, and is further covered by a mask of wood and cartonnage, paintedto match the exterior of the coffin. Long garlands of faded flowers deckthe mummy from head to foot. A wasp, attracted by their scent, must havesettled upon them at the moment of burial, and become imprisoned by thelid; the insect has been completely preserved from corruption by thebalsams of the embalmer, and its gauzy wings have passed un-crumpledthrough the long centuries. 

Amenōthes had married Ahhotpū II, his sister by the same father andmother;* Ahmasi, the daughter born of this union, was given in marriageto Thūtmosis, one of her brothers, the son of a mere concubine, by nameSonisonbū. ** Ahmasi, like her ancestor Nofrītari, had therefore theright to exercise all the royal functions, and she might have claimedprecedence of her husband. Whether from conjugal affection or fromweakness of character, she yielded, however, the priority to Thūtmosis, and allowed him to assume the sole government. 

 * Ahhotpū II. May be seen beside her husband on several monuments. The proof that she was full sister of Amenōthes I. Is furnished by the title of "hereditary princess" which is given to her daughter Ąhmasi; this princess would not have taken precedence of her brother and husband Thūtmosis, who was the son of an inferior wife, had she not been the daughter of the only legitimate spouse of Amenōthes I. The marriage had already taken place before the accession of Thūtmosis I. , as Ahmasi figures in a document dated the first year of his reign. 

 ** The absence of any cartouche shows that Sonisonbū did not belong to the royal family, and the very form of the name points her out to have been of the middle classes, and merely a concubine. The accession of her son, however, ennobled her, and he represents her as a queen on the walls of the temple at Deīr el-Baharī; even then he merely styles her "Royal Mother, " the only title she could really claim, as her inferior position in the harem prevented her from using that of "Royal Spouse. "

[Illustration: 150. Jpg THŪTMOSIS I. , FROM A STATUE IN THE GĪZEH MUSEUM]

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

He was crowned at Thebes on the 21st of the third month of Pirīt; anda circular, addressed to the representatives of the ancient seignorialfamilies and to the officers of the crown, announced the names assumedby the new sovereign. "This is the royal rescript to announce to youthat my Majesty has arisen king of the two Egypts, on the seat of theHorus of the living, without equal, for ever, and that my titles areas follows: The vigorous bull Horus, beloved of Māīt, the Lord ofthe Vulture and of the Uraeus who raises itself as a flame, mostvaliant, --the golden Horns, whose years are good and who puts lifeinto all hearts, king of the two Egypts, Akhopirkerī, son of the Sun, Thūtmosis, living for ever. * Cause, therefore, sacrifices to be offeredto the gods of the south and of Elephantine, ** and hymns to be chantedfor the well-being of the King Akhopirkerī, living for ever, and thencause the oath to be taken in the name of my Majesty, born of the royalmother Sonisonbū, who is in good health. --This is sent to thee that thoumayest know that the royal house is prosperous, and in good health andcondition, the 1st year, the 21st of the third month of Pirīt, the dayof coronation. "

 * This is really the protocol of the king, as we find it on the monuments, with his two Horus names and his solar titles. 

 ** The copy of the letter which has come down to us is addressed to the commander of Elephantine: hence the mention of the gods of that town. The names of the divinities must have been altered to suit each district, to which the order to offer sacrifices for the prosperity of the new sovereign was sent. 

The new king was tall in stature, broad-shouldered, well knit, andcapable of enduring the fatigues of war without flagging. His statuesrepresent him as having a full, round face, long nose, square chin, rather thick lips, and a smiling but firm expression. Thūtmosis broughtwith him on ascending the throne the spirit of the younger generation, who, born shortly after the deliverance from the Hyksōs, had grown upin the peaceful days of Amenōthes, and, elated by the easy victoriesobtained over the nations of the south, were inspired by ambitionsunknown to the Egyptians of earlier times. To this younger race Africano longer offered a sufficiently wide or attractive field; the wholecountry was their own as far as the confluence of the two Niles, and theTheban gods were worshipped at Napata no less devoutly than at Thebesitself. What remained to be conquered in that direction was scarcelyworth the trouble of reducing to a province or of annexing as a colony;it comprised a number of tribes hopelessly divided among themselves, and consequently, in spite of their renowned bravery, without power ofresistance. Light columns of troops, drafted at intervals on eitherside of the river, ensured order among the submissive, or despoiled therefractory of their possessions in cattle, slaves, and precious stones. Thūtmosis I. Had to repress, however, very shortly after his accession, a revolt of these borderers at the second and third cataracts, but theywere easily overcome in a campaign of a few days' duration, in which thetwo Āhmosis of Al-Kab took an honourable part. There was, as usual, anencounter of the two fleets in the middle of the river: the young kinghimself attacked the enemy's chief, pierced him with his first arrow, and made a considerable number of prisoners. Thūtmosis had the corpse ofthe chief suspended as a trophy in front of the royal ship, and sailednorthwards towards Thebes, where, however, he was not destined toremain long. * An ample field of action presented itself to him in thenorth-east, affording scope for great exploits, as profitable as theywere glorious. **

 * That this expedition must be placed at the beginning of the king's reign, in his first year, is shown by two facts: (1) It precedes the Syrian campaign in the biography of the two Āhmosis of El-Kab; (2) the Syrian campaign must have ended in the second year of the reign, since Thūtmosis I. , on the stele of Tombos which bears that date, gives particulars of the course of the Euphrates, and records the submission of the countries watered by that river. The date of the invasion may be placed between 2300 and 2250 B. C. ; if we count 661 years for the three dynasties together, as Erman proposes, we find that the accession of Ahmosis would fall between 1640 and 1590. I should place it provisionally in the year 1600, in order not to leave the position of the succeeding reigns uncertain; I estimate the possible error at about half a century. 

 ** It is impossible at present to draw up a correct table of the native or foreign sovereigns who reigned over Egypt during the time of the Hyksōs. I have given the list of the kings of the XIIIth and XIVth dynasties which are known to us from the Turin Papyrus. I here append that of the Pharaohs of the following dynasties, who are mentioned either in the fragments of Manetho or on the monuments:

[Illustration: 153. Jpg Table]

Syria offered to Egyptian cupidity a virgin prey in its large commercialtowns inhabited by an industrious population, who by maritime tradeand caravan traffic had amassed enormous wealth. The country had beenpreviously subdued by the Chaldęans, who still exercised an undisputedinfluence over it, and it was but natural that the conquerors of theHyksōs should act in their turn as invaders. The incursion of Asiaticsinto Egypt thus provoked a reaction which issued in an Egyptian invasionof Asiatic soil. Thūtmosis and his contemporaries had inherited none ofthe instinctive fear of penetrating into Syria which influenced Ahmosisand his successor: the Theban legions were, perhaps, slow to advance, but once they had trodden the roads of Palestine, they were not likelyto forego the delights of conquest. From that time forward there wasperpetual warfare and pillaging expeditions from the plains of the BlueNile to those of the Euphrates, so that scarcely a year passed withoutbringing to the city of Amon its tribute of victories and riches gainedat the point of the sword. One day the news would be brought that theAmorites or the Khāti had taken the field, to be immediately followed bythe announcement that their forces had been shattered against the valourof the Egyptian battalions. Another day, Pharaoh would re-enter the citywith the flower of his generals and veterans; the chiefs whom he hadtaken prisoners, sometimes with his own hand, would be conducted throughthe streets, and then led to die at the foot of the altars, whilefantastic processions of richly clothed captives, beasts led by halters, and slaves bending under the weight of the spoil would stretch in anendless line behind him. 

[Illustration: 154. Jpg SIGNS, ARMS AND INSTRUMENTS]

Meanwhile the Timihū, roused by some unknown cause, would attack theoutposts stationed on the frontier, or news would come that the Peoplesof the Sea had landed on the western side of the Delta; the Pharaoh hadagain to take the field, invariably with the same speedy and successfulissue. The Libyans seemed to fare no better than the Syrians, and beforelong those who had survived the defeat would be paraded before theTheban citizens, previous to being sent to join the Asiatic prisonersin the mines or quarries; their blue eyes and fair hair showing frombeneath strangely shaped helmets, while their white skins, tall stature, and tattooed bodies excited for a few hours the interest and mirth ofthe idle crowd. At another time, one of the customary raids into theland of Kūsh would take place, consisting of a rapid march across thesands of the Ethiopian desert and a cruise along the coasts of Pūanīfc. This would be followed by another triumphal procession, in which freshelements of interest would appear, heralded by flourish of trumpets androll of drums: Pharaoh would re-enter the city borne on the shoulders ofhis officers, followed by negroes heavily chained, or coupled in sucha way that it was impossible for them to move without grotesquecontortions, while the acclamations of the multitude and the chanting ofthe priests would resound from all sides as the _cortege_ passed throughthe city gates on its way to the temple of Amon. Egypt, roused as itwere to warlike frenzy, hurled her armies across all her frontierssimultaneously, and her sudden appearance in the heart of Syria gave anew turn to human history. The isolation of the kingdoms of the ancientworld was at an end; the conflict of the nations was about to begin. 

CHAPTER II--SYRIA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE EGYPTIAN CONQUEST

_SYRIA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE EGYPTIAN CONQUEST_

_NINEVEH AND THE FIRST COSSĘAN KINGS-THE PEOPLES OF SYRIA, THEIR TOWNS, THEIR CIVILIZATION, THEIR RELIGION-PHOENICIA. _

_The dynasty of Uruazagga-The Cossseans: their country, their gods, their conquest of Chaldęa-The first sovereigns of Assyria, and the firstCossęan Icings: Agumhakrimź. _

_The Egyptian names for Syria: Kharā, Zahi, Lotanū, Kefātiu-The militaryhighway from the Nile to the Euphrates: first section from Zalu toGaza-The Canaanites: their fortresses, their agricultural character: theforest between Jaffa and Mount Carmel, Megiddo-The three routes beyondMegiddo: Qodshu-Alasia, Naharaim, Garchemish; Mitanni and the countriesbeyond the Euphrates. _

_Disintegration of the Syrian, Canaanite, Amorite, and Khdtipopulations; obliteration of types-Influence of Babylon oncostumes, customs, and religion--Baalim and Astarte, plant-gods andstone-gods-Religion, human sacrifices, festivals; sacred stones--Tombsand the fate of man after death-Phoenician cosmogony. _

_Phoenicia--Arad, Marathus, Simyra, Botrys--Byblos, its temple, itsgoddess, the myth of Adonis: Aphaka and the valley of the Nahr-Ibrahim, the festivals of the death and resurrection of Adonis--Berytus andits god El; Sidon and its suburbs--Tyre: its foundation, its gods, itsnecropolis, its domain in the Lebanon. _

_Isolation of the Phoenicians with regard to the other nations of Syria;their love of the sea and the causes which developed it--Legendaryaccounts of the beginning of their colonization--Their commercialproceedings, their banks and factories; their ships--Cyprus, its wealth, its occupations--The Phoenician colonies in Asia Minor and the ĘgeanSea: purple dye--The nations of the Ęgean. _

[Illustration: 158. Jpg Page Image]

CHAPTER II--SYRIA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE EGYPTIAN CONQUEST

Nineveh and the first Cossęan kings--The peoples of Syria, their towns, their civilization, their religion--Phoenicia. 

The world beyond the Arabian desert presented to the eyes of theenterprising Pharaohs an active and bustling scene. Babyloniancivilization still maintained its hold there without a rival, butBabylonian rule had ceased to exercise any longer a direct control, having probably disappeared with the sovereigns who had introduced it. When Ammisatana died, about the year 2099, the line of Khammurabi becameextinct, and a family from the Sea-lands came into power. *

 * The origin of this second dynasty and the reading of its name still afford matter for discussion. Amid the many conflicting opinions, it behoves us to remember that Gulkishar, the only prince of this dynasty whose title we possess, calls himself _King of the Country of the Sea_, that is to say, of the marshy country at the mouth of the Euphrates: this simple fact directs us to seek the cradle of the family in those districts of Southern Chaldęa. Sayce rejects this identification on philological and chronological grounds, and sees in Gulkishar, "King of the Sea-lands, " a vassal Kaldā prince. 

This unexpected revolution of affairs did not by any means restoreto the cities of Lower Chaldęa the supreme authority which they oncepossessed. Babylon had made such good use of its centuries of rule thatit had gained upon its rivals, and was not likely now to fall back intoa secondary place. Henceforward, no matter what dynasty came into power, as soon as the fortune of war had placed it upon the throne, Babylonsucceeded in adopting it, and at once made it its own. The new lord ofthe country, Ilumaīlu, having abandoned his patrimonial inheritance, came to reside near to Merodach. *

 * The name has been read An-ma-an or Anman by Pinches, subsequently Ilumaīlu, Mailu, finally Anumaīlu and perhaps Humaīlu. The true reading of it is still unknown. Hommel believed he had discovered in Hilprecht's book an inscription belonging to the reign of this prince; but Hilprecht has shown that it belonged to a king of Erech, An-a-an, anterior to the time of An-ma-an. 

He was followed during the four next centuries by a dynasty of tenprinces, in uninterrupted succession. Their rule was introduced andmaintained without serious opposition. The small principalities of thesouth were theirs by right, and the only town which might have causedthem any trouble--Assur--was dependent on them, being satisfied with thetitle of vicegerents for its princes, --Khallu, Irishum, Ismidagan andhis son Sarnsiramman I. , Igurkapkapu and his son Sarnsiramman II. * Asto the course of events beyond the Khabur, and any efforts Ilumaīlu'sdescendants may have made to establish their authority in the directionof the Mediterranean, we have no inscriptions to inform us, and mustbe content to remain in ignorance. The last two of these princes, Melamkurkurra and Eāgamīl, were not connected with each other, and hadno direct relationship with their predecessors. ** The shortness of theirreigns presents a striking contrast with the length of those precedingthem, and probably indicates a period of war or revolution. When theseprinces disappeared, we know not how or why, about the year 1714 B. C. , they were succeeded by a king of foreign extraction; and one of thesemi-barbarous race of Kashshu ascended the throne which had beenoccupied since the days of Khammurabi by Chaldęans of ancient stock. ***

 * Inscription of Irishum, son of Khallu, on a brick found at Kalah-Shergat, and an inscription of Sarnsiramman II. , son of Igurkapkapu, on another brick from the same place. Sarnsiramman I. And his father Ismidagan are mentioned in the great inscription of Tiglath-pileser II. , as having lived 641 years before King Assurdān, who himself had preceded Tiglath-pileser by sixty years: they thus reigned between 1900 and 1800 years before our era, according to tradition, whose authenticity we have no other means of verifying. 

 ** The name of the last is read Eāgamīl, for want of anything better: Oppert makes it Eāgā, simply transcribing the signs; and Hilprecht, who took up the question again after him, has no reading to propose. 

 *** I give here the list of the kings of the second dynasty, from the documents discovered by Pinches: No monument remains of any of these princes, and even the reading of their names is merely provisional: those placed between brackets represent Delitzsch's readings. A Gulkishar is mentioned in an inscription of Belnadiuabal; but Jensen is doubtful if the Gulkishar mentioned in this place is identical with the one in the lists. 

[Illustration: Table]

These Kashshu, who spring up suddenly out of obscurity, had from theearliest times inhabited the mountainous districts of Zagros, on theconfines of Elymai's and Media, where the Cossęans of the classicalhistorians flourished in the time of Alexander. *

* The Kashshu are identified with the Cossęans by Sayce, by Schrader, by Fr. Delitzsch, by Halévy, by Tiele, by Hommel, and by Jensen. Oppertmaintains that they answer to the Kissians of Herodotus, that is to say, to the inhabitants of the district of which Susa is the capital. Lehmannsupports this opinion. Winckler gives none, and several Assyriologistsincline to that of Kiepert, according to which the Kissians areidentical with the Cossęans. 

It was a rugged and unattractive country, protected by nature and easyto defend, made up as it was of narrow tortuous valleys, of plains ofmoderate extent but of rare fertility, of mountain chains whose grimsides were covered with forests, and whose peaks were snow-crownedduring half the year, and of rivers, or, more correctly speaking, torrents, for the rains and the melting of the snow rendered themimpassable in spring and autumn. The entrance to this region was by twoor three well-fortified passes: if an enemy were unwilling to incur theloss of time and men needed to carry these by main force, he had to makea detour by narrow goat-tracks, along which the assailants were obligedto advance in single file, as best they could, exposed to the assaultsof a foe concealed among the rocks and trees. The tribes who wereentrenched behind this natural rampart made frequent and unexpectedraids upon the marshy meadows and fat pastures of Chaldęa: they dashedthrough the country, pillaging and burning all that came in their way, and then, quickly regaining their hiding-places, were able to placetheir booty in safety before the frontier garrisons had recoveredfrom the first alarm. * These tribes were governed by numerous chiefsacknowledging a single king--_ianzi_--whose will was supreme overnearly the whole country:** some of them had a slight veneer of Chaldęancivilization, while among the rest almost every stage of barbarism mightbe found. The remains of their language show that it was remotely alliedto the dialect of Susa, and contained many Semitic words. *** What isrecorded of their religion reaches us merely at second hand, and thegroundwork of it has doubtless been modified by the Babylonian scribeswho have transmitted it to us. ****

 * It was thus in the time of Alexander and his successors, and the information given by the classical historians about this period is equally applicable to earlier times, as we may conclude from the numerous passages from Assyrian inscriptions which have been collected by Fr. Delitzsch. 

 ** Delitzsch conjectures that _Ianzi_, or _Ianzu_, had become a kind of proper name, analogous to the term _Pharaoh_ employed by the Egyptians. 

 *** A certain number of Cossęan words has been preserved and translated, some in one of the royal Babylonian lists, and some on a tablet in the British Museum, discovered and interpreted by Fr. Delitzsch. Several Assyriologists think that they showed a marked affinity with the idiom of the Susa inscriptions, and with that of the Achęmenian inscriptions of the second type; others deny the proposed connection, or suggest that the Cossęan language was a Semitic dialect, related to the Chaldęo-Assyrian. Oppert, who was the first to point out the existence of this dialect, thirty years ago, believed it to be the Elamite; he still persists in his opinion, and has published several notes in defence of it. 

 **** It has been studied by Pr. Delitzsch, who insists on the influence which daily intercourse with the Chaldęans had on it after the conquest; Halévy, in most of the names of the gods given as Cossęan, sees merely the names of Chaldęan divinities slightly disguised in the writing. 

They worshipped twelve great gods, of whom the chief--Kashshu, the lordof heaven-gave his name to the principal tribe, and possibly to thewhole race:* Shūmalia, queen of the snowy heights, was enthroned besidehim, ** and the divinities next in order were, as in the cities of theEuphrates, the Moon, the Sun (Sakh or Shuriash), the air or thetempest (Ubriash), and Khudkha. *** Then followed the stellar deities orsecondary incarnations of the sun, --Mirizir, who represented both Istarand Beltis; and Khala, answering to Gula. ****

 * The existence of Kashshu is proved by the name of Kashshunadinakhé: Ashshur also bore a name identical with that of his worshippers. 

 ** She is mentioned in a rescript of Nebuchadrezzar I. , at the head of the gods of Namar, that is to say, the Cossęan deities, as "the lady of the shining mountains, the inhabitants of the summits, the frequenter of peaks. " She is called Shimalia in Rawlinson, but Delitzsch has restored her name which was slightly mutilated; one of her statues was taken by Samsirammān III. , King of Assyria, in one of that sovereign's campaigns against Chaldęa. 

 *** All these identifications are furnished by the glossary of Delitzsch. Ubriash, under the form of Buriash, is met with in a large number of proper names, Burnaburiash, Shagashaltiburiash, Ulamburiash, Kadashmanburiash, where the Assyrian scribe translates it _Bel-matāti_, lord of the world: Buriash is, therefore, an epithet of the god who was called Rammān in Chaldęa. The name of the moon-god is mutilated, and only the initial syllable Shi... Remains, followed by an indistinct sign: it has not yet been restored. 

 **** Halévy considers Khala, or Khali, as a harsh form of Gula: if this is the case, the Cossęans must have borrowed the name, and perhaps the goddess herself, from their Chaldęan neighbours. 

The Chaldęan Ninip corresponded both to Gidar and Maruttash, Bel toKharbe and Turgu, Merodach to Shipak, Nergal to Shugab. * The Cossęankings, already enriched by the spoils of their neighbours, and supportedby a warlike youth, eager to enlist under their banner at the firstcall, ** must have been often tempted to quit their barren domains and toswoop down on the rich country which lay at their feet. We are ignorantof the course of events which, towards the close of the XVIIIth centuryB. C. , led to their gaining possession of it. The Cossęan king who seizedon Babylon was named Gandish, and the few inscriptions we possess ofhis reign are cut with a clumsiness that betrays the barbarism of theconqueror. They cover the pivot stones on which Sargon of Agadź or oneof the Bursins had hung the doors of the temple of Nippur, but whichGandish dedicated afresh in order to win for himself, in the eyes ofposterity, the credit of the work of these sovereigns. ***

 * Hilprecht has established the identity of Turgu with Bel of Nippur. 

 ** Strabo relates, from some forgotten historian of Alexander, that the Cossęans "had formerly been able to place as many as thirteen thousand archers in line, in the wars which they waged with the help of the Elymęans against the inhabitants of Susa and Babylon. "

 *** The full name of this king, Gandish or Gandash, which is furnished by the royal lists, is written Gaddash on a monument in the British Museum discovered by Pinches, whose conclusions have been erroneously denied by Winckler. A process of abbreviation, of which there are examples in the names of other kings of the same dynasty, reduced the name to Gandź in the current language. 

Bel found favour in the eyes of the Cossęans who saw in him Kharbź orTurgu, the recognised patron of their royal family: for this reasonGandish and his successors regarded Bel with peculiar devotion. Thesekings did all they could for the decoration and endowment of the ancienttemple of Ekur, which had been somewhat neglected by the sovereignsof purely Babylonian extraction, and this devotion to one of the mostvenerated Chaldęan sanctuaries contributed largely towards their winningthe hearts of the conquered people. *

 * Hilpreoht calls attention on this point to the fact that no one has yet discovered at Nippur a single ex-voto consecrated by any king of the two first Babylonian dynasties. 

The Cossęan rule over the countries of the Euphrates was doubtlesssimilar in its beginnings to that which the Hyksōs exercised at firstover the nomes of Egypt. The Cossęan kings did not merely bring withthem an army to protect their persons, or to occupy a small number ofimportant posts; they were followed by the whole nation, andspread themselves over the entire country. The bulk of the invadersinstinctively betook themselves to districts where, if they could notresume the kind of life to which they were accustomed in their own land, they could, at least give full rein to their love of a free and wildexistence. As there were no mountains in the country, they turned to themarshes, and, like the Hyksōs in Egypt, made themselves at home aboutthe mouths of the rivers, on the half-submerged low lands, and on thesandy islets of the lagoons which formed an undefined borderland betweenthe alluvial region and the Persian Gulf. The covert afforded, by thethickets furnished scope for the chase which these hunters had beenaccustomed to pursue in the depths of their native forests, whilefishing, on the other hand, supplied them with an additional element offood. When their depredations drew down upon them reprisals from theirneighbours, the mounds occupied, by their fortresses, and surroundedby muddy swamps, offered them almost as secure retreats as their formerstrongholds on the lofty sides of the Zagros. They made alliances withthe native Aramęans--with those Kashdi, properly called Chaldęans, whosename we have imposed upon all the nations who, from a very earlydate, bore rule on the banks of the Lower Euphrates. Here they formedthemselves into a State--Karduniash--whose princes at times rebelled, against all external authority, and at other times acknowledged thesovereignty of the Babylonian monarchs. *

 * The state of Karduniash, whose name appears for the first time on the monuments of the Cossęan period, has been localised in a somewhat vague manner, in the south of Babylonia, in the country of the Kashdi, and afterwards formally identified with the _Countries of the Sea_, and with the principality which was called Bīt-Yākin in the Assyrian period. In the Tel-el-Amarna tablets the name is already applied to the entire country occupied by the Cossęan kings or their descendants, that is to say, to the whole of Babylonia. Sargon II. At that time distinguishes between an Upper and a Lower Karduniash; and in consequence the earliest Assyriologists considered it as an Assyrian designation of Babylon, or of the district surrounding it, an opinion which was opposed by Delitzsch, as he believed it to be an indigenous term which at first indicated the district round Babylon, and afterwards the whole of Babylonia. From one frequent spelling of the name, the meaning appears to have been _Fortress of Duniash_; to this Delitzsch preferred the translation _Garden of Duniash_, from an erroneous different reading--Ganduniash: Duniash, at first derived from a Chaldęan God _Dun_, whose name may exist in _Dunghi_, is a Cossęan name, which the Assyrians translated, as they did Buriash, _Belmatāti_, lord of the country. Winckler rejects the ancient etymology, and proposes to divide the word as Kardu-niash and to see in it a Cossęan translation of the expression _māt-kaldi_, country of the Caldęans: Hommel on his side, as well as Delitzsch, had thought of seeking in the Chaldęans proper--_Kaldi_ for _Kashdi_, or _Kash-da_, "domain of the Cossęans "--the descendants of the Cossęans of Karduniash, at least as far as race is concerned. In the cuneiform texts the name is written Kara--D. P. Duniyas, "the Wall of the god Duniyas" (cf. The Median Wall or Wall of Semiramis which defended Babylonia on the north). 

The people of Sumir and Akkad, already a composite of many differentraces, absorbed thus another foreign element, which, while modifyingits homogeneity, did not destroy its natural character. Those Cossęantribes who had not quitted their own country retained their originalbarbarism, but the hope of plunder constantly drew them from theirhaunts, and they attacked and devastated the cities of the plainunhindered by the thought that they were now inhabited by theirfellow-countrymen. The raid once over, many of them did not return home, but took service under some distant foreign ruler--the Syrian princesattracting many, who subsequently became the backbone of their armies, *while others remained at Babylon and enrolled themselves in thebody-guard of the kings. 

 * Halévy has at least proved that the Khabiri mentioned in. The Tel el-Amarna tablets were Cossęans, contrary to the opinion of Sayce, who makes them tribes grouped round Hebron, which W. Max Müller seems to accept; Winckler, returning to an old opinion, believes them to have been Hebrews. 

To the last they were an undisciplined militia, dangerous, and difficultto please: one day they would hail their chiefs with acclamations, tokill them the next in one of those sudden outbreaks in which they wereaccustomed to make and unmake their kings. * The first invaders werenot long in acquiring, by means of daily intercourse with the oldinhabitants, the new civilization: sooner or later they became blendedwith the natives, losing all their own peculiarities, with the exceptionof their outlandish names, a few heroic legends, ** and the worship oftwo or three gods--Shūmalia, Shugab, and Shukamuna. 

 * This is the opinion of Hommel, supported by the testimony of the _Synchronous Hist. _: in this latter document the Cossęans are found revolting against King Kadashmankharbé, and replacing him on the throne by a certain Nazibugash, who was of obscure origin. 

 ** Pr. Delitzsch and Schrader compare their name with that of Kush, who appears in the Bible as the father of Nimrod (_Gen. _ x. 8-12); Hommel and Sayce think that the history of Nimrod is a reminiscence of the Cossęan rule. Jensen is alone in his attempt to attribute to the Cossęans the first idea of the epic of Gilgames. 

As in the case of the Hyksōs in Africa, the barbarian conquerors thusbecame merged in the more civilized people which they had subdued. Thiswork of assimilation seems at first to have occupied the whole attentionof both races, for the immediate successors of Gandish were unableto retain under their rule all the provinces of which the empire wasformerly composed. They continued to possess the territory situated onthe middle course of the Euphrates as far as the mouth of the Balikh, but they lost the region extending to the east of the Khabur, atthe foot of the Masios, and in the upper basin of the Tigris: thevicegerents of Assur also withdrew from them, and, declaring that theyowed no obedience excepting to the god of their city, assumed the royaldignity. The first four of these kings whose names have come down tous, Sulili, Belkapkapu, Adasi, and Belbāni, * appear to have been butindifferent rulers, but they knew bow to hold their own against theattacks of their neighbours, and when, after a century of weakness andinactivity, Babylon reasserted herself, and endeavoured to recover herlost territory, they had so completely established their independencethat every attack on it was unsuccessful. The Cossęan king at thattime--an active and enterprising prince, whose name was held in honourup to the days of the Ninevite supremacy--was Agumkakrimź, the son ofTassigurumash. **

 * These four names do not so much represent four consecutive reigns as two separate traditions which were current respecting the beginnings of Assyrian royalty. The most ancient of them gives the chief place to two personages named Belkapkapu and Sulili; this tradition has been transmitted to us by Rammānnirāri III. , because it connected the origin of his race with these kings. The second tradition placed a certain Belbāni, the son of Adasi, in the room of Belkapkapu and Sulili: Esarhaddon made use of it in order to ascribe to his own family an antiquity at least equal to that of the family to which Rammānnirāri III. Belonged. Each king appropriated from the ancient popular traditions those names which seemed to him best calculated to enhance the prestige of his dynasty, but we cannot tell how far the personages selected enjoyed an authentic historical existence: it is best to admit them at least provisionally into the royal series, without trusting too much to what is related of them. 

 ** The tablet discovered by Pinches is broken after the fifth king of the dynasty. The inscription of Agumkakrimź, containing a genealogy of this prince which goes back as far as the fifth generation, has led to the restoration of the earlier part of the list as follows:

 Gandish, Gaddash, Adumitasii .... 1655-? B. C. Gandź ........................... 1714-1707 B. C. Tassigurumash.................... ? Agumrabi, his son................ 1707-1685 Agumkakrimź ..................... ? [A]guyashi ...................... 1685-1663 Ushshi, his son.................. 1663-1655

This "brilliant scion of Shukamuna" entitled himself lord of the Kashshuand of Akkad, of Babylon the widespread, of Padan, of Alman, and of theswarthy Guti. * Ashnunak had been devastated; he repeopled it, and thefour "houses of the world" rendered him obedience; on the other hand, Elam revolted from its allegiance, Assur resisted him, and if he stillexercised some semblance of authority over Northern Syria, it was owingto a traditional respect which the towns of that country voluntarilyrendered to him, but which did not involve either subjection or control. The people of Khāni still retained possession of the statues of Merodachand of his consort Zarpanit, which had been stolen, we know not how, some time previously from Chaldęa. ** Agumkakrimź recovered them andreplaced them in their proper temple. This was an important event, andearned him the good will of the priests. 

 * The translation _black-headed_, i. E. Dark-haired and complexioned, _Guti_, is uncertain; Jensen interprets the epithet _nishi saldati_ to mean "the Guti, stupid (foolish? culpable?) people. " The Guti held both banks of the lower Zab, in the mountains on the east of Assyria. Delitzsch has placed Padan and Alman in the mountains to the east of the Diyāleh; Jensen places them in the chain of the Khamrīn, and Winckler compares Alman or Halman with the Holwān of the present day. 

 ** The Khāni have been placed by Delitzsch in the neighbourhood of Mount Khāna, mentioned in the accounts of the Assyrian campaigns, that is to say, in the Amanos, between the Euphrates and the bay of Alexandretta: he is inclined to regard the name as a form of that of the Khāti. 

The king reorganised public worship; he caused new fittings for thetemples to be made to take the place of those which had disappeared, andthe inscription which records this work enumerates with satisfaction thelarge quantities of crystal, jasper, and lapis-lazuli which he lavishedon the sanctuary, the utensils of silver and gold which he dedicated, together with the "seas" of wrought bronze decorated with monsters andreligious emblems. * This restoration of the statues, so flattering tothe national pride and piety, would have been exacted and insisted uponby a Khammurabi at the point of the sword, but Agumkakrimź doubtlessfelt that he was not strong enough to run the risk of war; he thereforesent an embassy to the Khāni, and such was the prestige which the nameof Babylon still possessed, from the deserts of the Caspian to theshores of the Mediterranean, that he was able to obtain a concessionfrom that people which he would probably have been powerless to extortby force of arms. **

 * We do not possess the original of the inscription which tells us of these facts, but merely an early copy. 

 ** Strictly speaking, one might suppose that a war took place; but most Assyriologists declare unhesitatingly that there was merely an embassy and a diplomatic negotiation. 

The Egyptians had, therefore, no need to anticipate Chaldęaninterference when, forsaking their ancient traditions, they penetratedfor the first time into the heart of Syria. Not only was Babylon nolonger supreme there, but the coalition of those cities on which she haddepended for help in subduing the West was partially dissolved, and theforeign princes who had succeeded to her patrimony were so far consciousof their weakness, that they voluntarily kept aloof from the countriesin which, previous to their advent, Babylon had held undivided sway. TheEgyptian conquest of Syria had already begun in the days of Agumkakrimź, and it is possible that dread of the Pharaoh was one of the chief causeswhich influenced the Cossęans to return a favourable answer to theKhāni. Thūtmosis I. , on entering Syria, encountered therefore only thenative levies, and it must be admitted that, in spite of their renownedcourage, they were not likely to prove formidable adversaries inEgyptian estimation. Not one of the local Syrian dynasties wassufficiently powerful to collect all the forces of the country aroundits chief, so as to oppose a compact body of troops to the attack ofthe African armies. The whole country consisted of a collection ofpetty states, a complex group of peoples and territories which even theEgyptians themselves never completely succeeded in disentangling. Theyclassed the inhabitants, however, under three or four very comprehensivenames--Kharū, Zahi, Lotanū, and Kefātiū--all of which frequently recurin the inscriptions, but without having always that exactness of meaningwe look for in geographical terms. As was often the case in similarcircumstances, these names were used at first to denote the districtsclose to the Egyptian frontier with which the inhabitants of the Deltahad constant intercourse. The Kefātiū seem to have been at the outsetthe people of the sea-coast, more especially of the region occupiedlater by the Phoenicians, but all the tribes with whom the Phoenicianscame in contact on the Asiatic and European border were before longincluded under the same name. *

 * The Kefātiū, whose name was first read Kefa, and later Kefto, were originally identified with the inhabitants of Cyprus or Crete, and subsequently with those of Cilicia, although the decree of Canopus locates them in Phoenicia. 

Zahi originally comprised that portion of the desert and of the maritimeplain on the north-east of Egypt which was coasted by the fleets, ortraversed by the armies of Egypt, as they passed to and fro betweenSyria and the banks of the Nile. This region had been ravaged by Ahmosisduring his raid upon Sharuhana, the year after the fall of Avaris. Tothe south-east of Zahi lay Kharū; it included the greater part of MountSeir, whose wadys, thinly dotted over with oases, were inhabited bytribes of more or less stationary habits. The approaches to it wereprotected by a few towns, or rather fortified villages, built in theneighbourhood of springs, and surrounded by cultivated fields andpoverty-stricken gardens; but the bulk of the people lived in tentsor in caves on the mountain-sides. The Egyptians constantly confoundedthose Khauri, whom the Hebrews in after-times found scattered amongthe children of Edom, with the other tribes of Bedouin marauders, anddesignated them vaguely as Shaūsū. Lotanū lay beyond, to the north ofKharū and to the north-east of Zahi, among the hills which separate the"Shephelah" from the Jordan. *

 * The name of Lotanū or Rotanū has been assigned by Brugsch to the Assyrians, but subsequently, by connecting it, more ingeniously than plausibly, with the Assyrian _iltānu_, he extended it to all the peoples of the north; we now know that in the texts it denotes the whole of Syria, and, more generally, all the peoples dwelling in the basins of the Orontes and the Euphrates. The attempt to connect the name Rotanū or Lotanū with that of the Edomite tribe of Lotan (Gen. Xxxvi. 20, 22) was first made by P. De Saulcy; it was afterwards taken up by Haigh and adopted by Renan. 

As it was more remote from the isthmus, and formed the Egyptian horizonin that direction, all the new countries with which the Egyptians becameacquainted beyond its northern limits were by degrees included under theone name of Lotanū, and this term was extended to comprise successivelythe entire valley of the Jordan, then that of the Orontes, and finallyeven that of the Euphrates. Lotanū became thenceforth a vague andfluctuating term, which the Egyptians applied indiscriminately to widelydiffering Asiatic nations, and to which they added another indefiniteepithet when they desired to use it in a more limited sense: that partof Syria nearest to Egypt being in this case qualified as Upper Lotanū, while the towns and kingdoms further north were described as being inLower Lotanū. In the same way the terms Zahi and Kharū were extended tocover other and more northerly regions. Zahi was applied to the coast asfar as the mouth of the Nahr el-Kebir and to the country of the Lebanonwhich lay between the Mediterranean and the middle course of theOrontes. Kharū ran parallel to Zahi, but comprised the mountaindistrict, and came to include most of the countries which were at firstranged under Upper Lotanū; it was never applied to the region beyond theneighbourhood of Mount Tabor, nor to the trans-Jordanie provinces. Thethree names in their wider sense preserved the same relation to eachother as before, Zahi lying to the west and north-west of Kharū, andLower Lotanū to the north of Kharū and north-east of Zahi, but theextension of meaning did not abolish the old conception of theirposition, and hence arose confusion in the minds of those who employedthem; the scribes, for instance, who registered in some far-off Thebantemple the victories of the Pharaoh would sometimes write Zahi wherethey should have inscribed Kharū, and it is a difficult matter for usalways to detect their mistakes. It would be unjust to blame them tooseverely for their inaccuracies, for what means had they of determiningthe relative positions of that confusing collection of states with whichthe Egyptians came in contact as soon as they had set foot on Syriansoil?

A choice of several routes into Asia, possessing unequal advantages, wasopen to the traveller, but the most direct of them passed through thetown of Zalū. The old entrenchments running from the Ked Sea to themarshes of the Pelusiac branch still protected the isthmus, and beyondthese, forming an additional defence, was a canal on the banks of whicha fortress was constructed. This was occupied by the troops who guardedthe frontier, and no traveller was allowed to pass without havingdeclared his name and rank, signified the business which took him intoSyria or Egypt, and shown the letters with which he was entrusted. *

 * The notes of an official living at Zalu in the time of Mīneptah are preserved on the back of pls. V. , vi. Of the _Anastasi Papyrus III_, ; his business was to keep a register of the movements of the comers and goers between Egypt and Syria during a few days of the month Pakhons, in the year III. 

It was from Zalū that the Pharaohs set out with their troops, whensummoned to Kharū by a hostile confederacy; it was to Zalū they returnedtriumphant after the campaign, and there, at the gates of the town, they were welcomed by the magnates of the kingdom. The road ran for somedistance over a region which was covered by the inundation of the Nileduring six months of the year; it then turned eastward, and for somedistance skirted the sea-shore, passing between the Mediterraneanand the swamp which writers of the Greek period called the Lake ofSirbonis. *

 * The Sirbonian Lake is sometimes half full of water, sometimes almost entirely dry; at the present time it bears the name of Sebkhat Berdawil, from King Baldwin I. Of Jerusalem, who on his return from his Egyptian campaign died on its shores, in 1148, before he could reach El-Artsh. 

[Illustration: 177. Jpg THE FORTRESS AND BRIDGE OF ZALU]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger. 

This stage of the journey was beset with difficulties, for the SirbonianLake did not always present the same aspect, and its margins wereconstantly shifting. When the canals which connected it with the opensea happened to become obstructed, the sheet of water subsided fromevaporation, leaving in many places merely an expanse of shiftingmud, often concealed under the sand which the wind brought up from thedesert. Travellers ran imminent risk of sinking in this quagmire, and the Greek historians tell of large armies being almost entirelyswallowed up in it. About halfway along the length of the lake rose thesolitary hill of Mount Casios; beyond this the sea-coast widened tillit became a vast slightly undulating plain, covered with scanty herbage, and dotted over with wells containing an abundant supply of water, which, however, was brackish and disagreeable to drink. 

[Illustration: 178. Jpg Map]

Beyond these lay a grove of palms, a brick prison, and a cluster ofmiserable houses, bounded by a broad wady, usually dry. The bed of thetorrent often served as the boundary between Africa and Asia, andthe town was for many years merely a convict prison, where ordinarycriminals, condemned to mutilation and exile, were confined; indeed, theGreeks assure us that it owed its name of Rhinocolūra to the number ofnoseless convicts who were to be seen there. *

 * The ruins of the ancient town, which were of considerable extent, are half buried under the sand, out of which an Egyptian naos of the Ptolemaic period has been dug, and placed near the well which supplies the fort, where it serves as a drinking trough for the horses. Brugsch believed he could identify its site with that of the Syrian town Hurnikheri, which he erroneously reads Harinkola; the ancient form of the name is unknown, the Greek form varies between Rhinocorūra and Rhinocolūra. The story of the mutilated convicts is to be found in Diodorus Siculus, as well as in Strabo; it rests on a historical fact. Under the XVIIIth dynasty Zalū was used as a place of confinement for dishonest officials. For this purpose it was probably replaced by Rhinocolūra, when the Egyptian frontier was removed from the neighbourhood of Selle to that of El-Arīsh. 

At this point the coast turns in a north-easterly direction, and isflanked with high sand-hills, behind which the caravans pursue theirway, obtaining merely occasional glimpses of the sea. Here and there, under the shelter of a tower or a half-ruined fortress, the travellerwould have found wells of indifferent water, till on reaching theconfines of Syria he arrived at the fortified village of Raphia, standing like a sentinel to guard the approach to Egypt. Beyond Raphiavegetation becomes more abundant, groups of sycamores and mimosas andclusters of date-palms appear on the horizon, villages surrounded withfields and orchards are seen on all sides, while the bed of a river, blocked with gravel and fallen rocks, winds its way between the lastfringes of the desert and the fruitful Shephelah;* on the further bankof the river lay the suburbs of Gaza, and, but a few hundred yardsbeyond, Gaza itself came into view among the trees standing on itswall-crowned hill. **

 * The term Shephelah signifies the plain; it is applied by the Biblical writers to the plain bordering the coast, from the heights of Gaza to those of Joppa, which were inhabited at a later period by the Philistines (_Josh_. Xi. 16; _Jer_. Xxxii. 44 and xxxiii. 13). 

 ** Guérin describes at length the road from Gaza to Raphia. The only town of importance between them in the Greek period was Iźnysos, the ruins of which are to be found near Khan Yunes, but the Egyptian name for this locality is unknown: Aunaugasa, the name of which Brugsch thought he could identify with it, should be placed much farther away, in Northern or in Coele-Syria. 

The Egyptians, on their march from the Nile valley, were wont to stopat this spot to recover from their fatigues; it was their firsthalting-place beyond the frontier, and the news which would reach themhere prepared them in some measure for what awaited them further on. The army itself, the "troop of Rā, " was drawn from four great races, themost distinguished of which came, of course, from the banks of the Nile:the Amū, born of Sokhīt, the lioness-headed goddess, were classed inthe second rank; the Nahsi, or negroes of Ethiopia, were placed in thethird; while the Timihū, or Libyans, with the white tribes of thenorth, brought up the rear. The Syrians belonged to the second of thesefamilies, that next in order to the Egyptians, and the name of Amu, which for centuries had been given them, met so satisfactorily allpolitical, literary, or commercial requirements, that the administratorsof the Pharaohs never troubled themselves to discover the variouselements concealed beneath the term. We are, however, able at thepresent time to distinguish among them several groups of peoples andlanguages, all belonging to the same family, but possessing distinctivecharacteristics. The kinsfolk of the Hebrews, the children of Ishmaeland Edom, the Moabites and Ammonites, who were all qualified as Shaūsū, had spread over the region to the south and east of the Dead Sea, partlyin the desert, and partly on the confines of the cultivated land. TheCanaanites were not only in possession of the coast from Gaza to a pointbeyond the Nahr el-Kebir, but they also occupied almost the whole valleyof the Jordan, besides that of the Litāny, and perhaps that of the UpperOrontes. * There were Aramaean settlements at Damascus, in the plains ofthe Lower Orontes, and in Naharaim. **

 * I use the term Canaanite with the meaning most frequently attached to it, according to the Hebrew use (_Gen_. X. 15- 19). This word is found several times in the Egyptian texts under the forms Kinakhna, Kinakhkhi, and probably Kūnakhaīū, in the cuneiform texts of Tel el-Amarna. 

 ** As far as I know, the term Aramęan is not to be found in any Egyptian text of the time of the Pharaohs: the only known example of it is a writer's error corrected by Chabas. W. Max Müller very justly observes that the mistake is itself a proof of the existence of the name and of the acquaintance of the Egyptians with it. 

The country beyond the Aramaean territory, including the slopes of theAmanos and the deep valleys of the Taurus, was inhabited by peoples ofvarious origin; the most powerful of these, the Khāti, were at this timeslowly forsaking the mountain region, and spreading by degrees over thecountry between the Afrīn and the Euphrates. *

The Canaanites were the most numerous of all these groups, and hadthey been able to amalgamate under a single king, or even to organizea lasting confederacy, it would have been impossible for the Egyptianarmies to have broken through the barrier thus raised between them andthe rest of Asia; but, unfortunately, so far from showing the slightesttendency towards unity or concentration, the Canaanites were morehopelessly divided than any of the surrounding nations. Their mountainscontained nearly as many states as there were valleys, while in theplains each town represented a separate government, and was built on aspot carefully selected for purposes of defence. The land, indeed, waschequered with these petty states, and so closely were they crowdedtogether, that a horseman, travelling at leisure, could easily passthrough two or three of them in a day's journey. **

 * Thūtmosis III. Shows that, at any rate, they were established in these regions about the XVIth century B. C. The Egyptian pronunciation of their name is _Khīti_, with the feminine _Khītaīt, Khītit_; but the Tel el-Amarna texts employ the vocalisation _Khāti, Khāte_, which must be more correct than that of the Egyptians, The form _Khīti_ seems to me to be explicable by an error of popular etymology. Egyptian ethnical appellations in _īti_ formed their plural by _-ātiū, -āteź, -āti, -āte_, so that if _Khāte, Khāti_, were taken for a plural, it would naturally have suggested to the scribes the form _Khīti_ for the singular. 

 ** Thūtmosis III. , speaking to his soldiers, tells them that all the chiefs the projecting spur of some mountain, or on a solitary and more or less irregularly shaped eminence in the midst of a plain, and the means of defence in the country are shut up in Megiddo, so that "to take it is to take a thousand cities:" this is evidently a hyperbole in the mouth of the conqueror, but the exaggeration itself shows how numerous were the chiefs and consequently the small states in Central and Southern Syria. 

Not only were the royal cities fenced with walls, but many of thesurrounding villages were fortified, while the watch-towers, or_migdols_* built at the bends of the roads, at the fords over therivers, and at the openings of the ravines, all testified to theinsecurity of the times and the aptitude for self-defence shown by theinhabitants. 

 * This Canaanite word was borrowed by the Egyptians from the Syrians at the beginning of their Asiatic wars; they employed it in forming the names of the military posts which they established on the eastern frontier of the Delta: it appears for the first time among Syrian places in the list of cities conquered by Thūtmosis III. 

[Illustration: 184. Jpg THE CANAANITE FORTRESSES]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato. 

The aspect of these migdols, or forts, must have appeared strange to thefirst Egyptians who beheld them. These strongholds bore no resemblanceto the large square or oblong enclosures to which they were accustomed, and which in their eyes represented the highest skill of the engineer. In Syria, however, the positions suitable for the construction offortresses hardly ever lent themselves to a symmetrical plan. Theusual sites had to be adapted in each case to suit the particularconfiguration of the ground. 

[Illustration: 185. Jpg THE WALLED CITY OF DAPŪR, IN GALILEE]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken at Karnak by Beato. 

It was usually a mere wall of stone or dried brick, with towers atintervals; the wall measuring from nine to twelve feet thick at thebase, and from thirty to thirty-six feet high, thus rendering an assaultby means of portable ladders, nearly impracticable. *

 * This is, at least, the result of investigations made by modern engineers who have studied these questions of military archęology. 

The gateway had the appearance of a fortress in itself. It wascomposed of three large blocks of masonry, forming a re-entering face, considerably higher than the adjacent curtains, and pierced near the topwith square openings furnished with mantlets, so as to give both a frontand flank view of the assailants. The wooden doors in the receded facewere covered with metal and raw hides, thus affording a protectionagainst axe or fire. *

 * Most of the Canaanite towns, taken by Ramses II. In the campaign of his VIIIth year were fortified in this manner. It must have been the usual method of fortification, as it seems to have served as a type for conventional representation, and was sometimes used to denote cities which had fortifications of another kind. For instance, Dapūr-Tabor is represented in this way, while a picture on another monument, which is reproduced in the illustration on page 185, represents what seems to have been the particular form of its encompassing walls. 

The building was strong enough not only to defy the bands of adventurerswho roamed the country, but was able to resist for an indefinite timethe operations of a regular siege. Sometimes, however, the inhabitantswhen constructing their defences did not confine themselves to thisrudimentary plan, but threw up earthworks round the selected site. Onthe most exposed side they raised an advance wall, not exceeding twelveor fifteen feet in height, at the left extremity of which the entrancewas so placed that the assailants, in endeavouring to force their waythrough, were obliged to expose an unprotected flank to the defenders. By this arrangement it was necessary to break through two lines offortification before the place could be entered. Supposing the enemy tohave overcome these first obstacles, they would find themselves attheir next point of attack confronted with a citadel which contained, in addition to the sanctuary of the principal god, the palace of thesovereign himself. This also had a double enclosing wall and massivelybuilt gates, which could be forced only at the expense of fresh losses, unless the cowardice or treason of the garrison made the assault an easyone. *

 * The type of town described in the text is based on a representation on the walls of Karnak, where the siege of Dapūr-Tabor by Ramses II. Is depicted. Another type is given in the case of Ascalon. 

[Illustration: 187. Jpg THE MIGDOL OF RAMSES III. AT THEBES, IN THETEMPLE OF MEDINET-ABUL]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken by Dévéria in 1865. 

Of these bulwarks of Canaanite civilization, which had been thrown up byhundreds on the route of the invading hosts, not a trace is to be seento-day. They may have been razed to the ground during one of thosedestructive revolutions to which the country was often exposed, ortheir remains may lie hidden underneath the heaps of ruins which thirtycenturies of change have raised over them. *

 * The only remains of a Canaanite fortification which can be assigned to the Egyptian period are those which Professor F. I. Petrie brought to light in the ruins of Tell el-Hesy, and in which he rightly recognised the remains of Lachish. 

The records of victories graven on the walls of the Theban templesfurnish, it is true, a general conception of their appearance, but thenotions of them which we should obtain from this source would be ofa very confused character had not one of the last of the conqueringPharaohs, Ramses III. , taken it into his head to have one built atThebes itself, to contain within it, in addition to his funerary chapel, accommodation for the attendants assigned to the conduct of his worship. In the Greek and Roman period a portion of this fortress was demolished, but the external wall of defence still exists on the eastern side, together with the gate, which is commanded on the right by a projectionof the enclosing-wall, and flanked by two guard-houses, rectangular inshape, and having roofs which jut out about a yard beyond the wall ofsupport. Having passed through these obstacles, we find ourselves faceto face with a _migdol_ of cut stone, nearly square in form, with twoprojecting wings, the court between their loop-holed walls being made tocontract gradually from the point of approach by a series of abutments. A careful examination of the place, indeed, reveals more than onearrangement which the limited knowledge of the Egyptians would hardlypermit us to expect. We discover, for instance, that the main body ofthe building is made to rest upon a sloping sub-structure which rises toa height of some sixteen feet. 

This served two purposes: it increased, in the first place, the strengthof the defence against sapping; and in the second, it caused theweapons launched by the enemy to rebound with violence from its inclinedsurface, thus serving to keep the assailants at a distance. The wholestructure has an imposing look, and it must be admitted that the royalarchitects charged with carrying out their sovereign's idea brought totheir task an attention to detail for which the people from whom theplan was borrowed had no capacity, and at the same time preserved thearrangements of their model so faithfully that we can readily realisewhat it must have been. Transport this migdol of Ramses III. Into Asia, plant it upon one of those hills which the Canaanites were accustomed toselect as a site for their fortifications, spread out at its base somescore of low and miserable hovels, and we have before us an improvisedpattern of a village which recalls in a striking manner Zerīn or Beītīn, or any other small modern town which gathers the dwellings of itsfellahin round some central stone building--whether it be a hostelry forbenighted travellers, or an ancient castle of the Crusading age. 

[Illustration: 189. Jpg THE MODERN VILLAGE OF BEĪTĪN (ANCIENT BETHEL), SEEN FROM THE SOUTH-WEST. ]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph. 

There were on the littoral, to the north of Gaza, two large walledtowns, Ascalon and Joppa, in whose roadsteads merchant vessels wereaccustomed to take hasty refuge in tempestuous weather. * There were tobe found on the plains also, and on the lower slopes of the mountains, a number of similar fortresses and villages, such as Iurza, Migdol, Lachish, Ajalon, Shocho, Adora, Aphukīn, Keilah, Gezer, and Ono; and, in the neighbourhood of the roads which led to the fords of the Jordan, Gibeah, Beth-Anoth, and finally Urusalim, our Jerusalem. ** A tolerablydense population of active and industrious husbandmen maintainedthemselves upon the soil. 

 * Ascalon was not actually on the sea. Its port, "Maiumas Ascalonis, " was probably merely a narrow bay or creek, now, for a long period, filled up by the sand. Neither the site nor the remains of the port have been discovered. The name of the town is always spelled in Egyptian with an "s "-- Askaluna, which gives us the pronunciation of the time. The name of Joppa is written Yapu, Yaphu, and the gardens which then surrounded the town are mentioned in the _Anastasi Papyrus I_. 

 ** Urusalim is mentioned only in the Tel el-Amarna tablets, alongside of Kilti or Keilah, Ajalon, and Lachish. The remaining towns are noticed in the great lists of Thūtmosis III. 

[Illustration: 191. Jpg Page image]

The plough which they employed was like that used by the Egyptians andBabylonians, being nothing but a large hoe to which a couple of oxenwere harnessed. * The scarcity of rain, except in certain seasons, and the tendency of the rivers to run low, contributed to make thecultivators of the soil experts in irrigation and agriculture. Almostthe only remains of these people which have come down ti us consist ofindestructible wells and cisterns, or wine and oil presses hollowed outof the rock. **

 * This is the form of plough still employed by the Syrians in some places. 

 ** Monuments of this kind are encountered at every step in Judaea, but it is very difficult to date them. The aqueduct of Siloam, which goes back perhaps to the time of Hezekiah. 

Fields of wheat and barley extended along the flats of the valleys, broken in upon here and there by orchards, in which the white and pinkalmond, the apple, the fig, the pomegranate, and the olive flourishedside by side. 

[Illustration: 192. Jpg AMPHITHEATRE OF HILLS]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a plate in Chesney. 

Jerusalem, possibly in part to be attributed to the reign of Solomon, are the only instances to which anything like a certain date may beassigned. But these are long posterior to the XVIIIth dynasty. Goodjudges, however, attribute some of these monuments to a very distantperiod: the masonry of the wells of Beersheba is very ancient, if not asit is at present, at least as it was when it was repaired in the time ofthe Cęsars; the olive and wine presses hewn in the rock do not all dateback to the Roman empire, but many belong to a still earlier period, andmodern descriptions correspond with what we know of such presses fromthe Bible. 

If the slopes of the valley rose too precipitously for cultivation, stone dykes were employed to collect the falling earth, and thus totransform the sides of the hills into a series of terraces rising oneabove the other. Here the vines, planted in lines or in trellises, blended their clusters with the fruits of the orchard-trees. It was, indeed, a land of milk and honey, and its topographical nomenclature inthe Egyptian geographical lists reflects as in a mirror the agriculturalpursuits of its ancient inhabitants: one village, for instance, iscalled Aubila, "the meadow;" while others bear such names as Ganutu, "the gardens;" Magraphut, "the mounds;" and Karman, "the vineyard. " Thefurther we proceed towards the north, we find, with a diminishingaridity, the hillsides covered with richer crops, and the valleys deckedout with a more luxuriant and warmly coloured vegetation. Shechem liesin an actual amphitheatre of verdure, which is irrigated by countlessunfailing streams; rushing brooks babble on every side, and the vapourgiven off by them morning and evening covers the entire landscape witha luminous haze, where the outline of each object becomes blurred, andquivers in a manner to which we are accustomed in our Western lands. *Towns grew and multiplied upon this rich and loamy soil, but as theselay outside the usual track of the invading hosts--which preferred tofollow the more rugged but shorter route leading straight to Carmelacross the plain--the records of the conquerors only casually mention afew of them, such as Bītshaīlu, Birkana, and Dutīna. **

 * Shechem is not mentioned in the Egyptian geographical lists, but Max Müller thinks he has discovered it in the name of the mountain of Sikima which figures in the _Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 1. 

 ** Bītshaīlu, identified by Chabas with Bethshan, and with Shiloh by Mariette and Maspero, is more probably Bethel, written Bīt-sha-īlu, either with _sh_, the old relative pronoun of the Phoenician, or with the Assyrian _sha_; on the latter supposition one must suppose, as Sayce does, that the compiler of the Egyptian lists had before him sources of information in the cuneiform character. Birkana appears to be the modern Brukin, and Dutīna is certainly Dothain, now Tell-Dothān. 

Beyond Ono reddish-coloured sandy clay took the place of the dark andcompact loam: oaks began to appear, sparsely at first, but afterwardsforming vast forests, which the peasants of our own days have thinnedand reduced to a considerable extent. The stunted trunks of these treesare knotted and twisted, and the tallest of them do not exceed somethirty feet in height, while many of them may be regarded as nothingmore imposing than large bushes. * Muddy rivers, infested withcrocodiles, flowed slowly through the shady woods, spreading out theirwaters here and there in pestilential swamps. On reaching the seaboard, their exit was impeded by the sands which they brought down with them, and the banks which were thus formed caused the waters to accumulatein lagoons extending behind the dunes. For miles the road led throughthickets, interrupted here and there by marshy places and clumps ofthorny shrubs. Bands of Shaūsū were accustomed to make this routedangerous, and even the bravest heroes shrank from venturing alone alongthis route. Towards Aluna the way began to ascend Mount Carmel by anarrow and giddy track cut in the rocky side of the precipice. **

 * The forest was well known to the geographers of the Gręco- Roman period, and was still in existence at the time of the Crusades. 

 ** This defile is described at length in the _Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 1, and the terms used by the writer are in themselves sufficient evidence of the terror with which the place inspired the Egyptians. The annals of Thūtmosis III. Are equally explicit as to the difficulties which an army had to encounter here. I have placed this defile near the point which is now called Umm-el-Fahm, and this site seems to me to agree better with the account of the expedition of Thūtmosis III. Than that of Arraneh proposed by Conder. 

Beyond the Mount, it led by a rapid descent into a plain covered withcorn and verdure, and extending in a width of some thirty miles, by aseries of undulations, to the foot of Tabor, where it came to anend. Two side ranges running almost parallel--little Hermon andGlilboa--disposed in a line from east to west, and united by an almostimperceptibly rising ground, serve rather to connect the plain ofMegiddo with the valley of the Jordan than to separate them. A singleriver, the Kishon, cuts the route diagonally--or, to speak morecorrectly, a single river-bed, which is almost waterless for nine monthsof the year, and becomes swollen only during the winter rains with thenumerous torrents bursting from the hillsides. As the flood approachesthe sea it becomes of more manageable proportions, and finallydistributes its waters among the desolate lagoons formed behind thesand-banks of the open and wind-swept bay, towered over by the sacredsummit of Carmel. *

 * In the lists of Thūtmosis III. We find under No. 48 the town of Rosh-Qodshu, the "Sacred Cape, " which was evidently situated at the end of the mountain range, or probably on the site of Haifah; the name itself suggests the veneration with which Carmel was invested from the earliest times. 

No corner of the world has been the scene of more sanguinaryengagements, or has witnessed century after century so many armiescrossing its borders and coming into conflict with one another. Everymilitary leader who, after leaving Africa, was able to seize Gaza andAscalon, became at once master of Southern Syria. He might, it is true, experience some local resistance, and come into conflict with bandsor isolated outposts of the enemy, but as a rule he had no need toanticipate a battle before he reached the banks of the Kishon. 

[Illustration: 196. Jpg THE EVERGREEN OAKS BETWEEN JOPPA AND CARMEL]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a pencil sketch by Lortet. 

Here, behind a screen of woods and mountain, the enemy would concentratehis forces and prepare resolutely to meet the attack. If the invadersucceeded in overcoming resistance at this point, the country lay opento him as far as the Orontes; nay, often even to the Euphrates. Theposition was too important for its defence to have been neglected. Arange of forts, Ibleām, Taanach, and Megiddo, * drawn like a barrieracross the line of advance, protected its southern face, and beyondthese a series of strongholds and villages followed one another atintervals in the bends of the valleys or on the heights, such as Shunem, Kasuna, Anaharath, the two Aphuls, Cana, and other places which we findmentioned on the triumphal lists, but of which, up to the present, thesites have not been fixed. 

 * Megiddo, the "Legio" of the Roman period, has been identified since Robinson's time with Khurbet-Lejūn, and more especially with the little mound known by the name of Tell-el-Mutesallim. Conder proposed to place its site more to the east, in the valley of the Jordan, at Khurbet-el- Mujeddah. 

[Illustration: 197. Jpg ACRE AND THE FRINGE OF REEFS SHELTERING THEANCIENT PORT]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Lortet. 

From this point the conqueror had a choice of three routes. One ranin an oblique direction to the west, and struck the Mediterranean nearAcre, leaving on the left the promontory of Carmel, with the sacredtown, Rosh-Qodshu, planted on its slope. 

[Illustration: 198. Jpg Map]

Acre was the first port where a fleet could find safe anchorage afterleaving the mouths of the Nile, and whoever was able to make himselfmaster of it had in his hands the key of Syria, for it stood in the samecommanding position with regard to the coast as that held by Megiddoin respect of the interior. Its houses were built closely together on aspit of rock which projected boldly into the sea, while fringes of reefsformed for it a kind of natural breakwater, behind which ships couldfind a safe harbourage from the attacks of pirates or the perils of badweather. From this point the hills come so near the shore that one issometimes obliged to wade along the beach to avoid a projecting spur, and sometimes to climb a zig-zag path in order to cross a headland. Inmore than one place the rock has been hollowed into a series ofrough steps, giving it the appearance of a vast ladder. * Below thisprecipitous path the waves dash with fury, and when the wind setstowards the land every thud causes the rocky wall to tremble, anddetaches fragments from its surface. The majority of the towns, such asAksapu (Ecdippa), Mashal, Lubina, Ushu-Shakhan, lay back from the sea onthe mountain ridges, out of the reach of pirates; several, however, were built on the shore, under the shelter of some promontory, and theinhabitants of these derived a miserable subsistence from fishing andthe chase. Beyond the Tyrian Ladder Phoenician territory began. Thecountry was served throughout its entire length, from town to town, by the coast road, which turning at length to the right, and passingthrough the defile formed by the Nahr-el-Kebīr, entered the region ofthe middle Orontes. 

 * Hence the name Tyrian Ladder, which is applied to one of these passes, either Ras-en-Nakurah or Ras-el-Abiad. 

[Illustration: 201. Jpg THE TOWN OF QODSHU]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato. 

The second of the roads leading from Megiddo described an almostsymmetrical curve eastwards, crossing the Jordan at Beth-shan, thenthe Jab-bok, and finally reaching Damascus after having skirted at somedistance the last of the basaltic ramparts of the Haurān. Here extendeda vast but badly watered pasture-land, which attracted the Bedouin fromevery side, and scattered over it were a number of walled towns, such asHamath, Magato, Ashtaroth, and Ono-Eepha. *

 * Proof that the Egyptians knew this route, followed even to this day in certain circumstances, is furnished by the lists of Thūtmosis III. , in which the principal stations which it comprises are enumerated among the towns given up after the victory of Megiddo. Dimasqu was identified with Damascus by E. De Rougé, and Astarotu with Ashtarōth-Qarnaim. Hamatu is probably Hamath of the Gadarenes; Magato, the Maged of the Maccabees, is possibly the present Mukatta; and Ono-Repha, Raphōn, Raphana, Arpha of Decapolis, is the modern Er-Rafeh. 

Probably Damascus was already at this period the dominant authority overthe region watered by these two rivers, as well as over the villagesnestling in the gorges of Hermon, --Abila, Helbōn of the vineyards, andTabrūd, --but it had not yet acquired its renown for riches and power. Protected by the Anti-Lebanon range from its turbulent neighbours, itled a sort of vegetative existence apart from invading hosts, forgottenand hushed to sleep, as it were, in the shade of its gardens. 

The third road from Megiddo took the shortest way possible. Aftercrossing the Kishon almost at right angles to its course, it ascendedby a series of steep inclines to arid plains, fringed or intersectedby green and flourishing valleys, which afforded sites for numeroustowns, --Pahira, Merom near Lake Huleh, Qart-Nizanu, Beerotu, and Lauīsa, situated in the marshy district at the head-waters of the Jordan. * Fromthis point forward the land begins to fall, and taking a hollow shape, is known as Coele-Syria, with its luxuriant vegetation spread betweenthe two ranges of the Lebanon. It was inhabited then, as at the time ofthe Babylonian conquest, by the Amorites, who probably included Damascusalso in their domain. **

 * Pahira is probably Safed; Qart-Nizanu, the "flowery city, " the Kartha of Zabulon; and Bcerōt, the Berotha of Josephus, near Merom. Maroma and Lauīsa, Laisa, have been identified with Merom and Laish. 

 ** The identification of the country of Amāuru with that of the Amorites was admitted from the first. The only doubt was as to the locality occupied by these Amorites: the mention of Qodshu on the Orontes, in the country of the Amurru, showed that Coele-Syria was the region in question. In the Tel el-Amarna tablets the name Amurru is applied also to the country east of the Phoenician coast, and we have seen that there is reason to believe that it was used by the Babylonians to denote all Syria. If the name given by the cuneiform inscriptions to Damascus and its neighbourhood, "Gar-Imirīshu, " "Imirīshu, " "Imirīsh, " really means "the Fortress of the Amorites, " we should have in this fact a proof that this people were in actual possession of the Damascene Syria. This must have been taken from them by the Hittites towards the XXth century before our era, according to Hommel; about the end of the XVIIIth dynasty, according to Lenormant. If, on the other hand, the Assyrians read the name "Sha-imiri-shu, " with the signification, "the town of its asses, " it is simply a play upon words, and has no bearing upon the primitive meaning of the name. 

[Illustration: 202. Jpg THE TYRIAN LADDER AT RAS EL-ABIAD]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph. 

Their capital, the sacred Qodshu, was situated on the left bank of theOrontes, about five miles from the lake which for a long time bore itsname, Bahr-el-Kades. * It crowned one of those barren oblong eminenceswhich are so frequently met with in Syria. A muddy stream, the Tannur, flowed, at some distance away, around its base, and, emptying itselfinto the Orontes at a point a little to the north, formed a naturaldefence for the town on the west. Its encompassing walls, slightlyelliptic in form, were strengthened by towers, and surrounded by twoconcentric ditches which kept the sapper at a distance. 

 * The name Qodshu-Kadesh was for a long time read Uatesh, Badesh, Atesh, and, owing to a confusion with Qodi, Ati, or Atet. The town was identified by Champollion with Bactria, then transferred to Mesopotamia by Bosollini, in the land of Omira, which, according to Pliny, was close to the Taurus, not far from the Khabur or from the province of Aleppo: Osburn tried to connect it with Hadashah (_Josh_. Xv. 21), an Amorite town in the southern part of the tribe of Judah; while Hincks placed it in Edessa. The reading Kedesh, Kadesh, Qodshu, the result of the observations of Lepsius, has finally prevailed. Brugsch connected this name with that of Bahr el-Kades, a designation attached in the Middle Ages to the lake through which the Orontes flows, and placed the town on its shores or on a small island on the lake. Thomson pointed out Tell Neby-Mendeh, the ancient Laodicea of the Lebanon, as satisfying the requirements of the site. Conder developed this idea, and showed that all the conditions prescribed by the Egyptian texts in regard to Qodshu find here, and here alone, their application. The description given in the text is based on Conder's observations. 

[Illustration: 206. Jpt THE DYKE AT BAIIK EL-KADES IN ITS PRESENTCONDITION]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph. 

A dyke running across the Orontes above the town caused the waters torise and to overflow in a northern direction, so as to form a shallowlake, which acted as an additional protection from the enemy. Qodshu wasthus a kind of artificial island, connected with the surrounding countryby two flying bridges, which could be opened or shut at pleasure. Oncethe bridges were raised and the gates closed, the boldest enemy hadno resource left but to arm himself with patience and settle down toa lengthened siege. The invader, fresh from a victory at Megiddo, andfollowing up his good fortune in a forward movement, had to reckon uponfurther and serious resistance at this point, and to prepare himself fora second conflict. The Amorite chiefs and their allies had the advantageof a level and firm ground for the evolutions of their chariots duringthe attack, while, if they were beaten, the citadel afforded them asecure rallying-place, whence, having gathered their shattered troops, they could regain their respective countries, or enter, with the helpof a few devoted men, upon a species of guerilla warfare in which theyexcelled. 

The road from Damascus led to a point south of Quodshu, while thatfrom Phonicia came right up to the town itself or to its immediateneighbourhood. The dyke of Bahr el-Kades served to keep the plain in adry condition, and thus secured for numerous towns, among which Hamathstood out pre-eminently, a prosperous existence. Beyond Hamath, and tothe left, between the Orontes and the sea, lay the commercial kingdom ofAlasia, protected from the invader by bleak mountains. *

 * The site of Alasia, Alashia, was determined from the Tel el-Amarna tablets by Maspero. Niebuhr had placed it to the west of Cilicia, opposite the island of Eleousa mentioned by Strabo. Conder connected it with the scriptural Elishah, and W. Max Millier confounds it with Asi or Cyprus. 

On the right, between the Orontes and the Balikh, extended the land ofrivers, Naharaim. Towns had grown up here thickly, --on the sides of thetorrents from the Amanos, along the banks of rivers, near springs orwells--wherever, in fact, the presence of water made culture possible. The fragments of the Egyptian chronicles which have come down to usnumber these towns by the hundred, * and yet of how many more must therecords have perished with the crumbling Theban walls upon which thePharaohs had their names incised! Khalabu was the Aleppo of our ownday, ** and grouped around it lay Turmanuna, Tunipa, Zarabu, Nīi, Durbaniti, Nirabu, Sarmata, *** and a score of others which depended uponit, or upon one of its rivals. The boundaries of this portion of theLower Lotanū have come down to us in a singularly indefinite form, andthey must also, moreover, have been subject to continual modificationsfrom the results of tribal conflicts. 

 * Two hundred and thirty names belonging to Naharaim are still legible on the lists of Thūtmosis III. , and a hundred others have been effaced from the monument. 

 ** Khalabu was identified by Chabas with Khalybōn, the modern Aleppo, and his opinion has been adopted by most Egyptologists. 

 *** Tunipa has been found in Tennib, Tinnab, by Noldoke; Zarabu in Zarbi, and Sarmata in Sarmeda, by Tomkins; Durbaniti in Deīr el-Banāt, the Castrum Puellarum of the chroniclers of the Crusades; Nirabu in Nirab, and Tirabu in Tereb, now el-Athrib. Nirab is mentioned by Nicholas of Damascus. Nīi, long confounded with Nineveh, was identified by Lenormant with Ninus Vetus, Membidj, and by Max Millier with Balis on the Euphrates: I am inclined to make it Kefer- Naya, between Aleppo and Turmanin. 

[Illustration: 208. Jpg Map]

We are at a loss to know whether the various principalities wereaccustomed to submit to the leadership of a single individual, orwhether we are to relegate to the region of popular fancy that Lordof Naharaim of whom the Egyptian scribes made such a hero in theirfantastic narratives. *

 * In the "Story of the Predestined Prince" the heroine is daughter of the Prince of Naharaim, who seems to exercise authority over all the chiefs of the country; as the manuscript does not date back further than the XXth dynasty, we are justified in supposing that the Egyptian writer had a knowledge of the Hittite domination, during which the King of the Khāti was actually the ruler of all Naharaim. 

Carchemish represented in this region the position occupied by Megiddoin relation to Kharū, and by Qodshu among the Amorites; that is to say, it was the citadel and sanctuary of the surrounding country. Whoevercould make himself master of it would have the whole country at hisfeet. 

[Illustration: 211. Jpg Site of Carchemish]

It lay upon the Euphrates, the winding of the river protecting it on itssouthern and south-eastern sides, while around its northern front rana deep stream, its defence being further completed by a double ditchacross the intervening region. Like Qodshu, it was thus situated in themidst of an artificial island beyond the reach of the battering-ram orthe sapper. The encompassing wall, which tended to describe an ellipse, hardly measured two miles in circumference; but the suburbs extending, in the midst of villas and gardens, along the river-banks furnished intime of peace an abode for the surplus population. The wall still risessome five and twenty to thirty feet above the plain. Two mounds dividedby a ravine command its north-western side, their summits being occupiedby the ruins of two fine buildings--a temple and a palace. * Carchemishwas the last stage in a conqueror's march coming from the south. 

 * Karkamisha, Gargamish, was from the beginning associated with the Carchemish of the Bible; but as the latter was wrongly identified with Circesium, it was naturally located at the confluence of the Khabur with the Euphrates. Hincks fixed the site at Rum-Kaleh. G. Rawlinson referred it cursorily to Hierapolis-Mabog, which position Maspero endeavoured to confirm. Finzi, and after him G. Smith, thought to find the site at Jerabis, the ancient Europos, and excavations carried on there by the English have brought to light in this place Hittite monuments which go back in part to the Assyrian epoch. This identification is now generally accepted, although there is still no direct proof attainable, and competent judges continue to prefer the site of Membij. I fall in with the current view, but with all reserve. 

[Illustration: 212. Jpg THE TELL OF JERABIS IN ITS PRESENT CONDITION]

 Reproduced by Faucher-Gudin, from a cut in the _Graphic_. 

For an invader approaching from the east or north it formed his firststation. He had before him, in fact, a choice of the three chief fordsfor crossing the Euphrates. That of Thapsacus, at the bend of the riverwhere it turns eastward to the Arabian plain, lay too far to thesouth, and it could be reached only after a march through a parchedand desolate region where the army would run the risk of perishing fromthirst. 

[Illustration: 213. Jpg A NORTHERN SYRIAN]

 Drawn by faucher-Gudin, from a photograph. 

For an invader proceeding from Asia Minor, or intending to make hisway through the defiles of the Taurus, Samosata offered a convenientfording-place; but this route would compel the general, who had Naharaimor the kingdoms of Chaldęa in view, to make a long detour, andalthough the Assyrians used it at a later period, at the time of theirexpeditions to the valleys of the Halys, the Egyptians do not seem everto have travelled by this road. Carchemish, the place of the third ford, was about equally distant from Thapsacus and Samosata, and lay in arich and fertile province, which was so well watered that a drought ora famine would not be likely to enter into the expectations of itsinhabitants. Hither pilgrims, merchants, soldiers, and all the wanderingdenizens of the world were accustomed to direct their steps, and thehabit once established was perpetuated for centuries. On the leftbank of the river, and almost opposite Carchemish, lay the region ofMitānni, * which was already occupied by a people of a different race, who used a language cognate, it would seem, with the imperfectlyclassified dialects spoken by the tribes of the Upper Tigris and UpperEuphrates. ** Harran bordered on Mitānni, and beyond Harran one mayrecognise, in the vaguely defined Singar, Assur, Arrapkha, and Babel, states that arose out of the dismemberment of the ancient ChaldęanEmpire. ***

 * Mitānni is mentioned on several Egyptian monuments; but its importance was not recognised until after the discovery of the Tel el-Amarna tablets and of its situation. The fact that a letter from the Prince of Mitānni is stated in a Hieratic docket to have come from Naharaim has been used as a proof that the countries were identical; I have shown that the docket proves only that Mitānni formed a part of Naharaim. It extended over the province of Edessa and Harran, stretching out towards the sources of the Tigris. Niebuhr places it on the southern slope of the Masios, in Mygdonia; Th. Reinach connects it with the Matiōni, and asks whether this was not the region occupied by this people before their emigration towards the Caspian. 

 ** Several of the Tel el-Amarna tablets are couched in this language. 

 *** These names were recognised from the first in the inscriptions of Thūtmosis III. And in those of other Pharaohs of the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties. 

The Carchemish route was, of course, well known to caravans, but armedbodies had rarely occasion to make use of it. It was a far cry fromMemphis to Carchemish, and for the Egyptians this town continued to bea limit which they never passed, except incidentally, when they had tochastise some turbulent tribe, or to give some ill-guarded town to theflames. *

 * A certain number of towns mentioned in the lists of Thūtmosis III. Were situated beyond the Euphrates, and they belonged some to Mitānni and some to the regions further away. 

[Illustration: 215. Jpg THE HEADS OF THREE AMORITE CAPTIVES]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph. 

It would be a difficult task to define with any approach to accuracy thedistribution of the Canaanites, Amorites, and Aramęans, and to indicatethe precise points where they came into contact with their rivals ofnon-Semitic stock. Frontiers between races and languages can never bevery easily determined, and this is especially true of the peoples ofSyria. They are so broken up and mixed in this region, that even inneighbourhoods where one predominant tribe is concentrated, it is easyto find at every step representatives of all the others. Four or fivetownships, singled out at random from the middle of a province, would often be found to belong to as many different races, and theirrespective inhabitants, while living within a distance of a mile or two, would be as great strangers to each other as if they were separated bythe breadth of a continent. 

[Illustration: 216. Jpg MIXTURE OF SYRIAN RACES]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph. 

It would appear that the breaking up of these populations had not beencarried so far in ancient as in modern times, but the confusion mustalready have been great if we are to judge from the number of differentsites where we encounter evidences of people of the same languageand blood. The bulk of the Khāti had not yet departed from the Taurusregion, but some stray bands of them, carried away by the movement whichled to the invasion of the Hyksōs, had settled around Hebron, wherethe rugged nature of the country served to protect them from theirneighbours. *

 * In very early times they are described as dwelling near Hebron or in the mountains of Judah. Since we have learned from the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments that the Khāti dwelt in Northern Syria, the majority of commentators have been indisposed to admit the existence of southern Hittites; this name, it is alleged, having been introduced into the Biblical around text through a misconception of the original documents, where the term Hittite was the equivalent of Canaanite. 

The Amorites* had their head-quarters Qodshul in Coele-Syria, but onesection of them had taken up a position on the shores of the Lake ofTiberias in Galilee, others had established themselves within a shortdistance of Jaffa** on the Mediterranean, while others had settled inthe neighbourhood of the southern Hittites in such numbers that theirname in the Hebrew Scriptures was at times employed to designate thewestern mountainous region about the Dead Sea and the valley of theJordan. Their presence was also indicated on the table-lands borderingthe desert of Damascus, in the districts frequented by Bedouin of thetribe of Terah, Ammon and Moab, on the rivers Yarmuk and Jabbok, and atEdrei and Heshbon. ***

 * Ed. Meyer has established the fact that the term Amorite, as well as the parallel word Canaanite, was the designation of the inhabitants of Palestine before the arrival of the Hebrews: the former belonged to the prevailing tradition in the kingdom of Israel, the latter to that which was current in Judah. This view confirms the conclusion which may be drawn from the Egyptian monuments as to the power of expansion and the diffusion of the people. 

 ** These were the Amorites which the tribe of Dan at a later period could not dislodge from the lands which had been allotted to them. 

 *** This was afterwards the domain of Sihon, King of the Amorites, and that of Og. 

The fuller, indeed, our knowledge is of the condition of Syria at thetime of the Egyptian conquest, the more we are forced to recognise themixture of races therein, and their almost infinite subdivisions. Themutual jealousies, however, of these elements of various origin werenot so inveterate as to put an obstacle in the way, I will not say ofpolitical alliances, but of daily intercourse and frequent contracts. Owing to intermarriages between the tribes, and the continual crossingof the results of such unions, peculiar characteristics were at lengtheliminated, and a uniform type of face was the result. From northto south one special form of countenance, that which we usually callSemitic, prevailed among them. 

[Illustration: 218. Jpg A CARICATURE OF THE SYRIAN TYPE]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph. 

The Syrian and Egyptian monuments furnish us everywhere, under differentethnical names, with representations of a broad-shouldered people ofhigh stature, slender-figured in youth, but with a fatal tendencyto obesity in old age. Their heads are large, somewhat narrow, andartificially flattened or deformed, like those of several modern tribesin the Lebanon. Their high cheek-bones stand out from their hollowcheeks, and their blue or black eyes are buried under their enormouseyebrows. The lower part of the face is square and somewhat heavy, butit is often concealed by a thick and curly beard. The forehead is ratherlow and retreating, while the nose has a distinctly aquiline curve. Thetype is not on the whole so fine as the Egyptian, but it is not so heavyas that of the Chaldęans in the time of Gudea. The Theban artists haverepresented it in their battle-scenes, and while individualising everysoldier or Asiatic prisoner with a happy knack so as to avoid monotony, they have with much intelligence impressed upon all of them the marks ofa common parentage. 

[Illustration: 219. Jpg]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original wooden object. 

One feels that the artists must have recognised them as belonging to onecommon family. They associated with their efforts after true and exactrepresentation a certain caustic humour, which impelled them often tosubstitute for a portrait a more or less jocose caricature of theiradversaries. On the walls of the Pylons, and in places where the majestyof a god restrained them from departing too openly from their officialgravity, they contented themselves with exaggerating from panel to panelthe contortions and pitiable expressions of the captive chiefs as theyfollowed behind the triumphal chariot of the Pharaoh on his return fromhis Syrian campaigns. *

 * An illustration of this will be found in the line of prisoners, brought by Seti I. From his great Asiatic campaign, which is depicted on the outer face of the north wall of the hypostyle at Karnak. 

Where religious scruples offered no obstacle they abandoned themselvesto the inspiration of the moment, and gave themselves freely up tocaricature. It is an Amorite or Canaanite--that thick-lipped, flat-nosedslave, with his brutal lower jaw and smooth conical skull--who servesfor the handle of a spoon in the museum of the Louvre. The stupefied airwith which he trudges under his burden is rendered in the most naturalmanner, and the flattening to which his forehead had been subjectedin infancy is unfeelingly accentuated. The model which served for thisobject must have been intentionally brutalised and disfigured in orderto excite the laughter of Pharaoh's subjects. *

 * Dr. Regnault thinks that the head was artificially deformed in infancy: the bandage necessary to effect it must have been applied very low on the forehead in front, and to the whole occiput behind. If this is the case, the instance is not an isolated one, for a deformation of a similar character is found in the case of the numerous Semites represented on the tomb of Rakhmiri: a similar practice still obtains in certain parts of modern Syria. 

[Illustration: 220. Jpg SYRIANS DRESSED IN THE LOIN-CLOTH AND DOUBLESHAWL]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger. 

The idea of uniformity with which we are impressed when examining thefaces of these people is confirmed and extended when we come to studytheir costumes. Men and women--we may say all Syrians according totheir condition of life--had a choice between only two or three modesof dress, which, whatever the locality, or whatever the period, seemednever to change. On closer examination slight shades of difference incut and arrangement may, however, be detected, and it may be affirmedthat fashion ran even in ancient Syria through as many capriciousevolutions as with ourselves; but these variations, which were evidentto the eyes of the people of the time, are not sufficiently striking toenable us to classify the people, or to fix their date. The peasants andthe lower class of citizens required no other clothing than a loin-clothsimilar to that of the Egyptians, * or a shirt of a yellow or whitecolour, extending below the knees, and furnished with short sleeves. Theopening for the neck was cruciform, and the hem was usually ornamentedwith coloured needlework or embroidery. The burghers and nobles woreover this a long strip of cloth, which, after passing closely round thehips and chest, was brought up and spread over the shoulders as a sortof cloak. This was not made of the light material used in Egypt, whichoffered no protection from cold or rain, but was composed of a thick, rough wool, like that employed in Chaldęa, and was commonly adorned withstripes or bands of colour, in addition to spots and other conspicuousdesigns. 

 * The Asiatic loin-cloth differs from the Egyptian in having pendent cords; the Syrian fellahin still wear it when at work. 

Rich and fashionable folk substituted for this cloth two largeshawls--one red and the other blue--in which they dexterously arrayedthemselves so as to alternate the colours: a belt of soft leathergathered the folds around the figure. Red morocco buskins, a soft cap, a handkerchief, a _kejfīyeh_ confined by a fillet, and sometimes a wigafter the Egyptian fashion, completed the dress. 

[Illustration: 222a. Jpg]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a figure on the tomb of Ramses III. 

Beards were almost universal among the men, but the moustache was ofrare occurrence. In many of the figures represented on the monumentswe find that the head was carefully shaved, while in others the hairwas allowed to grow, arranged in curls, frizzed and shining with oil orsweet-smelling pomade, sometimes thrown back behind the ears and fallingon the neck in bunches or curly masses, sometimes drawn out in stiffspikes so as to serve as a projecting cover over the face. 

[Illustration: 222b. Jpg A SYRIAN WITH HAIR TIRED PENT-HOUSE FASHION]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Champollion. 

The women usually tired their hair in three great masses, of which thethickest was allowed to fall freely down the back; while the other twoformed a kind of framework for the face, the ends descending on eachside as far as the breast. Some of the women arranged their hair afterthe Egyptian manner, in a series of numerous small tresses, broughttogether at the ends so as to form a kind of plat, and terminating ina flower made of metal or enamelled terracotta. A network of glassornaments, arranged on a semicircle of beads, or on a background ofembroidered stuff, was frequently used as a covering for the top of thehead. *

 * Examples of Syrian feminine costume are somewhat rare on the Egyptian monuments. In the scenes of the capturing of towns we see a few. Here the women are represented on the walls imploring the mercy of the besieger. Other figures are those of prisoners being led captive into Egypt. 

[Illustration: 223. Jpg Page Image]

The shirt had no sleeves, and the fringed garment which covered itleft half of the arm exposed. Children of tender years had their headsshaved, as a head-dress, and rejoiced in no more clothing than thelittle ones among the Egyptians. With the exception of bracelets, anklets, rings on the fingers, and occasionally necklaces and earrings, the Syrians, both men and women, wore little jewellery. The Chaldęawomen furnished them with models of fashion to which they accommodatedthemselves in the choice of stuffs, colours, cut of their mantles orpetticoats, arrangement of the hair, and the use of cosmetics for theeyes and cheeks. In spite of distance, the modes of Babylon reignedsupreme. The Syrians would have continued to expose their right shoulderto the weather as long as it pleased the people of the Lower Euphratesto do the same; but as soon as the fashion changed in the latter region, and it became customary to cover the shoulder, and to wrap the upperpart of the person in two or three thicknesses of heavy wool, they atonce accommodated themselves to the new mode, although it served torestrain the free motion of the body. Among the upper classes, at least, domestic arrangements were modelled upon the fashions observed in thepalaces of the nobles of Car-chemish or Assur: the same articles oftoilet, the same ranks of servants and scribes, the same luxurioushabits, and the same use of perfumes were to be found among both. *

 * An example of the fashion of leaving the shoulder bare is found even in the XXth dynasty. The Tel el-Amarna tablets prove that, as far as the scribes were concerned, the customs and training of Syria and Chaldęa were identical. The Syrian princes are there represented as employing the cuneiform character in their correspondence, being accompanied by scribes brought up after the Chaldęan manner. We shall see later on that the king of the Khati, who represented in the time of Ramses II. The type of an accomplished Syrian, had attendants similar to those of the Chaldęan kings. 

From all that we can gather, in short, from the silence as well as fromthe misunderstandings of the Egyptian chroniclers, Syria stands beforeus as a fruitful and civilized country, of which one might be thankfulto be a native, in spite of continual wars and frequent revolutions. 

The religion of the Syrians was subject to the same influences as theircustoms; we are, as yet, far from being able to draw a complete pictureof their theology, but such knowledge as we do possess recalls the samenames and the same elements as are found in the religious systems ofChaldęa. The myths, it is true, are still vague and misty, at leastto our modern ideas: the general characteristics of the principaldivinities alone stand out, and seem fairly well defined. As with theother Semitic races, the deity in a general sense, the primordial typeof the godhead, was called _El_ or _Ilū_, and his feminine counterpart_Ilāt_, but we find comparatively few cities in which these nearlyabstract beings enjoyed the veneration of the faithful. * The godsof Syria, like those of Egypt and of the countries watered by theEuphrates, were feudal princes distributed over the surface of theearth, their number corresponding with that of the independent states. Each nation, each tribe, each city, worshipped its own lord--_Adoni_**--or its master--_Baal_*** --and each of these was designated by aspecial title to distinguish him from neighbouring _Baalīm_, or masters. 

 * The frequent occurrence of the term _Ilū_ or _El_ in names of towns in Southern Syria seems to indicate pretty conclusively that the inhabitants of these countries used this term by preference to designate their supreme god. Similarly we meet with it in Aramaic names, and later on among the Nabathseans; it predominates at Byblos and Berytus in Phoenicia and among the Aramaic peoples of North Syria; in the Samalla country, for instance, during the VIIIth century B. C. 

 ** The extension of this term to Syrian countries is proved in the Israelitish epoch by Canaanitish names, such as Adonizedek and Adonibezek, or Jewish names such as Adonijah, Adonikam, Adoniram-Adoram. 

 *** Movers tried to prove that there was one particular god named Baal, and his ideas, popularised in Prance by M. De Vogiié, prevailed for some time: since then scholars have gone back to the view of Münter and of the writers at the beginning of this century, who regarded the term Baal as a common epithet applicable to all gods. 

The Baal who ruled at Zebub was styled "Master of Zebub, " orBaal-Zebub;* and the Baal of Hermon, who was an ally of Gad, goddessof fortune, was sometimes called Baal-Hermon, or "Master of Hermon, "sometimes Baal-G-ad, or "Master of Gad;"** the Baal of Shechem, at the time of the Israelite invasion, was "Master of theCovenant"--Baal-Berīth--doubtless in memory of some agreement which hehad concluded with his worshippers in regard to the conditions of theirallegiance. ***

 * Baal-Zebub was worshipped at Ekxon during the Philistine supremacy. 

 ** The mountain of Baal-Hermon is the mountain of Baniās, where the Jordan has one of its sources, and the town of Baal-Hermon is Baniās itself. The variant Baal-Gad occurs several times in the Biblical books. 

 *** Baal-Berith, like Baal-Zebub, only occurs, so far as we know at present, in the Hebrew Scriptures, where, by the way, the first element, Baal, is changed to El, El-Berith. 

[Illustration: 226. Jpg LOTANŪ WOMEN AND CHILDREN FROM THE TOMB OFRAKHMIEĪ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from coloured sketches by Prisse d'Avennes. 

The prevalent conception of the essence and attributes of these deitieswas not the same in all their sanctuaries, but the more exalted amongthem were regarded as personifying the sky in the daytime or at night, the atmosphere, the light, * or the sun, Shamash, as creator andprime mover of the universe; and each declared himself to beking--_melek_--over the other gods. ** Bashuf represented the lightningand the thunderbolt;*** Shalmān, Hadad, and his double Bimmōn held swayover the air like the Babylonian. 

 * This appears under the name _Or_ or _Ur_ in the Samalla inscriptions of the VIIIth century B. C. ; it is, so far, a unique instance among the Semites. 

 ** We find the term applied in the Bible to the national god of the Ammonites, under the forms _Moloch, Molech, Mikōm, Milkām_, and especially with the article, _Ham-molek_; the real name hidden beneath this epithet was probably _Amnōn or Ammān_, and, strictly speaking, the God Moloch only exists in the imagination of scholars. The epithet was used among the Oanaanites in the name Melchizedek, a similar form to Adonizedek, Abimelech, Ahimelech; it was in current use among the Phoenicians, in reference to the god of Tyre, Melek-Karta or Melkarth, and in many proper names, such as Melekiathon, Baalmelek, Bodmalek, etc. , not to mention the god Milichus worshipped in Spain, who was really none other than Melkarth. 

 *** Resheph has been vocalised _Rashuf_ in deference to the Egyptian orthography Rashupu. It was a name common to a whole family of lightning and storm-gods, and M. De Rougé pointed out long ago the passage in the Great Inscription of Ramses III. At Medinet-Habu, in which the soldiers who man the chariots are compared to the Rashupu; the Rabbinic Hebrew still employs this plural form in the sense of "demons. " The Phoenician inscriptions contain references to several local Rashufs; the way in which this god is coupled with the goddess Qodshu on the Egyptian stelę leads me to think that, at the epoch now under consideration, he was specially worshipped by the Amorites, just as his equivalent Hadad was by the inhabitants of Damascus, neighbours of the Amorites, and perhaps themselves Amorites. 

Rammānu;* Dagon, patron god of fishermen and husbandmen, seems tohave watched over the fruitfulness of the sea and the land. ** We arebeginning to learn the names of the races whom they specially protected:Rashuf the Amorites, Hadad and Rimmon the Aramęans of Damascus, Dagonthe peoples of the coast between Ashkelon and the forest of Carmel. Rashūf is the only one whose appearance is known to us. He possessed therestless temperament usually attributed to the thunder-gods, and was, accordingly, pictured as a soldier armed with javelin and mace, bow andbuckler; a gazelle's head with pointed horns surmounts his helmet, andsometimes, it may be, serves him as a cap. 

 * Hadad and Rimmon are represented in Assyrio-Chaldęan by one and the same ideogram, which may be read either Dadda- Hadad or Eammānu. The identity of the expressions employed shows how close the connection between the two divinities must have been, even if they were not similar in all respects; from the Hebrew writings we know of the temple of Rimmon at Damascus (_2 Kings_ v. 18) and that one of the kings of that city was called Tabrimmōn = "llimmon is good" (_1 Kings_ xv. 18), while Hadad gave his name to no less than ten kings of the same city. Even as late as the Gręco- Roman epoch, kingship over the other gods was still attributed both to Rimmon and to Hadad, but this latter was identified with the sun. 

 ** The documents which we possess in regard to Dagon date from the Hebrew epoch, and represent him as worshipped by the Philistines. We know, however, from the Tel el-Amarna tablets, of a Dagantakala, a name which proves the presence of the god among the Canaanites long before the Philistine invasion, and we find two Beth-Dagons--one in the plain of Judah, the other in the tribe of Asher; Philo of Byblos makes Dagon a Phoenician deity, and declares him to be the genius of fecundity, master of grain and of labour. The representation of his statue which appears on the Gręco- Roman coins of Abydos, reminds us of the fish-god of Chaldęa. 

Each god had for his complement a goddess, who was proclaimed"mistress" of the city, _Baalat_, or "queen, " _Milkat_, of heaven, justas the god himself was recognised as "master" or "king. "* As a rule, thegoddess was contented with the generic name of Astartź; but to this wasoften added some epithet, which lent her a distinct personality, andprevented her from being confounded with the Astartźs of neighbouringcities, her companions or rivals. **

 * Among goddesses to whom the title "Baalat "was referred, we have the goddess of Byblos, Baalat-Gebal, also the goddess of Berytus, Baalat-Berīth, or Beyrut. The epithet "queen of heaven "is applied to the Phoenician Astartź by Hebrew (_Jer. _ vii. 18, xliv. 18-29) and classic writers. The Egyptians, when they adopted these Oanaanitish goddesses, preserved the title, and called each of them _nibīt pit, _ "lady of heaven. " In the Phoenician inscriptions their names are frequently preceded by the word _Rabbat: rabbat Baalat-Gebal_, "(my) lady Baalat-Gebal. "

 ** The Hebrew writers frequently refer to the Canaanite goddesses by the general title "the Ashtarōth" or "Astartźs, " and a town in Northern Syria bore the significant name of Istarāti = "the Ishtars, the Ashtarōth, " a name which finds a parallel in Anathōth = "the Anats, " a title assumed by a town of the tribe of Benjamin; similarly, the Assyrio- Chaldęans called their goddesses by the plural of Ishtar. The inscription on an Egyptian amulet in the Louvre tells us of a personage of the XXth dynasty, who, from his name, Rabrabīna, must have been of Syrian origin, and who styled himself "Prophet of the Astartźs, " Honnutir Astiratu. 

[Illustration: 229. Jpg ASTARTE AS A SPHINX]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a copy of an original in chased gold. 

Thus she would be styled the "good" Astartź, Ashtoreth Naamah, or the"horned" Astartź, Ashtoreth Qarnaīm, because of the lunar crescent whichappears on her forehead, as a sort of head-dress. * She was the goddessof good luck, and was called Gad;** she was Anat, *** or Asīti, **** thechaste and the warlike. 

 * The two-horned Astartź gave her name to a city beyond the Jordan, of which she was, probably, the eponymous goddess: (Gen xiv. 5) she would seem to be represented on the curious monument called by the Arabs "the stone of Job, " which was discovered by M. Schumacher in the centre of the Hauran. It was an analogous goddess whom the Egyptians sometimes identified with their Hāthor, and whom they represented as crowned with a crescent. 

 ** Gad, the goddess of fortune, is mainly known to us in connection with the Aramęans; we find mention made of her by the Hebrew writers, and geographical names, such as Baal-Gad and Migdol-Gad, prove that she must have been worshipped at a very early date in the Canaanite countries. 

 *** Anat, or Anaīti, or Aniti, has been found in a Phoenician inscription, which enables us to reconstruct the history of the goddess. Her worship was largely practised among the Canaanites, as is proved by the existence in the Hebrew epoch of several towns, such as Beth-Anath, Beth- Anoth, Anathōth; at least one of which, Bīt-Anīti, is mentioned in the Egyptian geographical lists. The appearance of Anat-Anīti is known to us, as she is represented in Egyptian dress on several stelę of the XIXth and XXth dynasties. Her name, like that of Astartź, had become a generic term, in the plural form Anathōth, for a whole group of goddesses. 

 **** Asīti is represented at Radesieh, on a stele of the time of Seti I. ; she enters into the composition of a compound name, _Asītiiąkhūrū_ (perhaps "the goddess of Asiti is enflamed with anger "), which we find on a monument in the Vienna Museum. W. Max Müller makes her out to have been a divinity of the desert, and the place in which the picture representing her was found would seem to justify this hypothesis; the Egyptians connected her, as well as the other Astartźs, with Sit-Typhon, owing to her cruel and warlike character. 

[Illustration: 231. Jpg Page Image]

The statues sometimes represent her as a sphinx with a woman's head, but more often as a woman standing on a lion passant, either nude, or encircled round the hips by merely a girdle, her hands filledwith flowers or with serpents, her features framed in a mass of heavytresses--a faithful type of the priestesses who devoted themselves toher service, the _Qedeshōt_. She was the goddess of love in its animal, or rather in its purely physical, aspect, and in this capacity wasstyled Qaddishat the Holy, like the hetairę of her family; Qodshu, the Amorite capital, was consecrated to her service, and she was thereassociated with Rashuf, the thunder-god. *

 * Qaddishat is know to us from the Egyptian monuments referred to above. The name was sometimes written Qodshū, like that of the town: E. De Bougé argued from this that Qaddishat must have been the eponymous divinity of Qodshū, and that her real name was Kashit or Kesh; he recalls, however, the _rōle_ played by the Qedeshoth, and admits that "the Holy here means the prostitute. "

But she often comes before us as a warlike Amazon, brandishing a club, lance, or shield, mounted on horseback like a soldier, and wanderingthrough the desert in quest of her prey. * This dual temperament renderedher a goddess of uncertain attributes and of violent contrasts; at timesreserved and chaste, at other times shameless and dissolute, but alwayscruel, always barren, for the countless multitude of her excesses forever shut her out from motherhood: she conceives without ceasing, butnever brings forth children. ** The Baalim and Astartźs frequentedby choice the tops of mountains, such as Lebanon, Carmel, Hermon, orKasios:*** they dwelt near springs, or hid themselves in the depths offorests. **** They revealed themselves to mortals through the heavenlybodies, and in all the phenomena of nature: the sun was a Baal, the moonwas Astartź, and the whole host of heaven was composed of more or lesspowerful genii, as we find in Chaldęa. 

 * A fragment of a popular tale preserved in the British Museum, and mentioned by Birch, seems to show us Astartź in her character of war-goddess, and the sword of Astartź is mentioned by Chabas. A bas-relief at Edfū represents her standing upright in her chariot, drawn by horses, and trampling her enemies underfoot: she is there identified with Sokhīt the warlike, destroyer of men. 

 ** This conception of the Syrian goddesses had already become firmly established at the period with which we are dealing, for an Egyptian magical formula defines Anīti and Astartź as "the great goddesses who conceiving do not bring forth young, for the Horuses have sealed them and Sit hath established them. "

 *** The Baal of Lebanon is mentioned in an archaic Phoenician inscription, and the name "Holy Cape" (_Rosh- Qodshu_), borne in the time of Thūtmosis III. Either by Haifa or by a neighbouring town, proves that Carmel was held sacred as far back as the Egyptian epoch. Baal-Hermon has already been mentioned. 

 **** The source of the Jordan, near Baniās, was the seat of a Baal whom the Greeks identified with Pan. This was probably the Baal-Gad who often lent his name to the neighbouring town of Baal-Hermon: many of the rivers of Phoenicia were called after the divinities worshipped in the nearest city, e. G. The Adonis, the Bźlos, the Asclepios, the Damūras. 

They required that offerings and prayers should be brought to themat the high places, * but they were also pleased--and especially thegoddesses--to lodge in trees; tree-trunks, sometimes leafy, sometimesbare and branchless (_ashźrah_), long continued to be living emblemsof the local Astartźs among the peoples of Southern Syria. Side by sidewith these plant-gods we find everywhere, in the inmost recesses of thetemples, at cross-roads, and in the open fields, blocks of stone hewninto pillars, isolated boulders, or natural rocks, sometimes of meteoricorigin, which were recognised by certain mysterious marks to be thehouse of the god, the Betyli or Beth-els in which he enclosed a part ofhis intelligence and vital force. 

 * These are the "high places" (bamōth) so frequently referred to by the Hebrew prophets, and which we find in the country of Moab, according to the Mesha inscription, and in the place-name Bamoth-Baal; many of them seem to have served for Canaanitish places of worship before they were resorted to by the children of Israel. 

The worship of these gods involved the performance of ceremonies morebloody and licentious even than those practised by other races. TheBaalim thirsted after blood, nor would they be satisfied with any commonblood such as generally contented their brethren in Chaldęa or Egypt:they imperatively demanded human as well as animal sacrifices. Amongseveral of the Syrian nations they had a prescriptive right to thefirstborn male of each family;* this right was generally commuted, either by a money payment or by subjecting the infant to circumcision. **

 * This fact is proved, in so far as the Hebrew people is concerned, by the texts of the Pentateuch and of the prophets; amongst the Moabites also it was his eldest son whom King Mosha took to offer to his god. We find the same custom among other Syrian races: Philo of Byblos tells us, in fact, that El-Kronos, god of Byblos, sacrificed his firstborn son and set the example of this kind of offering. 

 ** Redemption by a payment in money was the case among the Hebrews, as also the substitution of an animal in the place of a child; as to redemption by circumcision, cf. The story of Moses and Zipporah, where the mother saves her son from Jahveh by circumcising him. Circumcision was practised among the Syrians of Palestine in the time of Herodotus. 

At important junctures, however, this pretence of bloodshed would failto appease them, and the death of the child alone availed. Indeed, intimes of national danger, the king and nobles would furnish, not merelya single victim, but as many as the priests chose to demand. * While theywere being burnt alive on the knees of the statue, or before the sacredemblem, their cries of pain were drowned by the piping of flutes or theblare of trumpets, the parents standing near the altar, without a signof pity, and dressed as for a festival: the ruler of the world couldrefuse nothing to prayers backed by so precious an offering, and by apurpose so determined to move him. Such sacrifices were, however, theexception, and the shedding of their own blood by his priests sufficed, as a rule, for the daily wants of the god. Seizing their knives, theywould slash their arms and breasts with the view of compelling, by thisoffering of their own persons, the good will of the Baalim. **

 * If we may credit Tertullian, the custom of offering up children as sacrifices lasted down to the proconsulate of Tiberius. 

 ** Cf. , for the Hebraic epoch, the scene where the priests of Baal, in a trial of power with Elijah before Ahab, offered up sacrifices on the highest point of Carmel, and finding that their offerings did not meet with the usual success, "cut themselves... With knives and lancets till the blood gushed out upon them. "

The Astartźs of all degrees and kinds were hardly less cruel; theyimposed frequent flagellations, self-mutilation, and sometimes evenemasculation, on their devotees. Around the majority of these goddesseswas gathered an infamous troop of profligates (_kedeshīm_), "dogs oflove" (_kelabīm_), and courtesans (_kedeshōt_). The temples bore littleresemblance to those of the regions of the Lower Euphrates: nowhere dowe find traces of those _ziggurat_ which serve to produce the peculiarjagged outline characteristic of Chaldęan cities. The Syrian edificeswere stone buildings, which included, in addition to the halls andcourts reserved for religious rites, dwelling-rooms for the priesthood, and storehouses for provisions: though not to be compared in size withthe sanctuaries of Thebes, they yet answered the purpose of strongholdsin time of need, and were capable of resisting the attacks of avictorious foe. * A numerous staff, consisting of priests, male andfemale singers, porters, butchers, slaves, and artisans, was assignedto each of these temples: here the god was accustomed to give forth hisoracles, either by the voice of his prophets, or by the movement of hisstatues. ** The greater number of the festivals celebrated in themwere closely connected with the pastoral and agricultural life ofthe country; they inaugurated, or brought to a close, the principaloperations of the year--the sowing of seed, the harvest, the vintage, the shearing of the sheep. At Shechem, when the grapes were ripe, thepeople flocked out of the town into the vineyards, returning to thetemple for religious observances and sacred banquets when the fruit hadbeen trodden in the winepress. ***

 * The story of Abimelech gives us some idea of what the Canaanite temple of Baal-Berīth at Shechem was like. 

 ** As to the regular organisation of Baal-worship, we possess only documents of a comparatively late period. 

 *** It is probable that the vintage festival, celebrated at Shiloh in the time of the Judges, dated back to a period of Canaanite history prior to the Hebrew invasion, i. E. To the time of the Egyptian supremacy. 

In times of extraordinary distress, such as a prolonged drought or afamine, the priests were wont to ascend in solemn procession to the highplaces in order to implore the pity of their divine masters, from whomthey strove to extort help, or to obtain the wished-for rain, by theirdances, their lamentations, and the shedding of their blood. *

 *Cf. , in the Hebraic period, the scene where the priests of Baal go up to the top of Mount Carmel with the prophet Elijah. 

Almost everywhere, but especially in the regions east of the Jordan, were monuments which popular piety surrounded with a superstitiousreverence. Such were the isolated boulders, or, as we should callthem, "menhirs, " reared on the summit of a knoll, or on the edge ofa tableland; dolmens, formed of a flat slab placed on the top of tworoughly hewn supports, cromlechs, or, that is to say, stone circles, inthe centre of which might be found a beth-el. We know not by whom wereset up these monuments there, nor at what time: the fact that theyare in no way different from those which are to be met with in WesternEurope and the north of Africa has given rise to the theory that theywere the work of some one primeval race which wandered ceaselesslyover the ancient world. A few of them may have marked the tombs ofsome forgotten personages, the discovery of human bones beneath themconfirming such a conjecture; while others seem to have been holy placesand altars from the beginning. The nations of Syria did not in all casesrecognise the original purpose of these monuments, but regarded them asmarking the seat of an ancient divinity, or the precise spot on which hehad at some time manifested himself. When the children of Israel caughtsight of them again on their return from Egypt, they at once recognisedin them the work of their patriarchs. The dolmen at Shechem was thealtar which Abraham had built to the Eternal after his arrival in thecountry of Canaan. Isaac had raised that at Beersheba, on the very spotwhere Jehovah had appeared in order to renew with him the covenant thatHe had made with Abraham. One might almost reconstruct a map of thewanderings of Jacob from the altars which he built at each of hisprincipal resting-places--at Gilead [Galeed], at Ephrata, at Bethel, andat Shechem. * Each of such still existing objects probably had a historyof its own, connecting it inseparably with some far-off event in thelocal annals. 

 * The heap of stones at Galeed, in Aramaic _Jegar- Sahadutha_, "the heap of witness, " marked the spot where Laban and Jacob were reconciled; the stele on the way to Ephrata was the tomb of Rachel; the altar and stele at Bethel marked the spot where God appeared unto Jacob. 

[Illustration: 235. Jpg TRANSJORDANIAN DOLMEN]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph. 

[Illustration: 238. Jpg A CROMLECH IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF HESBAN, IN THECOUNTRY OF MOAB]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph. 

Most of them were objects of worship: they were anointed with oil, andvictims were slaughtered in their honour; the faithful even came attimes to spend the night and sleep near them, in order to obtain intheir dreams glimpses of the future. *

 * The menhir of Bethel was the identical one whereon Jacob rested his head on the night in which Jehovah appeared to him in a dream. In Phoenicia there was a legend which told how Usōos set up two stellę to the elements of wind and fire, and how he offered the blood of the animals he had killed in the chase as a libation. 

Men and beasts were supposed to be animated, during their lifetime, bya breath or soul which ran in their veins along with their blood, andserved to move their limbs; the man, therefore, who drank blood or atebleeding flesh assimilated thereby the soul which inhered in it. Afterdeath the fate of this soul was similar to that ascribed to the spiritsof the departed in Egypt and Chaldęa. The inhabitants of the ancientworld were always accustomed to regard the surviving element in man assomething restless and unhappy--a weak and pitiable double, doomed tohopeless destruction if deprived of the succour of the living. They imagined it as taking up its abode near the body wrapped in ahalf-conscious lethargy; or else as dwelling with the other _rephaim_(departed spirits) in some dismal and gloomy kingdom, hidden in thebowels of the earth, like the region ruled by the Chaldęan Allāt, itsdoors gaping wide to engulf new arrivals, but allowing none to escapewho had once passed the threshold. *

 * The expression _rephaim_ means "the feeble"; it was the epithet applied by the Hebrews to a part of the primitive races of Palestine. 

There it wasted away, a prey to sullen melancholy, under the sway ofinexorable deities, chief amongst whom, according to the Phoenicianidea, was Mout (Death), * the grandson of El; there the slave became theequal of his former master, the rich man no longer possessed anythingwhich could raise him above the poor, and dreaded monarchs were greetedon their entrance by the jeers of kings who had gone down into the nightbefore them. 

 *Among the Hebrews his name was Maweth, who feeds the departed like sheep, and himself feeds on them in hell. Some writers have sought to identify this or some analogous god with the lion represented on a stele of Piraeus which threatens to devour the body of a dead man. 

[Illustration: 240. Jpg A CORNER OF THE PHOENICIAN NECKROPOLIS AT ADLUN]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph in Lortet. 

The corpse, after it had been anointed with perfumes and enveloped inlinen, and impregnated with substances which retarded its decomposition, was placed in some natural grotto or in a cave hollowed out of the solidrock: sometimes it was simply laid on the bare earth, sometimes in asarcophagus or coffin, and on it, or around it, were piled amulets, jewels, objects of daily use, vessels filled with perfume, or householdutensils, together with meat and drink. The entrance was then closed, and on the spot a cippus was erected--in popular estimation sometimesheld to represent the soul--or a monument was set up on a scaleproportionate to the importance of the family to which the dead man hadbelonged. * On certain days beasts ceremonially pure were sacrificed atthe tomb, and libations poured out, which, carried into the next worldby virtue of the prayers of those who offered them, and by the aid ofthe gods to whom the prayers were addressed, assuaged the hungerand thirst of the dead man. ** The chapels and stellę which marked theexterior of these "eternal"*** houses have disappeared in the courseof the various wars by which Syria suffered so heavily: in almost allcases, therefore, we are ignorant as to the sites of the various citiesof the dead in which the nobles and common people of the Canaanite andAmorite towns were laid to rest. ****

 * The pillar or stele was used among both Hebrews and Phoenicians to mark the graves of distinguished persons. Among the Semites speaking Aramaic it was called _nephesh_, especially when it took the form of a pyramid; the word means "breath, " "soul, " and clearly shows the ideas associated with the object. 

 ** An altar was sometimes placed in front of the sarcophagus to receive these offerings. 

 *** This expression, which is identical with that used by the Egyptians of the same period, is found in one of the Phoenician inscriptions at Malta. 

 **** The excavations carried out by M. Gautier in 1893-94, on the little island of Bahr-el-Kadis, at one time believed to have been the site of the town of Qodshu, have revealed the existence of a number of tombs in the enclosure which forms the central part of the tumulus: some of these may possibly date from the Amorite epoch, but they are very poor in remains, and contain no object which permits us to fix the date with accuracy. 

In Phoenicia alone do we meet with burial-places which, after thevicissitudes and upheavals of thirty centuries, still retain somethingof their original arrangement. Sometimes the site chosen was on levelground: perpendicular shafts or stairways cut in the soil led downto low-roofed chambers, the number of which varied according tocircumstances: they were often arranged in two stories, placed one abovethe other, fresh vaults being probably added as the old ones were filledup. They were usually rectangular in shape, with horizontal or slightlyarched ceilings; niches cut in the walls received the dead body and theobjects intended for its use in the next world, and were then closedwith a slab of stone. Elsewhere some isolated hill or narrow gorge, withsides of fine homogeneous limestone, was selected. *

 * Such was the necropolis at Adlūn, the last rearrangement of which took place during the Gręco-Roman period, but which externally bears so strong a resemblance to an Egyptian necropolis of the XVIIIth or XIXth dynasty, that we may, without violating the probabilities, trace its origin back to the time of the Pharaonic conquest. 

In this case the doors were placed in rows on a sort of faēade similarto that of the Egyptian rock-tomb, generally without any attempt atexternal ornament. The vaults were on the ground-level, but were notused as chapels for the celebration of festivals in honour of thedead: they were walled up after every funeral, and all access to themforbidden, until such time as they were again required for the purposesof burial. Except on these occasions of sad necessity, those whom "themouth of the pit had devoured" dreaded the visits of the living, andresorted to every means afforded by their religion to protect themselvesfrom them. Their inscriptions declare repeatedly that neither gold norsilver, nor any object which could excite the greed of robbers, was tobe found within their graves; they threaten any one who should dare todeprive them of such articles of little value as belonged to them, or toturn them out of their chambers in order to make room for others, withall sorts of vengeance, divine and human. These imprecations have not, however, availed to save them from the desecration the danger of whichthey foresaw, and there are few of their tombs which were not occupiedby a succession of tenants between the date of their first making andthe close of the Roman supremacy. When the modern explorer chances todiscover a vault which has escaped the spade of the treasure-seeker, it is hardly ever the case that the bodies whose remains are unearthedprove to be those of the original proprietors. 

[Illustration: 242. Jpg VALLEY OF THE TOMB OF THE KINGS]

[Illustration: 242-text. Jpg]

The gods and legends of Chaldęa had penetrated to the countries ofAmauru and Canaan, together with the language of the conquerors andtheir system of writing: the stories of Adapa's struggles against thesouth-west wind, or of the incidents which forced Irishkigal, queen ofthe dead, to wed Nergal, were accustomed to be read at the courtsof Syrian princes. Chaldęan theology, therefore, must have exercisedinfluence on individual Syrians and on their belief; but although weare forced to allow the existence of such influence, we cannot defineprecisely the effects produced by it. Only on the coast and in thePhoenician cities do the local religions seem to have become formulatedat a fairly early date, and crystallised under pressure of thisinfluence into cosmogonie theories. The Baalim and Astartźs reignedthere as on the banks of the Jordan or Orontes, and in each townBaal was "the most high, " master of heaven and eternity, creator ofeverything which exists, though the character of his creating acts wasvariously defined according to time and place. Some regarded him as thepersonification of Justice, Sydyk, who established the universe with thehelp of eight indefatigable Cabiri. Others held the whole world to bethe work of a divine family, whose successive generations gave birthto the various elements. The storm-wind, Colpias, wedded to Chaos, hadbegotten two mortals, Ulom (Time) and Kadmōn (the First-Born), and thesein their turn engendered Qźn and Qźnath, who dwelt in Phoenicia: thencame a drought, and they lifted up their heads to the Sun, imploringhim, as Lord of the Heavens (_Baalsamīn_), to put an end to their woes. At Tyre it was thought that Chaos existed at the beginning, but chaosof a dark and troubled nature, over which a Breath (_rūakh_) floatedwithout affecting it; "and this Chaos had no ending, and it was thus forcenturies and centuries. --Then the Breath became enamoured of its ownprinciples, and brought about a change in itself, and this change wascalled Desire:--now Desire was the principle which created all things, and the Breath knew not its own creation. --The Breath and Chaos, therefore, became united, and Mot the Clay was born, and from this claysprang all the seed of creation, and Mot was the father of all things;now Mot was like an egg in shape. --And the Sun, the Moon, the stars, the great planets, shone forth. * There were living beings devoid ofintelligence, and from these living beings came intelligent beings, who were called _Zophesamīn_, or 'watchers of the heavens. 'Now thethunder-claps in the war of separating elements awoke these intelligentbeings as it were from a sleep, and then the males and the females beganto stir themselves and to seek one another on the land and in the sea. "

 * Mot, the clay formed by the corruption of earth and water, is probably a Phoenician form of a word which means _water_ in the Semitic languages. Cf. The Egyptian theory, according to which the clay, heated by the sun, was supposed to have given birth to animated beings; this same clay modelled by Khnūmū into the form of an egg was supposed to have produced the heavens and the earth. 

A scholar of the Roman epoch, Philo of Byblos, using as a basis someold documents hidden away in the sanctuaries, which had apparently beenclassified by Sanchoniathon, a priest long before his time, has handedthese theories of the cosmogony down to us: after he has explained howthe world was brought out of Chaos, he gives a brief summary of the dawnof civilization in Phoenicia and the legendary period in its history. No doubt he interprets the writings from which he compiled his work inaccordance with the spirit of his time: he has none the less preservedtheir substance more or less faithfully. Beneath the veneer ofabstraction with which the Greek tongue and mind have overlaid thefragment thus quoted, we discern that groundwork of barbaric ideaswhich is to be met with in most Oriental theologies, whether Egyptianor Babylonian. At first we have a black mysterious Chaos, stagnatingin eternal waters, the primordial Nū or Apsū; then the slime whichprecipitates in this chaos and clots into the form of an egg, like themud of the Nile under the hand? of Khnūmū; then the hatching forth ofliving organisms and indolent generations of barely conscious creatures, such as the Lakhmū, the Anshar, and the Illinu of Chaldęan speculation;finally the abrupt appearance of intelligent beings. 

[Illustration: 246. Jpg]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original in the _Cabinet des Médailles_. 

The Phoenicians, however, accustomed as they were to the Mediterranean, with its blind outbursts of fury, had formed an idea of Chaos whichdiffered widely from that of most of the inland races, to whom itpresented itself as something silent and motionless: they imagined itas swept by a mighty wind, which, gradually increasing to a roaringtempest, at length succeeded in stirring the chaos to its very depths, and in fertilizing its elements amidst the fury of the storm. No soonerhad the earth been thus brought roughly into shape, than the wholefamily of the north winds swooped down upon it, and reduced it tocivilized order. It was but natural that the traditions of a seafaringrace should trace its descent from the winds. 

In Phoenicia the sea is everything: of land there is but just enoughto furnish a site for a score of towns, with their surrounding beltof gardens. Mount Lebanon, with its impenetrable forests, isolated italmost entirely from Coele-Syria, and acted as the eastward boundary ofthe long narrow quadrangle hemmed in between the mountains and the rockyshore of the sea. At frequent intervals, spurs run out at right anglesfrom the principal chain, forming steep headlands on the sea-front:these cut up the country, small to begin with, into five or six stillsmaller provinces, each one of which possessed from time immemorial itsown independent cities, its own religion, and its own national history. To the north were the Zahi, a race half sailors, half husbandmen, rich, brave, and turbulent, ever ready to give battle to their neighbours, or rebel against an alien master, be he who he might. Arvad, * which wasused by them as a sort of stronghold or sanctuary, was huddled togetheron an island some two miles from the coast: it was only about a thousandyards in circumference, and the houses, as though to make up for thelimited space available for their foundations, rose to a height of fivestories. An Astartź reigned there, as also a sea-Baal, half man, halffish, but not a trace of a temple or royal palace is now to be found. **

 * The name Arvad was identified in the Egyptian inscriptions by Birch, who, with Hincks, at first saw in the name a reference to the peoples of Ararat; Birch's identification, is now accepted by all Egyptologists. The name is written Aruada or Arada in the Tel el-Amarna tablets. 

 ** The Arvad Astartź had been identified by the Egyptians with their goddess Bastīt. The sea-Baal, who has been connected by some with Dagon of Askalon, is represented on the earliest Arvadian coins. He has a fish-like tail, the body and bearded head of a man, with an Assyrian headdress; on his breast we sometimes find a circular opening which seems to show the entrails. 

The whole island was surrounded by a stone wall, built on the outermostledges of the rocks, which were levelled to form its foundation. Thecourses of the masonry were irregular, laid without cement or mortar ofany kind. This bold piece of engineering served the double purpose ofsea-wall and rampart, and was thus fitted to withstand alike the onsetof hostile fleets and the surges of the Mediterranean. *

 * The antiquity of the wall of Arvad, recognised by travellers of the last century, is now universally admitted by all archęologists. 

[Illustration: 248. Jpg]

There was no potable water on the island, and for drinking purposes theinhabitants were obliged to rely on the fall of rain, which they storedin cisterns--still in use among their descendants. In the event ofprolonged drought they were obliged to send to the mainland opposite; intime of war they had recourse to a submarine spring, which bubbles upin mid-channel. Their divers let down a leaden bell, to the top of whichwas fitted a leathern pipe, and applied it to the orifice of the spring;the fresh water coming up through the sand was collected in this bell, and rising in the pipe, reached the surface uncontaminated by saltwater. *

 * Renan tells us that "M. Gaillardot, when crossing from the island to the mainland, noticed a spring of sweet water bubbling up from the bottom of the sea.... Thomson and Walpole noticed the same spring or similar springs a little to the north of Tortosa. "

[Illustration: 249. Jpg Page Image]

The harbour opened to the east, facing the mainland: it was dividedinto two basins by a stone jetty, and was doubtless insufficient forthe sea-traffic, but this was the less felt inasmuch as there was a safeanchorage outside it--the best, perhaps, to be found in these waters. Opposite to Arvad, on an almost continuous line of coast some ten ortwelve miles in length, towns and villages occurred at short intervals, such as Marath, Antarados, Enhydra, and Karnź, into which the surpluspopulation of the island overflowed. Karnź possessed a harbour, and would have been a dangerous neighbour to the Arvadians had theythemselves not occupied and carefully fortified it. *

 * Marath, now Amrīt, possesses some ancient ruins which have been described by Renan. Antarados, which prior to the Gręco-Roman era was a place of no importance, occupies the site of Tortosa. Enhydra is not known, and Karnź has been replaced by Karnūn to the north of Tortosa. None of the "neighbours of Arados" are mentioned by name in the Assyrian texts; but W. Max Müller has demonstrated that the Egyptian form _Aratūt_ or _Aratiūt_ corresponds with a Semitic plural _Arvadōt_, and consequently refers not only to Arad itself, but also to the fortified cities and towns which formed its continental suburbs. 

The cities of the dead lay close together in the background, on theslope of the nearest chain of hills; still further back lay a plaincelebrated for its fertility and the luxuriance of its verdure: Lebanon, with its wooded peaks, was shut in on the north and south, but on theeast the mountain sloped downwards almost to the sea-level, furnishing apass through which ran the road which joined the great military highwaynot far from Qodshu. The influence of Arvad penetrated by means of thispass into the valley of the Orontes, and is believed to have graduallyextended as far as Hamath itself--in other words, over the whole ofZahi. For the most part, however, its rule was confined to the coastbetween G-abala and the Nahr el-Kebīr; Simyra at one time acknowledgedits suzerainty, at another became a self-supporting and independentstate, strong enough to compel the respect of its neighbours. * Beyondthe Orontes, the coast curves abruptly inward towards the west, and agroup of wind-swept hills ending in a promontory called Phaniel, ** thereputed scene of a divine manifestation, marked the extreme limit ofArabian influence to the north, if, indeed, it ever reached so far. 

 * Simyra is the modern Surnrah, near the Nahr el-Kebīr. 

 ** The name has only come down to us under its Greek form, but its original form, Phaniel or Penūel, is easily arrived at from the analogous name used in Canaan to indicate localities where there had been a theophany. Renan questions whether Phaniel ought not to be taken in the same sense as the Pnź-Baal of the Carthaginian inscriptions, and applied to a goddess to whom the promontory had been dedicated; he also suggests that the modern name _Cap Madonne_ may be a kind of echo of the title _Rabbath_ borne by this goddess from the earliest times. 

Half a dozen obscure cities flourished here, Arka, * Siani, ** Mahallat, Kaiz, Maīza, and Botrys, *** some of them on the seaboard, others inlandon the bend of some minor stream. Botrys, **** the last of the six, barred the roads which cross the Phaniel headland, and commanded theentrance to the holy ground where Byblos and Berytus celebrated eachyear the amorous mysteries of Adonis. 

 * Arka is perhaps referred to in the tablets of Tel el- Amarna under the form Irkata or Irkat; it also appears in the Bible (Gen. X. 17) and in the Assyrian texts. It is the Cassarea of classical geographers, which has now resumed its old Phoenician name of Tell-Arka. 

 ** Sianu or Siani is mentioned in the Assyrian texts and in the Bible; Strabo knew it under the name of Sinna, and a village near Arka was called Sin or Syn as late as the XVth century. 

 *** According to the Assyrian inscriptions, these were the names of the three towns which formed the Tripolis of Gręco-Roman times. 

 **** Botrys is the hellenized form of the name Bozruna or Bozrun, which appears on the tablets of Tel el-Amarna; the modern name, Butrun or Batrun, preserves the final letter which the Greeks had dropped. 

Gublu, or--as the Greeks named it--Byblos, * prided itself on being themost ancient city in the world. The god El had founded it at the dawningof time, on the flank of a hill which is visible from some distanceout at sea. A small bay, now filled up, made it an important shippingcentre. The temple stood on the top of the hill, a few fragments of itswalls still serving to mark the site; it was, perhaps, identical withthat of which we find the plan engraved on certain imperial coins. **

 * _Gublu_ or _Gubli_ is the pronunciation indicated for this name in the Tel el-Amarna tablets; the Egyptians transcribed it _Kupuna_ or _Kupna_ by substituting _n_ for _l_. The Greek name Byblos was obtained from Gublu by substituting a _b_ for the _g_. 

 ** Renan carried out excavations in the hill of Kassubah which brought to light some remains of a Gręco-Roman temple: he puts forward, subject to correction, the hypothesis which I have adopted above. 

Two flights of steps led up to it from the lower quarters of the town, one of which gave access to a chapel in the Greek style, surmounted bya triangular pediment, and dating, at the earliest, from the time of theSeleucides; the other terminated in a long colonnade, belonging to thesame period, added as a new faēade to an earlier building, apparently inorder to bring it abreast of more modern requirements. 

[Illustration: 252. Jpg]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original in the _Cabinet des Médailles_. 

The sanctuary which stands hidden behind this incongruous veneer is, asrepresented on the coins, in a very archaic style, and is by no meanswanting in originality or dignity. It consists of a vast rectangularcourt surrounded by cloisters. At the point where lines drawn from thecentres of the two doors seem to cross one another stands a conicalstone mounted on a cube of masonry, which is the beth-el animated bythe spirit of the god: an open-work balustrade surrounds and protects itfrom the touch of the profane. The building was perhaps not earlierthan the Assyrian or Persian era, but in its general plan it evidentlyreproduced the arrangements of some former edifice. *

 * The author of the _De Deā Syrā_ classed the temple of Byblos among the Phoenician temples of the old order, which were almost as ancient as the temples of Egypt, and it is probable that from the Egyptian epoch onwards the plan of this temple must have been that shown on the coins; the cloister arcades ought, however, to be represented by pillars or by columns supporting architraves, and the fact of their presence leads me to the conclusion that the temple did not exist in the form known to us at a date earlier than the last Assyrian period. 

At an early time El was spoken of as the first king of G-ablu in thesame manner as each one of his Egyptian fellow-gods had been in theirseveral nomes, and the story of his exploits formed the inevitableprelude to the beginning of human history. Grandson of Eliūn who hadbrought Chaos into order, son of Heaven and Earth, he dispossessed, vanquished, and mutilated his father, and conquered the most distantregions one after another--the countries beyond the Euphrates, Libya, Asia Minor and Greece: one year, when the plague was ravaging hisempire, he burnt his own son on the altar as an expiatory victim, andfrom that time forward the priests took advantage of his exampleto demand the sacrifice of children in moments of public danger orcalamity. 

[Illustration: 253. Jpg]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original in the _Cabinet des Médailles_. 

He was represented as a man with two faces, whose eyes opened and shutin an eternal alternation of vigilance and repose: six wings grew fromhis shoulders, and spread fan-like around him. He was the incarnation oftime, which destroys all things in its rapid flight; and of the summersun, cruel and fateful, which eats up the green grass and parches thefields. An Astartź reigned with him over Byblos--Baalat-Gublu, his ownsister; like him, the child of Earth and Heaven. In one of her aspectsshe was identified with the moon, the personification of coldnessand chastity, and in her statues or on her sacred pillars she wasrepresented with the crescent or cow-horns of the Egyptian Hāthor; butin her other aspect she appeared as the amorous and wanton goddess inwhom the Greeks recognised the popular concept of Aphroditź. Traditiontells us how, one spring morning, she caught sight of and desired theyouthful god known by the title of _Adoni_, or "My Lord. " We scarce knowwhat to make of the origin of Adonis, and of the legends which treat himas a hero--the representation of him as the incestuous offspring ofa certain King Kinyras and his own daughter Myrrha is a comparativelyrecent element grafted on the original myth; at any rate, the happinessof two lovers had lasted but a few short weeks when a sudden end was putto it by the tusks of a monstrous wild boar. Baalat-Gublu wept over herlover's body and buried it; then her grief triumphed over death, andAdonis, ransomed by her tears, rose from the tomb, his love no whit lesspassionate than it had been before the catastrophe. This is nothing elsethan the Chaldęan legend of Ishtar and Dūmūzi presented in a form morefully symbolical of the yearly marriage of Earth and Heaven. Like theLady of Byblos at her master's approach, Earth is thrilled by the firstbreath of spring, and abandons herself without shame to the caresses ofHeaven: she welcomes him to her arms, is fructified by him, and poursforth the abundance of her flowers and fruits. Them comes summer andkills the spring: Earth is burnt up and withers, she strips herselfof her ornaments, and her fruitfulness departs till the gloom and icynumbness of winter have passed away. Each year the cycle of the seasonsbrings back with it the same joy, the same despair, into the life ofthe world; each year Baalat falls in love with her Adonis and loses him, only to bring him back to life and lose him again in the coming year. 

The whole neighbourhood of Byblos, and that part of Mount Lebanon inwhich it lies, were steeped in memories of this legend from the veryearliest times. We know the precise spot where the goddess first caughtsight of her lover, where she unveiled herself before him, and where atthe last she buried his mutilated body, and chanted her lament for thedead. A river which flows southward not far off was called the Adonis, and the valley watered by it was supposed to have been the scene of thistragic idyll. The Adonis rises near Aphaka, * at the base of a narrowamphitheatre, issuing from the entrance of an irregular grotto, thenatural shape of which had, at some remote period, been altered by thehand of man; in three cascades it bounds into a sort of circular basin, where it gathers to itself the waters of the neighbouring springs, thenit dashes onwards under the single arch of a Roman bridge, and descendsin a series of waterfalls to the level of the valley below. 

 * Aphaka means "spring" in Syriac. The site of the temple and town of Aphaka, where a temple of Aphroditź and Adonis still stood in the time of the Emperor Julian, had long been identified either with Fakra, or with El-Yamuni. Seetzen was the first to place it at El-Afka, and his proposed identification has been amply confirmed by the researches of Penan. 

[Illustration: 256. Jpg VALLEY OF THE ADONIS]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph. 

[Illustration: 256a. Jpg THE AMPHITHEATRE OF APHAKA AND THE SOURCE OF THENAHH-IBRAHIM]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph. 

The temple rises opposite the source of the stream on an artificialmound, a meteorite fallen from heaven having attracted the attention ofthe faithful to the spot. The mountain falls abruptly away, its summitpresenting a red and bare appearance, owing to the alternate actionof summer sun and winter frost. As the slopes approach the valley theybecome clothed with a garb of wild vegetation, which bursts forth fromevery fissure, and finds a foothold on every projecting rock: the baseof the mountain is hidden in a tangled mass of glowing green, which themoist yet sunny Spring calls forth in abundance whenever the slopes arenot too steep to retain a shallow layer of nourishing mould. It wouldbe hard to find, even among the most picturesque spots of Europe, alandscape in which wildness and beauty are more happily combined, orwhere the mildness of the air and sparkling coolness of the streamsoffer a more perfect setting for the ceremonies attending the worship ofAstartź. *

 * The temple had been rebuilt during the Roman period, as were nearly all the temples of this region, upon the site of a more ancient structure; this was probably the edifice which the author of _De Deā Syrā_ considered to be the temple of Venus, built by Kinyras within a day's journey of Byblos in the Lebanon. 

In the basin of the river and of the torrents by which it is fed, thereappears a succession of charming and romantic scenes--gaping chasmswith precipitous ochre-coloured walls; narrow fields laid out interraces on the slopes, or stretching in emerald strips along theruddy river-banks; orchards thick with almond and walnut trees; sacredgrottoes, into which the priestesses, seated at the corner of the roads, endeavour to draw the pilgrims as they proceed on their way to maketheir prayers to the goddess;* sanctuaries and mausolea of Adonis atYanukh, on the table-land of Mashnaka, and on the heights of Ghineh. According to the common belief, the actual tomb of Adonis was to befound at Byblos itself, ** where the people were accustomed to assembletwice a year to keep his festivals, which lasted for several daystogether. 

 * Renan points out at Byblos the existence of one of these caverns which gave shelter to the _kedeshoth_. Many of the caves met with in the valley of the Nahr-Ibrahīm have doubtless served for the same purpose, although their walls contain no marks of the cult. 

 ** Melito placed it, however, near Aphaka, and, indeed, there must have been as many different traditions on the subject as there were celebrated sanctuaries. 

At the summer solstice, the season when the wild boar had ripped openthe divine hunter, and the summer had already done damage to the spring, the priests were accustomed to prepare a painted wooden image of acorpse made ready for burial, which they hid in what were called thegardens of Adonis--terra-cotta pots filled with earth in which wheat andbarley, lettuce and fennel, were sown. These were set out at the door ofeach house, or in the courts of the temple, where the sprouting plantshad to endure the scorching effect of the sun, and soon withered away. For several days troops of women and young girls, with their headsdishevelled or shorn, their garments in rags, their faces torn withtheir nails, their breasts and arms scarified with knives, went aboutover hill and dale in search of their idol, giving utterance to cries ofdespair, and to endless appeals: "Ah, Lord! Ah, Lord! what is become ofthy beauty. " Once having found the image, they brought it to the feetof the goddess, washed it while displaying its wound, anointed it withsweet-smelling unguents, wrapped it in a linen and woollen shroud, placed it on a catafalque, and, after expressing around the bier theirfeelings of desolation, according to the rites observed at fanerais, placed it solemnly in the tomb. *

 * Theocritus has described in his fifth Idyll the laying out and burial of Adonis as it was practised at Alexandria in Egypt in the IIIrd century before our era. 

The close and dreary summer passes away. With the first days ofSeptember the autumnal rains begin to fall upon the hills, and washingaway the ochreous earth lying upon the slopes, descend in muddy torrentsinto the hollows of the valleys. The Adonis river begins to swell withthe ruddy waters, which, on reaching the sea, do not readily blend withit. The wind from the offing drives the river water back upon the coast, and forces it to cling for a long time to the shore, where it forms akind of crimson fringe. * This was the blood of the hero, and the sightof this precious stream stirred up anew the devotion of the people, whodonned once more their weeds of mourning until the priests were ableto announce to them that, by virtue of their supplications, Adonis wasbrought back from the shades into new life. Shouts of joy immediatelybroke forth, and the people who had lately sympathized with the mourninggoddess in her tears and cries of sorrow, now joined with her inexpressions of mad and amorous delight. Wives and virgins--all thewomen who had refused during the week of mourning to make a sacrifice oftheir hair--were obliged to atone for this fault by putting themselvesat the disposal of the strangers whom the festival had brought together, the reward of their service becoming the property of the sacredtreasury. **

 * The same phenomenon occurs in spring. Maundrell saw it on March 17, and Renan in the first days of February. 

 ** A similar usage was found in later times in the countries colonised by or subjected to the influence of the Phoenicians, especially in Cyprus. 

Berytus shared with Byblos the glory of having had El for its founder. *The road which connects these two cities makes a lengthy detour in itscourse along the coast, having to cross numberless ravines and rockysummits: before reaching Palai-Byblos, it passes over a headland by aseries of steps cut into the rock, forming a kind of "ladder" similarto that which is encountered lower down, between Acre and the plains ofTyre. 

 * The name Berytus was found by Hincks in the Egyptian texts under the form. Bīrutu, Beīrutu; it occurs frequently in the Tel el-Amarna tablets. 

The river Lykos runs like a kind of natural fosse along the base ofthis steep headland. It forms at the present time a torrent, fed bythe melting snows of Mount Sannin, and is entirely unnavigable. It wasbetter circumstanced formerly in this respect, and even in the earlyyears of the Boman conquest, sailors from Arvad (Arados) were accustomedto sail up it as far as one of the passes of the lower Lebanon, leadinginto Cole-Syria. Berytus was installed at the base of a great headlandwhich stands out boldly into the sea, and forms the most strikingpromontory to be met with in these regions from Carmel to the vicinityof Arvad. The port is nothing but an open creek with a petty roadstead, but it has the advantage of a good supply of fresh water, which poursdown from the numerous springs to which it is indebted for its name. *According to ancient legends, it was given by El to one of his offspringcalled Poseidon by the Greeks. 

 * The name Beyrut has been often derived from a Phconician word signifying _cypress_, and which may have been applied to the pine tree. The Phoenicians themselves derived it from Bīr, "wells. "

Adonis desired to take possession of it, but was frustrated in theattempt, and the maritime Baal secured the permanence of his rule bymarrying one of his sisters--the Baalat-Beyrut who is represented as anymph on Gręco-Roman coins. * The rule of the city extended as faras the banks of the Tamur, and an old legend narrates that its patronfought in ancient times with the deity of that river, hurling stones athim to prevent his becoming master of the land to the north. Thebar formed of shingle and the dunes which contract the entrance wereregarded as evidences of this conflict. **

 * The poet Nonnus has preserved a highly embellished account of this rivalry, where Adonis is called Dionysos. 

 ** The original name appears to have been Tamur, Tamyr, from a word signifying "palm" in the Phoenician language. The myth of the conflict between Poseidon and the god of the river, a Baal-Demarous, has been explained by Renan, who accepts the identification of the river-deity with Baal- Thamar, already mentioned by Movers. 

Beyond the southern bank of the river, Sidon sits enthroned as "thefirstborn of Canaan. " In spite of this ambitious title it was at firstnothing but a poor fishing village founded by Bel, the Agenor of theGreeks, on the southern slope of a spit of land which juts out obliquelytowards the south-west. * It grew from year to year, spreading out overthe plain, and became at length one of the most prosperous of the chiefcities of the country--a "mother" in Phoenicia. **

 * Sidon is called "the firstborn of Canaan" in Genesis: the name means a fishing-place, as the classical authors already knew--"nam piscem Phonices _sidōn_ appellant. "

 ** In the coins of classic times it is called "Sidon, the mother--_Om_--of Kambe, Hippo, Citium, and Tyre. "

The port, once so celebrated, is shut in by three chains of half-sunkenreefs, which, running out from the northern end of the peninsula, continue parallel to the coast for some hundreds of yards: narrowpassages in these reefs afford access to the harbour; one small island, which is always above water, occupies the centre of this natural dykeof rocks, and furnishes a site for a maritime quarter opposite to thecontinental city. * The necropolis on the mainland extends to the eastand north, and consists of an irregular series of excavations made in alow line of limestone cliffs which must have been lashed by the wavesof the Mediterranean long prior to the beginning of history. These tombsare crowded closely together, ramifying into an inextricable maze, andare separated from each other by such thin walls that one expects everymoment to see them give way, and bury the visitors in the ruin. Manydate back to a very early period, while all of them have been re-workedand re-appropriated over and over again. The latest occupiers werecontemporaries of the Macedonian kings or the Roman Cęsars. Space waslimited and costly in this region of the dead: the Sidonians made thebest use they could of the tombs, burying in them again and again, asthe Egyptians were accustomed to do in their cemeteries at Thebes andMemphis. The surrounding plain is watered by the "pleasant Bostrźnos, "and is covered with gardens which are reckoned to be the most beautifulin all Syria--at least after those of Damascus: their praises were sungeven in ancient days, and they had then earned for the city the epithetof "the flowery Sidon. "**

 * The only description of the port which we possess is that in the romance of Olitophon and Leucippus by Achilles Tatius. 

 ** The Bostrźnos, which is perhaps to be recognised under the form Borinos in the Periplus of Scylax, is the modern Nahr el-Awaly. 

Here, also, an Astartź ruled over the destinies of the people, but achaste and immaculate Astartź, a self-restrained and warlike virgin, sometimes identified with the moon, sometimes with the pale and frigidmorning star. * In addition to this goddess, the inhabitants worshippeda Baal-Sidon, and other divinities of milder character--an AstartźShem-Baal, wife of the supreme Baal, and Eshmun, a god of medicine--eachof whom had his own particular temple either in the town itself or insome neighbouring village in the mountain. Baal delighted in travel, andwas accustomed to be drawn in a chariot through the valleys of Phoeniciain order to receive the prayers and offerings of his devotees. Theimmodest Astartź, excluded, it would seem, from the official religion, had her claims acknowledged in the cult offered to her by the people, but she became the subject of no poetic or dolorous legend like hernamesake at Byblos, and there was no attempt to disguise her innatelycoarse character by throwing over it a garb of sentiment. She possessedin the suburbs her chapels and grottoes, hollowed out in the hillsides, where she was served by the usual crowd of _Ephébę_ and sacredcourtesans. Some half-dozen towns or fortified villages, such asBitzīti, ** the Lesser Sidon, and Sarepta, were scattered along theshore, or on the lowest slopes of the Lebanon. 

 * Astartź is represented in the Bible as the goddess of the Sidonians, and she is in fact the object of the invocations addressed to the mistress Deity in the Sidonian inscriptions, the patroness of the town. Kings and queens were her priests and priestesses respectively. 

 ** Bitzīti is not mentioned except in the Assyrian texts, and has been identified with the modern region Ait ez-Zeītūn to the south-east of Sidon. It is very probably the Elaia of Philo of Byblos, the Biais of Dionysios Periegetes, which Renan is inclined to identify with Heldua, Khan-Khaldi, by substituting Eldis as a correction. 

Sidonian territory reached its limit at the Cape of Sarepta, where thehigh-lands again meet the sea at the boundary of one of those basinsinto which Phoenicia is divided. Passing beyond this cape, we come firstupon a Tyrian outpost, the Town of Birds;* then upon the village ofNazana** with its river of the same name; beyond this upon a plainhemmed in by low hills, cultivated to their summits; then on tombs andgardens in the suburbs of Autu;*** and, further still, to a fleet ofboats moored at a short distance from the shore, where a group of reefsand islands furnishes at one and the same time a site for the houses andtemples of Tyre, and a protection from its foes. 

 * The Phoenician name of Ornithōnpolis is unknown to us: the town is often mentioned by the geographers of classic times, but with certain differences, some placing it to the north and others to the south of Sarepta. It was near to the site of Adlun, the Adnonum of the Latin itineraries, if it was not actually the same place. 

 ** Nazana was both the name of the place and the river, as Kasimīyeh and Khan Kasimīyeh, near the same locality, are to-day. 

 *** Autu was identified by Brugsch with Avatha, which is probably El-Awwātīn, on the hill facing Tyre. Max Müller, who reads the word as Authu, Ozu, prefers the Uru or Ushu of the Assyrian texts. 

It was already an ancient town at the beginning of the Egyptianconquest. As in other places of ancient date, the inhabitants rejoicedin stories of the origin of things in which the city figured as the mostvenerable in the world. After the period of the creating gods, therefollowed immediately, according to the current legends, two or threegenerations of minor deities--heroes of light and flame--who had learnedhow to subdue fire and turn it to their needs; then a race of giants, associated with the giant peaks of Kasios, Lebanon, Hermon, and Brathy;*after which were born two male children--twins: Samem-rum, the lord ofthe supernal heaven, and Usōos, the hunter. Human beings at this timelived a savage life, wandering through the woods, and given up toshameful vices. 

 * The identification of the peak of Brathy is uncertain. The name has been associated with Tabor: since it exactly recalls the name of the cypress and of Berytus, it would be more prudent, perhaps, to look for the name in that of one of the peaks of the Lebanon near the latter town. 

[Illustration: 267. Jpg THE AMBROSIAN ROCKS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original in the _Cabinet des Médailles_. 

Samemrum took up his abode among them in that region which becamein later times the Tyrian coast, and showed them how to build huts, papyrus, or other reeds: Usōos in the mean time pursued the avocationof a hunter of wild beasts, living upon their flesh and clothinghimself with their skins. A conflict at length broke out between the twobrothers, the inevitable result of rivalry between the ever-wanderinghunter and the husbandman attached to the soil. 

Usōos succeeded in holding his own till the day when fire and wind tookthe part of his enemy against him. * The trees, shaken and made to rubagainst each other by the tempest, broke into flame from the friction, and the forest was set on fire. Usōos, seizing a leafy branch, despoiledit of its foliage, and placing it in the water let it drift out to sea, bearing him, the first of his race, with it. 

 * The text simply states the material facts, the tempest and the fire: the general movement of the narrative seems to prove that the intervention of these elements is an episode in the quarrel between the two brothers--that in which Usōos is forced to fly from the region civilized by Samemrum. 

Landing on one of the islands, he set up two menhirs, dedicating them tofire and wind that he might thenceforward gain their favour. He pouredout at their base the blood of animals he had slaughtered, and afterhis death, his companions continued to perform the rites which he hadinaugurated. 

[Illustration: 268. Jpg]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original in the _Cabinet des Médailles_. 

The town which he had begun to build on the sea-girt isle was calledTyre, the "Rock, " and the two rough stones which he had set up remainedfor a long time as a sort of talisman, bringing good luck to itsinhabitants. It was asserted of old that the island had not always beenfixed, but that it rose and fell, with the waves like a raft. Two peakslooked down upon it--the "Ambrosian Rocks"--between which grew the olivetree of Astartź, sheltered by a curtain of flame from external danger. An eagle perched thereon watched over a viper coiled round the trunk:the whole island would cease to float as soon as a mortal should succeedin sacrificing the bird in honour of the gods. Usōos, the Herakles, destroyer of monsters, taught the people of the coast how to buildboats, and how to manage them; he then made for the island anddisembarked: the bird offered himself spontaneously to his knife, andas soon as its blood had moistened the earth, Tyre rooted itself fixedlyopposite the mainland. Coins of the Roman period represent the chiefelements in this legend; sometimes the eagle and olive tree, sometimesthe olive tree and the stelo, and sometimes the two stelę only. Fromthis time forward the gods never ceased to reside on the holy island;Astartź herself was born there, and one of the temples there showed tothe admiration of the faithful a fallen star--an aerolite which she hadbrought back from one of her journeys. 

[Illustration: 269. Jpg TYRE AND ITS SUBURBS ON THE MAINLAND]

Baal was called the Melkarth. King of the city, and the Greeks after»wards identified him with their Herakles. His worship was of a severeand exacting character: a fire burned perpetually in his sanctuary; hispriests, like those of the Egyptians, had their heads shaved; they woregarments of spotless white linen, held pork in abomination, and refusedpermission to married women to approach the altars. *

 * The worship of Melkarth at Gados (Cadiz) and the functions of his priests are described by Silius Italicus: as Gades was a Tyrian colony, it has been naturally assumed that the main features of the religion of Tyre were reproduced there, and Silius's account of the Melkarth of Gades thus applies to his namesake of the mother city. 

Festivals, similar to those of Adonis at Byblos, were held in his honourtwice a year: in the summer, when the sun burnt up the earth with hisglowing heat, he offered himself as an expiatory victim to the solarorb, giving himself to the flames in order to obtain some mitigationof the severity of the sky;* once the winter had brought with it arefreshing coolness, he came back to life again, and his return wascelebrated with great joy. His temple stood in a prominent place on thelargest of the islands furthest away from the mainland. It served toremind the people of the remoteness of their origin, for the priestsrelegated its foundation almost to the period of the arrival of thePhoenicians on the shores of the Mediterranean. The town had no supplyof fresh water, and there was no submarine spring like that of Arvad toprovide a resource in time of necessity; the inhabitants had, therefore, to resort to springs which were fortunately to be found everywhere onthe hillsides of the mainland. The waters of the well of Eas el-Aīnhad been led down to the shore and dammed up there, so that boats couldprocure a ready supply from this source in time of peace: in time of warthe inhabitants of Tyre had to trust to the cisterns in which they hadcollected the rains that fell at certain seasons. **

 * The festival commemorating his death by fire was celebrated at Tyre, where his tomb was shown, and in the greater number of the Tyrian colonies. 

 ** Abisharri (Abimilki), King of Tyre, confesses to the Pharaoh Amenōthes III. That in case of a siege his town would neither have water nor wood. Aqueducts and conduits of water are spoken of by Menander as existing in the time of Shalmaneser; all modern historians agree in attributing their construction to a very remote antiquity. 

The strait separating the island from the mainland was some six or sevenhundred yards in breadth, * less than that of the Nile at several pointsof its course through Middle Egypt, but it was as effective as a broaderchannel to stop the movement of an army: a fleet alone would havea chance of taking the city by surprise, or of capturing it after alengthened siege. 

 * According to the writers who were contemporary with Alexander, the strait was 4 stadia wide (nearly 1/2 mile), or 500 paces (about 3/8 mile), at the period when the Macedonians undertook the siege of the town; the author followed by Pliny says 700 paces, possibly over--mile wide. From the observations of Poulain de Bossay, Renan thinks the space between the island and the mainland might be nearly a mile in width, but we should perhaps do well to reduce this higher figure and adopt one agreeing better with the statements of Diodorus and Quintus Curtius. 

Like the coast region opposite Arvad, the shore which faced Tyre, lyingbetween the mouth of the Litany and ras el-Aīn, was an actual suburbof the city itself--with its gardens, its cultivated fields, itscemeteries, its villas, and its fortifications. Here the inhabitants ofthe island were accustomed to bury their dead, and hither they repairedfor refreshment during the heat of the summer. To the north the littletown of Mahalliba, on the southern bank of the Litāny, and almost hiddenfrom view by a turn in the hills, commanded the approaches to the Bekaa, and the high-road to Coele-Syria. * To the south, at Ras el-Aīn, Old Tyre(Palastyrus) looked down upon the route leading into Galilee by way ofthe mountains. **

 * Mahalliba is the present Khurbet-Mahallib. 

 ** Palrotyrus has often been considered as a Tyre on the mainland of greater antiquity than the town of the same name on the island; it is now generally admitted that it was merely an outpost, which is conjecturally placed by most scholars in the neighbourhood of Ras el-Aīn. 

Eastwards Autu commanded the landing-places on the shore, and served toprotect the reservoirs; it lay under the shadow of a rock, on which wasbuilt, facing the insular temple of Melkarth, protector of mariners, a sanctuary of almost equal antiquity dedicated to his namesake of themainland. * The latter divinity was probably the representative of thelegendary Samemrum, who had built his village on the coast, while Usōoshad founded his on the ocean. He was the Baalsamīm of starry tunic, lordof heaven and king of the sun. 

 * If the name has been preserved, as I believe it to be, in that of El-Awwātīn, the town must be that whose ruins we find at the foot of Tell-Mashūk, and which are often mistaken for those of Palastyrus. The temple on the summit of the Tell was probably that of Heracles Astrochitōn mentioned by Nonnus. 

As was customary, a popular Astartź was associated with these deities ofhigh degree, and tradition asserted that Melkarth purchased her favourby the gift of the first robe of Tyrian purple which was ever dyed. Priestesses of the goddess had dwellings in all parts of the plain, andin several places the caves are still pointed out where they entertainedthe devotees of the goddess. Behind Autu the ground rises abruptly, andalong the face of the escarpment, half hidden by trees and brushwood, are the remains of the most important of the Tyrian burying-places, consisting of half-filled-up pits, isolated caves, and dark galleries, where whole families lie together in their last sleep. In some spots thechalky mass has been literally honeycombed by the quarrying gravedigger, and regular lines of chambers follow one another in the direction ofthe strata, after the fashion of the rock-cut tombs of Upper Egypt. They present a bare and dismal appearance both within and without. Theentrances are narrow and arched, the ceilings low, the walls bare andcolourless, unrelieved by moulding, picture, or inscription. At oneplace only, near the modern village of Hanaweh, a few groups of figuresand coarsely cut stelae are to be found, indicating, it would seem, theburying-place of some chief of very early times. 

[Illustration: 273. Jpg THE SCULPTURED ROCKS OF HANAWEH]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Lortet. 

These figures run in parallel lines along the rocky sides of a wildravine. They vary from 2 feet 6 inches to 3 feet in height, the bodiesbeing represented by rectangular pilasters, sometimes merely rough-hewn, at others grooved with curved lines to suggest the folds of the Asiaticgarments; the head is carved full face, though the eyes are given inprofile, and the summary treatment of the modelling gives evidence ofa certain skill. Whether they are to be regarded as the product of aprimitive Amorite art or of a school of Phoenician craftsmen, we areunable to determine. In the time of their prosperity the Tyrianscertainly pushed their frontier as far as this region. The wind-sweptbut fertile country lying among the ramifications of the lowest spurs ofthe Lebanon bears to this day innumerable traces of their indefatigableindustry--remains of dwellings, conduits and watercourses, cisterns, pits, millstones and vintage-troughs, are scattered over the fields, interspersed with oil and wine presses. The Phoenicians took naturallyto agriculture, and carried it to such a high state of perfection asto make it an actual science, to which the neighbouring peoples of theMediterranean were glad to accommodate their modes of culture in latertimes. *

 * Their taste for agriculture, and the comparative perfection of their modes of culture, are proved by the greatness of the remains still to be observed: "The Phoenicians constructed a winepress, a trough, to last for ever. " Their colonists at Carthage carried with them the same clever methods, and the Romans borrowed many excellent things in the way of agriculture from Carthaginian books, especially from those of Mago. 

Among no other people was the art of irrigation so successfullypractised, and from such a narrow strip of territory as belonged to themno other cultivators could have gathered such abundant harvests of wheatand barley, and such supplies of grapes, olives, and other fruits. FromArvad to Tyre, and even beyond it, the littoral region and the centralparts of the valleys presented a long ribbon of verdure of varyingbreadth, where fields of corn were blended with gardens and orchards andshady woods. The whole region was independent and self-supporting, theinhabitants having no need to address themselves to their neighbours inthe interior, or to send their children to seek their fortune in distantlands. To insure prosperity, nothing was needed but a slight exercise oflabour and freedom from the devastating influence of war. 

The position of the country was such as to secure it from attack, andfrom the conflicts which laid waste the rest of Syria. Along almost theentire eastern border of the country the Lebanon was a great wall ofdefence running parallel to the coast, strengthened at each extremityby the additional protection of the rivers Nahr el-Kebīr and Litany. Itsslopes were further defended by the forest, which, with its lofty treesand brushwood, added yet another barrier to that afforded by rocks andsnow. Hunters' or shepherds' paths led here and there in tortuous coursesfrom one side of the mountain to the other. Near the middle of thecountry two roads, practicable in all seasons, secured communicationsbetween the littoral and the plain of the interior. They branched off oneither side from the central road in the neighbourhood of Tabakhi, southof Qodshu, and served the needs of the wooded province of Magara. * Thisregion was inhabited by pillaging tribes, which the Egyptians called atone time Lamnana, the Libanites, ** at others Shausu, using for them thesame appellation as that which they bestowed upon the Bedouin of thedesert. 

 * Magara is mentioned in the _Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 1, and Chabas has identified it with the plain of Macra, which Strabo places in Syria, in the neighbourhood of Eloutheros. 

 ** The name Lamnana is given in a picture of the campaigns of Seti I. 

The roads through this province ran under the dense shade afforded byoaks, cedars, and cypresses, in an obscurity favourable to the habits ofthe wolves and hyamas which infested it, and even of those thick-manedlions known to Asia at the time; and then proceeding in its course, crossed the ridge in the neighbourhood of the snow-peak called Shaua, which is probably the Sannīn of our times. While one of these roads, running north along the lake of Yamuneh and through the gorge of Akura, then proceeded along the Adonis* to Byblos, the other took a southerndirection, and followed the Nahr el-Kelb to the sea. 

 * This is the road pointed out by Renan as the easiest but least known of those which cross the Lebanon; the remains of an Assyrian inscription graven on the rocks near Aīn el- Asafīr show that it was employed from a very early date, and Renan thought that it was used by the armies which came from the upper valley of the Orontes. 

Towards the mouth of the latter a wall of rock opposes the progress ofthe river, and leaves at length but a narrow and precipitous defile forthe passage of its waters: a pathway cut into the cliff at a very remotedate leads almost perpendicularly from the bottom of the precipice tothe summit of the promontory. Commerce followed these short and directroutes, but invading hosts very rarely took advantage of them, althoughthey offered access into the very heart of Phoenicia. Invaders wouldencounter here, in fact, a little known and broken country, lendingitself readily to surprises and ambuscades; and should they reach thefoot of the Lebanon range, they would find themselves entrapped in aregion of slippery defiles, with steep paths at intervals cut into therock, and almost inaccessible to chariots or horses, and so narrow inplaces that a handful of resolute men could have held them for a longtime against whole battalions. The enemy preferred to make for the twonatural breaches at the respective extremities of the line of defence, and for the two insular cities which flanked the approaches tothem--Tyre in the case of those coming from Egypt, Arvad and Simyrafor assailants from the Euphrates. The Arvadians, bellicose by nature, would offer strong resistance to the invader, and not permit themselvesto be conquered without a brave struggle with the enemy, howeverpowerful he might be. * When the disproportion of the forces which theycould muster against the enemy convinced them of the folly of attemptingan open conflict, their island-home offered them a refuge where theywould be safe from any attacks. 

 * Thūtmosis III. Was obliged to enter on a campaign against Arvad in the year XXIX. , in the year XXX. , and probably twice in the following years. Under Amenōthes III. And IV. We see that these people took part in all the intrigues directed against Egypt; they were the allies of the Khati against Ramses II. In the campaign of the year V. And later on we find them involved in most of the wars against Assyria. 

Sometimes the burning and pillaging of their property on the mainlandmight reduce them to throw themselves on the mercy of their foes, butsuch submission did not last long, and they welcomed the slightestoccasion for regaining their liberty. Conquered again and again onaccount of the smallness of their numbers, they were never discouragedby their reverses, and Phoenicia owed all its military history for along period to their prowess. The Tyrians were of a more accommodatingnature, and there is no evidence, at least during the early centuries oftheir existence, of the display of those obstinate and blind transportsof bravery by which the Arvadians were carried away. *

 * No campaign against Tyre is mentioned in any of the Egyptian annals: the expedition of Thūtmosis III. Against Senzauru was directed against a town of Coele-Syria mentioned in the Tel el-Amarna tablets with the orthography Zinzar, the Sizara-Larissa of Gręco-Roman times, the Shaizar of the Arab Chronicles. On the contrary, the Tel el-Amarna tablets contain several passages which manifest the fidelity of Tyre and its governors to the King of Egypt. 

Their foreign policy was reduced to a simple arithmetical question, which they discussed in the light of their industrial or commercialinterests. As soon as they had learned from a short experience thata certain Pharaoh had at his disposal armies against which they couldoffer no serious opposition, they at once surrendered to him, andthought only of obtaining the greatest profit from the vassalage towhich they were condemned. The obligation to pay tribute did not appearto them so much in the light of a burthen or a sacrifice, as a meansof purchasing the right to go to and fro freely in Egypt, or in thecountries subject to its influence. The commerce acquired by theseprivileges recouped them more than a hundredfold for all that theiroverlord demanded from them. The other cities of the coast--Sidon, Berytus, Byblos--usually followed the example of Tyre, whether frommercenary motives, or from their naturally pacific disposition, or froma sense of their impotence; and the same intelligent resignation withwhich, as we know, they accepted the supremacy of the great Egyptianempire, was doubtless displayed in earlier centuries in their submissionto the Babylonians. Their records show that they did not accept thisstate of things merely through cowardice or indolence, for they arerepresented as ready to rebel and shake off the yoke of their foreignmaster when they found it incompatible with their practical interests. But their resort to war was exceptional; they generally preferred tosubmit to the powers that be, and to accept from them as if on lease thestrip of coast-line at the base of the Lebanon, which served as a sitefor their warehouses and dockyards. Thus they did not find the yoke ofthe stranger irksome--the sea opening up to them a realm of freedomand independence which compensated them for the limitations of bothterritory and liberty imposed upon them at home. 

The epoch which was marked by their first venture on the Mediterranean, and the motives which led to it, were alike unknown to them. The godshad taught them navigation, and from the beginning of things they hadtaken to the sea as fishermen, or as explorers in search of new lands. *They were not driven by poverty to leave their continental abode, orinspired thereby with a zeal for distant cruises. They had at homesufficient corn and wine, oil and fruits, to meet all their needs, andeven to administer to a life of luxury. And if they lacked cattle, theabundance of fish within their reach compensated for the absence offlesh-meat. 

 * According to one of the cosmogonies of Sanchoniathon, Khusōr, who has been identified with Hephsestos, was the inventor of the fishing-boat, and was the first among men and gods who taught navigation. According to another legend, Melkarth showed the Tyrians how to make a raft from the branches of a fig tree, while the construction of the first ships is elsewhere ascribed to the _Cabiri_. 

Nor was it the number of commodiously situated ports on their coastwhich induced them to become a seafaring people, for their harbours werebadly protected for the most part, and offered no shelter when thewind set in from the north, the rugged shore presenting little resourceagainst the wind and waves in its narrow and shallow havens. It was thenature of the country itself which contributed more than anything elseto make them mariners. The precipitous mountain masses which separateone valley from another rendered communication between them difficult, while they served also as lurking-places for robbers. Commerceendeavoured to follow, therefore, the sea-route in preference to thedevious ways of this highwayman's region, and it accomplished itspurpose the more readily because the common occupation of sea-fishinghad familiarised the people with every nook and corner on the coast. The continual wash of the surge had worn away the bases of the limestonecliffs, and the superincumbent masses tumbling down into the sea formedlines of rocks, hardly rising above the water-level, which fringedthe headlands with perilous reefs, against which the waves brokecontinuously at the slightest wind. It required some bravery to approachthem, and no little skill to steer one of the frail boats, which thesepeople were accustomed to employ from the earliest times, scathelessamid the breakers. The coasting trade was attracted from Arvadsuccessively to Berytus, Sidon, and Tyre, and finally to the othertowns of the coast. It was in full operation, doubtless, from the VIthEgyptian dynasty onwards, when the Pharaohs no longer hesitated toembark troops at the mouth of the Nile for speedy transmission to theprovinces of Southern Syria, and it was by this coasting route that thetin and amber of the north succeeded in reaching the interior ofEgypt. The trade was originally, it would seem, in the hands of thosemysterious Kefātiu of whom the name only was known in later times. Whenthe Phoenicians established themselves at the foot of the Lebanon, theyhad probably only to take the place of their predecessors and to followthe beaten tracks which they had already made. We have every reason tobelieve that they took to a seafaring life soon after their arrival inthe country, and that they adapted themselves and their civilizationreadily to the exigencies of a maritime career. *

 * Connexion between Phoenicia and Greece was fully established at the outbreak of the Egyptian wars, and we may safely assume their existence in the centuries immediately preceding the second millennium before our era. 

In their towns, as in most sea-ports, there was a considerable foreignelement, both of slaves and freemen, but the Egyptians confounded themall under one name, Kefātiu, whether they were Cypriotes, Asiatics, orEuropeans, or belonged to the true Tyrian and Sidonian race. Thecostume of the Kafīti was similar to that worn by the people of theinterior--the loin-cloth, with or without a long upper garment: while intiring the hair they adopted certain refinements, specially a seriesof curls which the men arranged in the form of an aigrette abovetheir foreheads. This motley collection of races was ruled over by anoligarchy of merchants and shipowners, whose functions were hereditary, and who usually paid homage to a single king, the representative of thetutelary god, and absolute master of the city. *

 * Under the Egyptian supremacy, the local princes did not assume the royal title in the despatches which they addressed to the kings of Egypt, but styled themselves governors of their cities. 

The industries pursued in Phoenicia were somewhat similar to those ofother parts of Syria; the stuffs, vases, and ornaments made at Tyre andSidon could not be distinguished from those of Hamath or of Carchemish. 

[Illustration 282. Jpg ONE OF THE KAFĪTI FROM THE TOMB OF RAKHMIRĪ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the coloured sketches by Prisse d'Avennes in the Natural Hist. Museum. 

All manufactures bore the impress of Babylonian influence, and theirimplements, weights, measures, and system of exchange were the sameas those in use among the Chaldęans. The products of the countrywere, however, not sufficient to freight the fleets which sailedfrom Phoenicia every year bound for all parts of the known world, andadditional supplies had to be regularly obtained from neighbouringpeoples, who thus became used to pour into Tyre and Sidon the surplusof their manufactures, or of the natural wealth of their country. ThePhoenicians were also accustomed to send caravans into regions whichthey could not reach in their caracks, and to establish trading stationsat the fords of rivers, or in the passes over mountain ranges. Weknow of the existence of such emporia at Laish near the sources of theJordan, at Thapsacus, and at Nisibis, and they must have served thepurpose of a series of posts on the great highways of the world. Thesettlements of the Phoenicians always assumed the character of colonies, and however remote they might be from their fatherland, the colonistsnever lost the manners and customs of their native country. Theycollected together into their _okels_ or storehouses such wares andcommodities as they could purchase in their new localities, and, transmitting them periodically to the coast, shipped them thence to allparts of the world. 

Not only were they acquainted with every part of the Mediterranean, butthey had even made voyages beyond its limits. In the absence, however, of any specific records of their naval enterprise, the routes theyfollowed must be a subject of conjecture. They were accustomed to relatethat the gods, after having instructed them in the art of navigation, had shown them the way to the setting sun, and had led them by theirexample to make voyages even beyond the mouths of the ocean. El ofByblos was the first to leave Syria; he conquered Greece and Egypt, Sicily and Libya, civilizing their inhabitants, and laying thefoundation of cities everywhere. The Sidonian Astartź, with her headsurmounted by the horns of an ox, was the next to begin her wanderingsover the inhabited earth. Melkarth completed the task of the gods bydiscovering and subjugating those countries which had escaped the noticeof his predecessors. Hundreds of local traditions, to be found on allthe shores of the Mediterranean down to Roman times, bore witness to thepervasive influence of the old Canaanite colonisation. At Cyprus, forinstance, wo find traces of the cultus of Kinyras, King of Byblos andfather of Adonis; again, at Crete, it is the daughter of a Prince ofSidon, Buropa, who is carried off by Zeus under the form of a bull; itwas Kadmos, sent forth to seek Buropa, who visited Cyprus, Rhodes, andthe Cyclades before building Thebes in Boeotia and dying in the forestsof Illyria. In short, wherever the Phoenicians had obtained a footing, their audacious activity made such an indelible impression upon themind of the native inhabitants that they never forgot those vigorousthick-set men with pale faces and dark beards, and soft and speciousspeech, who appeared at intervals in their large and swift sailingvessels. They made their way cautiously along the coast, usually keepingin sight of land, making sail when the wind was favourable, or taking tothe oars for days together when occasion demanded it, anchoring at nightunder the shelter of some headland, or in bad weather hauling theirvessels up the beach until the morrow. They did not shrink when it wasnecessary from trusting themselves to the open sea, directing theircourse by the Pole-star;* in this manner they often traversed longdistances out of sight of land, and they succeeded in making in a shorttime voyages previously deemed long and costly. 

 * The Greeks for this reason called it Phonikź, the Phoenician star; ancient writers refer to the use which the Phoenicians made of the Pole-star to guide them in navigation. 

It is hard to say whether they were as much merchants aspirates--indeed, they hardly knew themselves--and their peaceful orwarlike attitude towards vessels which they encountered on the seas, or towards the people whose countries they frequented, was probablydetermined by the circumstances of the moment. * If on arrival at aport they felt themselves no match for the natives, the instinct of themerchant prevailed, and that of the pirate was kept in the background. They landed peaceably, gained the good will of the native chief andhis nobles by small presents, and spreading out their wares, contentedthemselves, if they could do no better, with the usual advantageobtained in an exchange of goods. 

 * The manner in which the Phoenicians plied their trade is strikingly described in the _Odyssey_, in the part where Eumaios relates how he was carried off by a Sidonian vessel and sold as a slave: cf. The passage which mentions the ravages of the Greeks on the coast of the Delta. Herodotus recalls the rape of Io, daughter of Inachos, by the Phoenicians, who carried her and her companions into Egypt; on the other hand, during one of their Egyptian expeditions they had taken two priestesses from Thebes, and had transported one of them to Dodona, the other into Libya. 

They were never in a hurry, and would remain in one spot until they hadexhausted all the resources of the country, while they knew to a nicetyhow to display their goods attractively before the expected customer. Their wares comprised weapons and ornaments for men, axes, swords, incised or damascened daggers with hilts of gold or ivory, bracelets, necklaces, amulets of all kinds, enamelled vases, glass-work, stuffsdyed purple or embroidered with gay colours. At times the natives, whosecupidity was excited by the exhibition of such valuables, would attemptto gain possession of them either by craft or by violence. They wouldkill the men who had landed, or attempt to surprise the vessel duringthe night. But more often it was the Phoenicians who took advantage ofthe friendliness or the weakness of their hosts. 

[Illustration: 286. Jpg Page Image]

They would turn treacherously upon the unarmed crowd when absorbed inthe interest of buying and selling; robbing and killing the old men, they would make prisoners of the young and strong, the women andchildren, carrying them off to sell them in those markets where slaveswere known to fetch the highest price. This was a recognised trade, butit exposed the Phoenicians to the danger of reprisals, and made themobjects of an undying hatred. When on these distant expeditionsthey were subject to trivial disasters which might lead to seriousconsequences. A mast might break, an oar might damage a portion of thebulwarks, a storm might force them to throw overboard part of theircargo or their provisions; in such predicaments they had no means ofrepairing the damage, and, unable to obtain help in any of the placesthey might visit, their prospects were of a desperate character. Theysoon, therefore, learned the necessity of establishing cities of refugeat various points in the countries with which they traded--stationswhere they could go to refit and revictual their vessels, to fill up thecomplement of their crews, to take in new freight, and, if necessary, pass the winter or wait for fair weather before continuing their voyage. For this purpose they chose by preference islands lying within easydistance of the mainland, like their native cities of Tyre and Arvad, but possessing a good harbour or roadstead. If an island were notavailable, they selected a peninsula with a narrow isthmus, or a rockstanding at the extremity of a promontory, which a handful of men coulddefend against any attack, and which could be seen from a considerabledistance by their pilots. Most of their stations thus happily situatedbecame at length important towns. They were frequented by the nativesfrom the interior, who allied themselves with the new-comers, andfurnished them not only with objects of trade, but with soldiers, sailors, and recruits for their army; and such was the rapid spread ofthese colonies, that before long the Mediterranean was surrounded by analmost unbroken chain of Phoenician strongholds and trading stations. 

[Illustration: 288. Jpg AN EGYPTIAN TRADING VESSEL OF THE FIRST HALF OFTHE XVIIIth DYNASTY]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato. 

All the towns of the mother country--Arvad, Byblos, Berytus, Tyre, andSidon--possessed vessels engaged in cruising long before the Egyptianconquest of Syria. We have no direct information from any existingmonument to show us what these vessels were like, but we are familiarwith the construction of the galleys which formed the fleets of thePharaohs of the XVIIIth dynasty. The art of shipbuilding had madeconsiderable progress since the times of the Memphite kings. Prom theperiod when Egypt aspired to become one of the great powers of theworld, she doubtless endeavoured to bring her naval force to the samepitch of perfection as her land forces could boast of, and her fleetsprobably consisted of the best vessels which the dockyards of thatday could turn out. Phoenician vessels of this period may therefore beregarded with reason as constructed on lines similar to those of theEgyptian ships, differing from them merely in the minor details of theshape of the hull and manner of rigging. The hull continued to be builtlong and narrow, rising at the stem and stern. The bow was terminatedby a sort of hook, to which, in time of peace, a bronze ornament wasattached, fashioned to represent the head of a divinity, gazelle, orbull, while in time of war this was superseded by a metal cut-water madefast to the hull by several turns of stout rope, the blade rising somecouple of yards above the level of the deck. * The poop was ornamentedwith a projection firmly attached to the body of the vessel, butcurved inwards and terminated by an open lotus-flower. An upper deck, surrounded by a wooden rail, was placed at the bow and stern to serveas forecastle and quarterdecks respectively, and in order to protectthe vessel from the danger of heavy seas the ship was strengthened bya structure to which we find nothing analogous in the shipbuilding ofclassical times: an enormous cable attached to the gammonings of thebow rose obliquely to a height of about a couple of yards above thedeck, and, passing over four small crutched masts, was made fast againto the gammonings of the stern. The hull measured from the blade of thecut-water to the stern-post some twenty to five and twenty yards, butthe lowest part of the hold did not exceed five feet in depth. There wasno cabin, and the ballast, arms, provisions, and spare-rigging occupiedthe open hold. **

 * To get a clear idea of the details of this structure, we have only to compare the appearance of ships with and without a cut-water in the scenes at Thebes, representing the celebration of a festival at the return of the fleet. 

 ** M. Glaser thinks that there were cabins for the crew under the deck, and he recognises in the sixteen oblong marks on the sides of the vessels at Deīr el-Bahari so many dead-lights; as there could not have been space for so many cabins, I had concluded that these were ports for oars to be used in time of battle, but on further consideration I saw that they represented the ends of the beams supporting the deck. 

The bulwarks were raised to a height of some two feet, and the thwartsof the rowers ran up to them on both the port and starboard sides, leaving an open space in the centre for the long-boat, bales ofmerchandise, soldiers, slaves, and additional passengers. * A double setof steering-oars and a single mast completed the equipment. The latter, which rose to a height of some twenty-six feet, was placed amidships, and was held in an upright position by stays. The masthead wassurmounted by two arrangements which answered respectively to the top["gabie"] and _calcet_ of the masts of a galley. ** There were no shroudson each side from the masthead to the rail, but, in place of them, twostays ran respectively to the bow and stern. The single square-sail wasextended between two yards some sixty to seventy feet long, and eachmade of two pieces spliced together at the centre. The upper yardwas straight, while the lower curved upward at the ends. The yard washoisted and lowered by two halyards, which were made fast aft at thefeet of the steersmen. The yard was kept in its place by two lifts whichcame down from the masthead, and were attached respectively about eightfeet from the end of each yard-arm. When the yard was hauled up it wasfurther supported by six auxiliary lifts, three being attached to eachyard-arm. The lower yard, made fast to the mast by a figure-of-eightknot, was secured by sixteen lifts, which, like those of the upper yard, worked through the "calcet. "

 * One of the bas-reliefs exhibits a long-boat in the water at the time the fleet was at anchor at Puanīt. As we do not find any vessel towing one after her, we naturally conclude that the boat must have been stowed on board. 

 ** The "gabie" was a species of top where a sailor was placed on the look-out. The "calcet" is, properly speaking, a square block of wood containing the sheaves on which the halyards travelled. The Egyptian apparatus had no sheaves, and answers to the "calcet" on the masts of a galley only in its serving the same purpose. 

The crew comprised thirty rowers, fifteen on each side, four top-men, two steersmen, a pilot at the bow, who signalled to the men at the helmthe course to steer, a captain and a governor of the slaves, who formed, together with ten soldiers, a total of some fifty men. * In time ofbattle, as the rowers would be exposed to the missiles of the enemy, the bulwarks were further heightened by a mantlet, behind which the oarscould be freely moved, while the bodies of the men were fully protected, their heads alone being visible above it. The soldiers were stationedas follows: two of them took their places on the forecastle, a third wasperched on the masthead in a sort of cage improvised on the bars formingthe top, while the remainder were posted on the deck and poop, fromwhich positions and while waiting for the order to board they could poura continuous volley of arrows on the archers and sailors of the enemy. **

 * I have made this calculation from an examination of the scenes in which ships are alternatively represented as at anchor and under weigh. I know of vessels of smaller size, and consequently with a smaller crew, but I know of none larger or more fully manned. 

 ** The details are taken from the only representation of a naval battle which we possess up to this moment, viz. That of which I shall have occasion to speak further on in connection with the reign of Ramses III. 

The first colony of which the Phoenicians made themselves masters wasthat island of Cyprus whose low, lurid outline they could see on finesummer evenings in the glow of the western sky. Some hundred and tenmiles in length and thirty-six in breadth, it is driven like a wedgeinto the angle which Asia Minor makes with the Syrian coast: it throwsout to the north-east a narrow strip of land, somewhat like an extendedfinger pointing to where the two coasts meet at the extremity of thegulf of Issos. A limestone cliff, of almost uniform height throughout, bounds, for half its length at least, the northern side of the island, broken occasionally by short deep valleys, which open out into creeksdeeply embayed. A scattered population of fishermen exercised theircalling in this region, and small towns, of which we possess only theGreek or Grecised names--Karpasia, Aphrodision, Kerynia, Lapethos--ledthere a slumbering existence. Almost in the centre of the island twovolcanic peaks, Troodes and Olympos, face each other, and rise toa height of nearly 7000 feet, the range of mountains to which theybelong--that of Aous--forming the framework of the island. The spurs ofthis range fall by a gentle gradient towards the south, and spread outeither into stony slopes favourable to the culture of the vine, or intogreat maritime flats fringed with brackish lagoons. The valley whichlies on the northern side of this chain runs from sea to sea in analmost unbroken level. A scarcely perceptible watershed divides thevalley into two basins similar to those of Syria, the larger of thetwo lying opposite to the Phoenician coast. The soil consists of blackmould, as rich as that of Egypt, and renewed yearly by the overflowingof the Pedięos and its affluents. Thick forests occupied the interior, promising inexhaustible resources to any naval power. Even under theKoman emperors the Cypriotes boasted that they could build and fit outa ship from the keel to the masthead without looking to resources beyondthose of their own island. The ash, pine, cypress, and oak flourishedon the sides of the range of Aous, while cedars grew there to a greaterheight and girth than even on the Lebanon. Wheat, barley, olive trees, vines, sweet-smelling woods for burning on the altar, medicinal plantssuch as the poppy and the _ladanum_, henna for staining with a deeporange colour the lips, eyelids, palm, nails, and fingertips of thewomen, all found here a congenial habitat; while a profusion everywhereof sweet-smelling flowers, which saturated the air with theirpenetrating odours--spring violets, many-coloured anemones, the lily, hyacinth, crocus, narcissus, and wild rose--led the Greeks to bestowupon the island the designation of "the balmy Cyprus. " Mines alsocontributed their share to the riches of which the island could boast. Iron in small quantities, alum, asbestos, agate and other preciousstones, are still to be found there, and in ancient times theneighbourhood of Tamassos yielded copper in such quantities that theRomans were accustomed to designate this metal by the name "Cyprium, "and the word passed from them into all the languages of Europe. It isnot easy to determine the race to which the first inhabitants of theisland belonged, if we are not to see in them a branch of the Kefātiu, who frequented the Asiatic shores of the Mediterranean from a veryremote period. In the time of Egyptian supremacy they called theircountry Asi, and this name inclines one to connect the people with theĘgeans. * An examination of the objects found in the most ancient tombsof the island seems to confirm this opinion. These consist, for the mostpart, of weapons and implements of stone--knives, hatchets, hammers, andarrow-heads; and mingled with these rude objects a score of differentkinds of pottery, chiefly hand-made and of coarse design--pitchers withcontorted bowls, shallow buckets, especially of the milk-pail variety, provided with spouts and with pairs of rudimentary handles. 

 * "Asi, " "Asīi, " was at first sought for on the Asiatic continent--at Is on the Euphrates, or in Palestine: the discovery of the Canopic decree allows us to identify it with Cyprus, and this has now been generally done. The reading "Asebi" is still maintained by some. 

[Illustration: 294. Jpg Map of Cyprus]

The pottery is red or black in colour, and the ornamentation of itconsists of incised geometrical designs. Copper and bronze, where wefind examples of these metals, do not appear to have been employedin the manufacture of ornaments or arrow-heads, but usually in makingdaggers. There is no indication anywhere of foreign influence, andyet Cyprus had already at this time entered into relations with thecivilized nations of the continent. * According to Chaldęan tradition, it was conquered about the year 3800 B. C. By Sargon of Agadź: withoutinsisting upon the reality of this conquest, which in any case must havebeen ephemeral in its nature, there is reason to believe that the islandwas subjected from an early period to the influence of the variouspeoples which lived one after another on the slopes of the Lebanon. Popular legend attributes to King Kinyras and to the Giblites [i. E. Thepeople of Byblos] the establishment of the first Phoenician colonies inthe southern region of the island--one of them being at Paphos, wherethe worship of Adonis and Astartź continued to a very late date. Thenatives preserved their own language and customs, had their own chiefs, and maintained their national independence, while constrained to submitat the same time to the presence of Phoenician colonists or merchants onthe coast, and in the neighbourhood of the mines in the mountains. Thetrading centres of these settlers--Kition, Amathus, Solius, Golgos, andTamassos--were soon, however, converted into strongholds, whichensured to Phonicia the monopoly of the immense wealth contained in theisland. **

 * An examination into the origin of the Cypriotes formed part of the original scheme of this work, together with that of the monuments of the various races scattered along the coast of Asia Minor and the islands of the Ęgean; but I have been obliged to curtail it, in order to keep within the limits I had proscribed for myself, and I have merely epitomised, as briefly as possible, the results of the researches undertaken in those regions during the last few years. 

 ** The Phoenician origin of these towns is proved by passages from classical writers. The date of the colonisation is uncertain, but with the knowledge we possess of the efficient vessels belonging to the various Phoenician towns, it would seem difficult not to allow that the coasts at least of Cyprus must have been partially occupied at the time of the Egyptian invasions. 

Tyre and Sidon had no important centres of industry on that part of theCanaanite coast which extended to the south of Carmel, and Egypt, even in the time of the shepherd kings, would not have tolerated theexistence on her territory of any great emporium not subject to theimmediate supervision of her official agents. We know that the Libyancliffs long presented an obstacle to inroads into Egyptian territory, and baffled any attempts to land to the westwards of the Delta: thePhoenicians consequently turned with all the greater ardour to thosenorthern regions which for centuries had furnished them with mostvaluable products--bronze, tin, amber, and iron, both native andwrought. A little to the north of the Orontes, where the Syrian borderis crossed and Asia Minor begins, the coast turns due west and runsin that direction for a considerable distance. The Phoenicians wereaccustomed to trade along this region, and we may attribute, perhaps, tothem the foundation of those obscure cities--Kibyra, Masura, Euskopus, Sylion, Mygdalź, and Sidyma*--all of which preserved their apparentlySemitic names down to the time of the Roman epoch. The whole of theimportant island of Rhodes fell into their power, and its three ports, Ialysos, Lindos*, and Kamiros, afforded them a well-situated base ofoperations for further colonisation. On leaving Rhodes, the choice oftwo routes presented itself to them. To the south-west they could seethe distant outline of Karpathos, and on the far horizon behind it thesummits of the Cretan chain. Crete itself bars on the south the entranceto the Ęgean, and is almost a little continent, self-contained andself-sufficing. 

 * No direct evidence exists to lead us to attribute the foundation of these towns to the Phoenicians, but the Semitic origin of nearly all the names is an uncontested fact. 

[Illustration: 297. Jpg THE MUREX TRUNCULUS]

It is made up of fertile valleys and mountains clothed with forests, and its inhabitants could employ themselves in mines and fisheries. ThePhoenicians effected a settlement on the coast at Itanos, at Kairatos, and at Arados, and obtained possession of the peak of Cythera, where, itis said, they raised a sanctuary to Astartź. If, on leaving Rhodes, theyhad chosen to steer due north, they would soon have come into contactwith numerous rocky islets scattered in the sea between the continentsof Asia and Europe, which would have furnished them with as manystations, less easy of attack, and more readily defended than posts onthe mainland. Of these the Giblites occupied Melos, while the Sidonianschose Oliaros and Thera, and we find traces of them in every islandwhere any natural product, such as metals, sulphur, alum, fuller'searth, emery, medicinal plants, and shells for producing dyes, offeredan attraction. The purple used by the Tyrians for dyeing is secreted byseveral varieties of molluscs common in the Eastern Mediterranean; thosemost esteemed by the dyers were the _Murex trunculus_ and the _MurexBrandaris_, and solid masses made up of the detritus of these shellsare found in enormous quantities in the neighbourhood of many Phoeniciantowns. The colouring matter was secreted in the head of the shellfish. To obtain it the shell was broken by a blow from a hammer, and the smallquantity of slightly yellowish liquid which issued from the fracture wascarefully collected and stirred about in salt water for three days. 

[Illustration: 298. Jpg DAGGER OF ĀHMOSIS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin. 

It was then boiled in leaden vessels and reduced by simmering over aslow fire; the remainder was strained through a cloth to free it fromthe particles of flesh still floating in it, and the material to be dyedwas then plunged into the liquid. The usual tint thus imparted was thatof fresh blood, in some lights almost approaching to black; but carefulmanipulation could produce shades of red, dark violet, and amethyst. Phoenician settlements can be traced, therefore, by the heaps of shellsupon the shore, the Cyclades and the coasts of Greece being strewnwith this refuse. The veins of gold in the Pangaion range in Macedoniaattracted them off the Thracian coast* received also frequent visitsfrom them, and they carried their explorations even through the tortuouschannel of the Hellespont into the Propontis, drawn thither, no doubt bythe silver mines in the Bithynian mountains** which were already beingworked by Asiatic miners. 

 * The fact that they worked the mines of Thasos is attested by Herodotus. 

 ** Pronektos, on the Gulf of Ascania, was supposed to be a Phoenician colony. 

Beyond the calm waters of the Propontis, they encountered an obstacle totheir progress in another narrow channel, having more the character of awide river than of a strait; it was with difficulty that they could maketheir way against the violence of its current, which either tended todrive their vessels on shore, or to dash them against the reefs whichhampered the navigation of the channel. When, however, they succeeded inmaking the passage safely, they found themselves upon a vast and stormysea, whose wooded shores extended east and west as far as eye couldreach. 

[Illustration: 299. Jpg ONE OF THE DAGGERS DISCOVERED AT MYCENĘ, SHOWINGAN IMITATION OF EGYPTIAN DECORATION]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the facsimile in Perrot-Chipiez. 

From the tribes who inhabited them, and who acted as intermediaries, the Phoenician traders were able to procure tin, lead, amber, Caucasiangold, bronze, and iron, all products of the extreme north--a regionwhich always seemed, to elude their persevering efforts to discoverit. We cannot determine the furthest limits reached by the Phoeniciantraders, since they were wont to designate the distant countries andnations with which they traded by the vague appellations of "Islesof the Sea" and "Peoples of the Sea, " refusing to give more accurateinformation either from jealousy or from a desire to hide from othernations the sources of their wealth. 

The peoples with whom they traded were not mere barbarians, contentedwith worthless objects of barter; their clients included the inhabitantsof the iEgean, who, if inferior to the great nations of the East, possessed an independent and growing civilization, traces of which arestill coming to light from many quarters in the shape of tombs, houses, palaces, utensils, ornaments, representations of the gods, and householdand funerary furniture, --not only in the Cyclades, but on the mainlandof Asia Minor and of Greece. No inferior goods or tinsel wares wouldhave satisfied the luxurious princes who reigned in such ancient citiesas Troy and Mycenae, and who wanted the best industrial products ofEgypt and Syria--costly stuffs, rare furniture, ornate and well-wroughtweapons, articles of jewellery, vases of curious and delicatedesign--such objects, in fact, as would have been found in use among thesovereigns and nobles of Memphis or of Babylon. For articles to offer inexchange they were not limited to the natural or roughly worked productsof their own country. Their craftsmen, though less successful in generaltechnique than their Oriental contemporaries, exhibited considerableartistic intelligence and an extraordinary manual skill. Accustomed atfirst merely to copy the objects sold to them by the Phoenicians, they soon developed a style of their own; the Mycenaean dagger in theillustration on page 299, though several centuries later in date thanthat of the Pharaoh Ahmosis, appears to be traceable to this ancientsource of inspiration, although it gives evidence of new elements inits method of decoration and in its greater freedom of treatment. Theinhabitants of the valleys of the Nile and of the Orontes, and probablyalso those of the Euphrates and Tigris, agreed in the, high value theyset upon these artistic objects in gold, silver, and bronze, broughtto them from the further shores of the Mediterranean, which, whilereproducing their own designs, modified them to a certain extent; forjust as we now imitate types of ornamental work in vogue among nationsless civilized than ourselves, so the iEgean people set themselves thetask through their potters and engravers of reproducing exotic models. The Phoenician traders who exported to Greece large consignmentsof objects made under various influences in their own workshops, orpurchased in the bazaars of the ancient world, brought back as a returncargo an equivalent number of works of art, bought in the towns of theWest, which eventually found their way into the various markets of Asiaand Africa. These energetic merchants were not the first to ply thisprofitable trade of maritime carriers, for from the time of the Memphiteempire the products of northern regions had found their way, through theintermediation of the Haūinibū, as far south as the cities of theDelta and the Thebaid. But this commerce could not be said to beeither regular or continuous; the transmission was carried on from oneneighbouring tribe to another, and the Syrian sailors were merely thelast in a long chain of intermediaries--a tribal war, a migration, thecaprice of some chief, being sufficient to break the communication, and even cause the suspension of transit for a considerable period. The Phoenicians desired to provide against such risks by undertakingthemselves to fetch the much-coveted objects from their respectivesources, or, where this was not possible, from the ports nearest theplace of their manufacture. Reappearing with each returning year inthe localities where they had established emporia, they accustomed thenatives to collect against their arrival such products as they couldprofitably use in bartering with one or other of their many customers. They thus established, on a fixed line of route, a kind of maritimetrading service, which placed all the shores of the Mediterranean indirect communication with each other, and promoted the blending of theyouthful West with the ancient East. 

[Illustration: 302. Jpg TAILPIECE]

CHAPTER III--THE EIGHTEENTH THEBAN DYNASTY

THŪTMOSIS I. AND HIS ARMY--HĀTSHOPSITŪ AND THŪTMOSIS III. 

_Thutmosis I. 's campaign in Syria--The organisation of the Egyptianarmy: the infantry of the line, the archers, the horses, and thecharioteers--The classification of the troops according to theirarms--Marching and encampment in the enemy's country: battlearray--Chariot-charges--The enumeration and distribution of thespoil--The vice-royalty of Rush and the adoption of Egyptian customs bythe Ethiopian tribes. _

_The first successors of Thutmosis I. : Ahmasi and Hatshopsitit, Thūtmosis II--The temple of Deīr el-Bahari and the buildingsof Karnah--The Ladders of Incense--The expedition to Pūanīt: barteringwith the natives, the return of the fleet. _

_Thūtmosis III. : his departure for Asia, the battle of Megiddo andthe subjection of Southern Syria--The year 23 to the year 28 of hisreign--Conquest of Lotanū and of Mitānni--The campaign of the 33rd yearof the king's reign. _

[Illustration: 305. Jpg Page Image]

CHAPTER III--THE EIGHTEENTH THEBAN DYNASTY

_Thūtmosis I. And his army--Hātshopsītū and Thūtmosis III. _

The account of the first expedition undertaken by Thūtmosis in Asia, a region at that time new to the Egyptians, would be interesting ifwe could lay our hands upon it. We should perhaps find in the midst ofofficial documents, or among the short phrases of funerary biographies, some indication of the impression which the country produced upon itsconquerors. 

With the exception of a few merchants or adventurers, no one from Thebesto Memphis had any other idea of Asia than that which could be gatheredfrom the scattered notices of it in the semi-historical romances ofthe preceding age. The actual sight of the country must have been arevelation; everything appearing new and paradoxical to men of whomthe majority had never left their fatherland, except on some warlikeexpedition into Ethiopia or on some rapid raid along the coasts of theRed Sea. Instead of their own narrow valley, extending between its twomountain ranges, and fertilised by the periodical overflowing of theNile which recurred regularly almost to a day, they had before themwide irregular plains, owing their fertility not to inundations, butto occasional rains or the influence of insignificant streams; hills ofvarying heights covered with vines and other products of cultivation;mountains of different altitudes irregularly distributed, clothed withforests, furrowed with torrents, their summits often crowned with snoweven in the hottest period of summer: and in this region of nature, where everything was strange to them, they found nations differingwidely from each other in appearance and customs, towns with crenellatedwalls perched upon heights difficult of access; and finally, acivilization far excelling that which they encountered anywhere inAfrica outside their own boundaries. Thūtmosis succeeded in reaching onhis first expedition a limit which none of his successors was ableto surpass, and the road taken by him in this campaign--from Gaza toMegiddo, from Megiddo to Qodshū, from Qodshū to Carchemish--was thatwhich was followed henceforward by the Egyptian troops in all theirexpeditions to the Euphrates. Of the difficulties which he encounteredon his way we have no information. On arriving at Naharaim, however, we know that he came into contact with the army of the enemy, whichwas under the command of a single general--perhaps the King of Mitannihimself, or one of the lieutenants of the "Cossęan King of Babylon"--whohad collected together most of the petty princes of the northern countryto resist the advance of the intruder. The contest was hotly fought outon both sides, but victory at length remained with the invaders, andinnumerable prisoners fell into their hands. The veteran Āhmosi, sonof Abīna, who was serving in his last campaign, and his cousin, ĀhmosiPannekhabīt, distinguished themselves according to their wont. Theformer, having seized upon a chariot, brought it, with the threesoldiers who occupied it, to the Pharaoh, and received once more "thecollar of gold;" the latter killed twenty-one of the enemy, carryingoff their hands as trophies, captured a chariot, took one prisoner, andobtained as reward a valuable collection of jewellery, consisting ofcollars, bracelets, sculptured lions, choice vases, and costly weapons. A stele, erected on the banks of the Euphrates not far from the scene ofthe battle, marked the spot which the conqueror wished to be recognisedhenceforth as the frontier of his empire. He re-entered Thebes withimmense booty, by which gods as well as men profited, for he consecrateda part of it to the embellishment of the temple of Amon, and the sightof the spoil undoubtedly removed the lingering prejudices which thepeople had cherished against expeditions beyond the isthmus. Thūtmosiswas held up by his subjects to the praise of posterity as having comeinto actual contact with that country and its people, which had hithertobeen known to the Egyptians merely through the more or less veracioustales of exiles and travellers. The aspect of the great river of theNaharaim, which could be compared with the Nile for the volume of itswaters, excited their admiration. They were, however, puzzled by thefact that it flowed from north to south, and even were accustomedto joke at the necessity of reversing the terms employed in Egypt toexpress going up or down the river. This first Syrian campaign becamethe model for most of those subsequently undertaken by the Pharaohs. Ittook the form of a bold advance of troops, directed from Zalū towardsthe north-east, in a diagonal line through the country, who routed onthe way any armies which might be opposed to them, carrying by assaultsuch towns as were easy of capture, while passing by others which seemedstrongly defended--pillaging, burning, and slaying on every side. Therewas no suspension of hostilities, no going into winter quarters, but atriumphant return of the expedition at the end of four or five months, with the probability of having to begin fresh operations in thefollowing year should the vanquished break out into revolt. *

 * From the account of the campaigns of Amenōthes II. , I thought we might conclude that this Pharaoh wintered in Syria at least once; but the text does not admit of this interpretation, and we must, therefore, for the present give up the idea that the Pharaohs ever spent more than a few months of the year on hostile territory. 

The troops employed in these campaigns were superior to any othershitherto put into the field. The Egyptian army, inured to war by itslong struggle with the Shepherd-kings, and kept in training since thereign of Āhmosis by having to repulse the perpetual incursions of theEthiopian or Libyan barbarians, had no difficulty, in overcoming theSyrians; not that the latter were wanting in courage or discipline, but owing to their limited supply of recruits, and the politicaldisintegration of the country, they could not readily place under armssuch enormous numbers as those of the Egyptians. Egyptian militaryorganisation had remained practically unchanged since early times: thearmy had always consisted, firstly, of the militia who held fiefs, andwere under the obligation of personal service either to the prince ofthe nome or to the sovereign; secondly, of a permanent force, which wasdivided into two corps, distributed respectively between the Sa'id andthe Delta. Those companies which were quartered on the frontier, orabout the king either at Thebes or at one of the royal residences, werebound to hold themselves in readiness to muster for a campaign at anygiven moment. The number of natives liable to be levied when occasionrequired, by "generations, " or as we should say by classes, may haveamounted to over a hundred thousand men, * but they were never allcalled out, and it does not appear that the army on active serviceever contained more than thirty thousand men at a time, and probably onordinary occasions not much more than ten or fifteen thousand. **

 * The only numbers which we know are those given by Herodotus for the Saļte period, which are evidently exaggerated. Coming down to modern times, we see that Mehemet-Ali, from 1830 to 1840, had nearly 120, 000 men in Syria, Egypt, and the Sudan; and in 1841, at the time when the treaties imposed upon him the ill-kept obligation of reducing his army to 18, 000 men, it still contained 81, 000. We shall probably not be far wrong in estimating the total force which the Pharaohs of the XVIIIth dynasty, lords of the whole valley of the Nile, and of part of Asia, had at their disposal at 120, 000 or 130, 000 men; these, however, were never all called out at once. 

 ** We have no direct information respecting the armies acting in Syria; we only know that, at the battle of Qodshū, Ramses II. Had against him 2500 chariots containing three men each, making 7500 charioteers, besides a troop estimated at the Ramesseum at 8000 men, at Luxor at 9000, so that the Syrian army probably contained about 20, 000 men. It would seem that the Egyptian army was less numerous, and I estimate it with great hesitation at about 15, 000 or 18, 000 men: it was considered a powerful army, while that of the Hittites was regarded as an innumerable host. A passage in the Anastasi Papyrus, No. 1, tells us the composition of a corps led by Ramses II. Against the tribes in the vicinity of Qocoīr and the Rahanū valley; it consisted of 5000 men, of whom 620 were Shardana, 1600 Qahak, 70 Mashaūasha, and 880 Negroes. 

The infantry was, as we should expect, composed of troops of the lineand light troops. The former wore either short wigs arranged in rowsof curls, or a kind of padded cap by way of a helmet, thick enough todeaden blows; the breast and shoulders were undefended, but a shortloin-cloth was wrapped round the hips, and the stomach and upper partof the thighs were protected by a sort of triangular apron, sometimesscalloped at the sides, and composed of leather thongs attached to abelt. A buckler of moderate dimensions had been substituted for thegigantic shield of the earlier Theban period; it was rounded at thetop and often furnished with a solid metal boss, which the experiencedsoldiers always endeavoured to present to the enemy's lances andjavelins. Their weapons consisted of pikes about five feet long, withbroad bronze or copper points, occasionally of flails, axes, daggers, short curved swords, and spears; the trumpeters were armed with daggersonly, and the officers did not as a rule encumber themselves with eitherbuckler or pike, but bore and axe and dagger, an occasionally a bow. 

[Illustration: 311. Jpg A PLATOON (TROOP) OF EGYPTIAN SPEARMEN AT DEĪREL-BAHARĪ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken by Naville. 

The light infantry was composed chiefly of bowmen--_pidātū_--thecelebrated archers of Egypt, whose long bows and arrows, used withdeadly skill, speedily became renowned throughout the East; the quiver, of the use of which their ancestors were ignorant, had been borrowedfrom the Asiatics, probably from the Hyksōs, and was carried hanging atthe side or slung over the shoulder. Both spearmen and archers were forthe most part pure-bred Egyptians, and were divided into regiments ofunequal strength, each of which usually bore the name of some god--as, for example, the regiment of Ra or of Phtah, of Arnon or of Sūtkhū*--inwhich the feudal contingents, each commanded by its lord or hislieutenants, fought side by side with the king's soldiers furnishedfrom the royal domains. The effective force of the army was made up byauxiliaries taken from the tribes of the Sahara and from the negroes ofthe Upper Nile. **

 * The army of Ramses II. At the battle of Qodshū comprised four corps, which bore the names of Amon, Rā, Phtah, and Sūtkhū. Other lesser corps were named the _Tribe of Pharaoh, _ the _Tribe of the Beauty of the Solar dish. _ These, as far as I can judge, must have been troops raised on the royal domains by a system of local recruiting, who were united by certain common privileges and duties which constituted them an hereditary militia, whence they were called _tribes_. 

 ** These Ethiopian recruits are occasionally represented in the Theban tombs of the XVIIIth dynasty, among others in the tomb of Pahsūkhīr. 

These auxiliaries were but sparingly employed in early times, but theirnumbers were increased as wars became more frequent and necessitatedmore troops to carry them on. The tribes from which they were drawnsupplied the Pharaohs with an inexhaustible reserve; they werecourageous, active, indefatigable, and inured to hardships, and if ithad not been for their turbulent nature, which incited them to continualinternal dissensions, they might readily have shaken off the yoke ofthe Egyptians. Incorporated into the Egyptian army, and placed underthe instruction of picked officers, who subjected them to rigorousdiscipline, and accustomed them to the evolutions of regular troops, they were transformed from disorganised hordes into tried and invinciblebattalions. *

 * The armies of Hātshopsītū already included Libyan auxiliaries, some of which are represented at Deīr el- Baharī; others of Asiatic origin are found under Amenōthes IV. , but they are not represented on the monuments among the regular troops until the reign of Ramses II. , when the Shardana appear for the first time among the king's body- guard. 

[Illustration: 313. Jpg A PLATOON OF EGYPTIAN ARCHERS AT DEĪR EL-BAHARĪ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph. 

The old army, which had conquered Nubia in the days of the Papis andUsirtasens, had consisted of these three varieties of foot-soldiersonly, but since the invasion of the Shepherds, a new element had beenincorporated into the modern army in the-shape of the chariotry, whichanswered to some extent to the cavalry of our day as regards theirtactical employment and efficacy. The horse, when once introduced intoEgypt, soon became fairly adapted to its environment. It retained bothits height and size, keeping the convex forehead--which gave the head aslightly curved profile--the slender neck, the narrow hind-quarters, thelean and sinewy legs, and the long flowing tail which had characterisedit in its native country. The climate, however, was enervating, andconstant care had to be taken, by the introduction of new blood fromSyria, to prevent the breed from deteriorating. *

 * The numbers of horses brought from Syria either as spoils of war or as tribute paid by the vanquished are frequently recorded in the Annals of Thūtmosis III. Besides the usual species, powerful stallions were imported from Northern Syria, which were known by the Semitic name of Abīri, the strong. In the tombs of the XVIIIth dynasty, the arrival of Syrian horses in Egypt is sometimes represented. 

[Illustration: 314. Jpg THE EGYPTIAN CHARIOT PRESERVED IN THE FLORENCEMUSEUM]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken by Petrie. 

The Pharaohs kept studs of horses in the principal cities of the Nilevalley, and the great feudal lords, following their example, vied witheach other in the possession of numerous breeding stables. The office ofsuperintendent to these establishments, which was at the disposal ofthe Master of the Horse, became in later times one of the most importantState appointments. *

 * In the story of the conquest of Egypt by the Ethiopian Piōnkhi, studs are indicated at Hermopolis, at Athribis, in the towns to the east and in the centre of the Delta, and at Sais. Diodorus Siculus relates that, in his time, the foundations of 100 stables, each capable of containing 200 horses, were still to be seen on the western bank of the river between Memphis and Thebes. 

[Illustration: 315. Jpg THE KING CHARGING ON HIS CHARIOT]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph. 

The first chariots introduced into Egypt were, like the horses, offoreign origin, but when built by Egyptian workmen they soon became moreelegant, if not stronger than their models. Lightness was the qualitychiefly aimed at; and at length the weight was so reduced that itwas possible for a man to carry his chariot on his shoulders withoutfatigue. The materials for them were on this account limited to oak orash and leather; metal, whether gold or silver, iron or bronze, beingused but sparingly, and then only for purposes of ornamentation. Thewheels usually had six, but sometimes eight spokes, or occasionally onlyfour. The axle consisted of a single stout pole of acacia. The frameworkof the chariot was composed of two pieces of wood mortised together soas to form a semicircle or half-ellipse, and closed by a straight bar;to this frame was fixed a floor of sycomore wood or of plaited leatherthongs. The sides of the chariot were formed of upright panels, solidin front and open at the sides, each provided with a handrail. The pole, which was of a single piece of wood, was bent into an elbow at aboutone-fifth of its length from the end, which was inserted into the centreof the axletree. On the gigantic T thus formed was fixed the body of thechariot, the hinder part resting on the axle, and the front attachedto the bent part of the pole, while the whole was firmly bound togetherwith double leather thongs. A yoke of hornbeam, shaped like a bow, towhich the horses were harnessed, was fastened to the other extremity ofthe pole. The Asiatics placed three men in a chariot, but the Egyptiansonly two; the warrior--_sinni_--whose business it was to fight, andthe shield-bearer--_qazana_--who protected his companion with a bucklerduring the engagement. A complete set of weapons was carried inthe chariot--lances, javelins, and daggers, curved spear, club, andbattle-axe--while two bow-cases as well as two large quivers were hungat the sides. The chariot itself was very liable to upset, the slightestcause being sufficient to overturn it. Even when moving at a slow pace, the least inequality of the ground shook it terribly, and when drivenat full speed it was only by a miracle of skill that the occupants couldmaintain their equilibrium. At such times the charioteer would standastride of the front panels, keeping his right foot only inside thevehicle, and planting the other firmly on the pole, so as to lessenthe jolting, and to secure a wider base on which to balance himself. To carry all this into practice long education was necessary, for whichthere were special schools of instruction, and those who were destinedto enter the army were sent to these schools when little more thanchildren. To each man, as soon as he had thoroughly mastered all thedifficulties of the profession, a regulation chariot and pair of horseswere granted, for which he was responsible to the Pharaoh or to hisgenerals, and he might then return to his home until the next call toarms. The warrior took precedence of the shield-bearer, and both wereconsidered superior to the foot-soldier; the chariotry, in fact, likethe cavalry of the present day, was the aristocratic branch of the army, in which the royal princes, together with the nobles and their sons, enlisted. No Egyptian ever willingly trusted himself to the back of ahorse, and it was only in the thick of a battle, when his chariot wasbroken, and there seemed no other way of escaping from the mźlée, that awarrior would venture to mount one of his steeds. There appear, however, to have been here and there a few horsemen, who acted as couriers oraides-de-camp; they used neither saddle-cloth nor stirrups, but wereprovided with reins with which to guide their animals, and their seaton horseback was even less secure than the footing of the driver in hischariot. 

[Illustration: 318. Jpg AN EGYPTIAN LEARNING TO RIDE, FROM A BAS-RELIEFIN THE BOLOGNA MUSEUM]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Flinders Petrie. 

The infantry was divided into platoons of six to ten men each, commandedby an officer and marshalled round an ensign, which represented eithera sacred animal, an emblem of the king or of his double, or a divinefigure placed upon the top of a pike; this constituted an object ofworship to the group of soldiers to whom it belonged. We are unableto ascertain how many of these platoons, either of infantry or ofchariotry, went to form a company or a battalion, or by what ensigns thedifferent grades were distinguished from each other, or what was theirrelative order of rank. Bodies of men, to the number of forty or fifty, are sometimes represented on the monuments, but this may be merely bychance, or because the draughtsman did not take the trouble to give theproper number accurately. The inferior officers were equipped very muchlike the soldiers, with the exception of the buckler, which they do notappear to have carried, and certainly did not when on the march: thesuperior officers might be known by their umbrella or flabellum, adistinction which gave them the right of approaching the king's person. 

[Illustration: 319. Jpg THE WAR-DANCE OF THE TIMIHU AT DEĪR EL-BAHARĪ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph. 

The military exercises to which all these troops were accustomedprobably differed but little from those which were in vogue with thearmies of the Ancient Empire; they consisted in wrestling, boxing, jumping, running either singly or in line at regular distances fromeach other, manual exercises, fencing, and shooting at a target; thewar-dance had ceased to be in use among the Egyptian regiments as amilitary exercise, but it was practised by the Ethiopian and Libyanauxiliaries. At the beginning of each campaign, the men destined toserve in it were called out by the military scribes, who supplied themwith arms from the royal arsenals. Then followed the distribution ofrations. The soldiers, each carrying a small linen bag, came up insquads before the commissariat officers, and each received his ownallowance. *

 * We see the distribution of arms made by the scribes and other officials of the royal arsenals represented in the pictures at Medinet-Abu. The calling out of the classes was represented in the Egyptian tombs of the XVIIIth dynasty, as well as the distribution of supplies. 

Once in the enemy's country the army advanced in close order, theinfantry in columns of four, the officers in rear, and the chariotseither on the right or left flank, or in the intervals betweendivisions. Skirmishers thrown out to the front cleared the line ofmarch, while detached parties, pushing right and left, collectedsupplies of cattle, grain, or drinking-water from the fields andunprotected villages. The main body was followed by the baggage train;it comprised not only supplies and stores, but cooking-utensils, coverings, and the entire paraphernalia of the carpenters' andblacksmiths' shops necessary for repairing bows, lances, daggers, andchariot-poles, the whole being piled up in four-wheeled carts drawn byasses or oxen. The army was accompanied by a swarm of non-combatants, scribes, soothsayers, priests, heralds, musicians, servants, andwomen of loose life, who were a serious cause of embarrassment to thegenerals, and a source of perpetual danger to military discipline. Atnightfall they halted in a village, or more frequently bivouacked in anentrenched camp, marked out to suit the circumstances of the case. Thisentrenchment was always rectangular, its length being twice as great asits width, and was surrounded by a ditch, the earth from which, beingbanked up on the inside, formed a rampart from five to six feet inheight; the exterior of this was then entirely faced with shields, square below, but circular in shape at the top. The entrance to the campwas by a single gate in one of the longer sides, and a plank served as abridge across the trench, close to which two detachments mounted guard, armed with clubs and naked swords. 

[Illustration: 321. Jpg A COLUMN OF TROOPS ON THE MARCH, CHARIOTS ANDINFANTRY]

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

The royal quarters were situated at one end of the camp. Here, within anenclosure, rose an immense tent, where the Pharaoh found all the luxuryto which he was accustomed in his palaces, even to a portable chapel, in which each morning he could pour out water and burn incense to hisfather, Amon-Rā of Thebes. The princes of the blood who formed hisescort, his shield-bearers and his generals, were crowded together hardby, and beyond, in closely packed lines, were the horses and chariots, the draught bullocks, the workshops and the stores. 

[Illustration: 322. Jpg AN EGYPTIAN FORTIFIED CAMP, FORCED BY THE ENEMY]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato. It represents the camp of Ramses II. Before Qodshū: the upper angle of the enclosure and part of the surrounding wall have been destroyed by the Khāti, whose chariots are pouring in at the breach. In the centre is the royal tent, surrounded by scenes of military life. This picture has been sculptured partly over an earlier one representing one of the episodes of the battle; the latter had been covered with stucco, on which the new subject was executed. Part of the stucco has fallen away, and the king in his chariot, with a few other figures, has reappeared, to the great detriment of the later picture. 

[Illustration: 322b. Jpg TWO COMPANIES ON THE MARCH]

The soldiers, accustomed from childhood to live in the open air, erected no tents or huts of boughs for themselves in these temporaryencampments, but bivouacked in the open, and the sculptures on thefaēades of the Theban pylons give us a minute picture of the way inwhich they employed themselves when off duty. Here one man, whilecleaning his armour, superintends the cooking. Another, similarlyengaged, drinks from a skin of wine held up by a slave. A third hastaken his chariot to pieces, and t is replacing some portion the worsefor wear. Some are sharpening their daggers or lances; others mend theirloin-cloths or sandals, or exchange blows with fists and sticks. Thebaggage, linen, arms, and provisions are piled in disorder on theground; horses, oxen, and asses are eating or chewing the cud at theirease; while here and there a donkey, relieved of his burden, rollshimself on the ground and brays with delight. *

 * We are speaking of the camp of Thūtmosis III. Near Ālūna, the day before the battle of Megiddo, and the words put into the mouths of the soldiers to mark their vigilance are the same as those which we find in the Ramesseum and at Luxor, written above the guards of the camp where Ramses II. Is reposing. [Illustration: 325. Jpg SCENES FROM MILITARY LIFE IN AN EGYPTIAN CAMP]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato. 

The success of the Egyptians in battle was due more to the courage andhardihood of the men than to the strategical skill of their commanders. We find no trace of manouvres, in the sense in which we understand theword, either in their histories or on their bas-reliefs, but they joinedbattle boldly with the enemy, and the result was decided by a more orless bloody conflict. The heavy infantry was placed in the centre, thechariots were massed on the flanks, while light troops thrown out tothe front began the action by letting fly volleys of arrows and stones, which through the skill of the bowmen and slingers did deadly execution;then the pikemen laid their spears in rest, and pressing straightforward, threw their whole weight against the opposing troops. At thesame moment the charioteers set off at a gentle trot, and graduallyquickened their pace till they dashed at full speed upon the foe, amidthe confused rumbling of wheels and the sharp clash of metal. 

[Illustration: 327. Jpg ENCOUNTER BETWEEN EGYPTIAN AND ASIATIC CHARIOTS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a drawing by Champolion. 

The Egyptians, accustomed by long drilling to the performance of suchevolutions, executed these charges as methodically as though they werestill on their parade-ground at Thebes; if the disposition of the groundwere at all favourable, not a single chariot would break the line, andthe columns would sweep across the field without swerving or fallinginto disorder. The charioteer had the reins tied round his body, andcould, by throwing his weight either to the right or the left, or byslackening or increasing the pressure through a backward or forwardmotion, turn, pull up, or start his horses by a simple movement of theloins: he went into battle with bent bow, the string drawn back tohis ear, the arrow levelled ready to let fly, while the shield-bearer, clinging to the body of the chariot with one hand, held out his bucklerwith the other to shelter his comrade. It would seem that the Syrianswere less skilful; their bows did not carry so far as those of theiradversaries, and consequently they came within the enemy's range somemoments before it was possible for them to return the volley witheffect. Their horses would be thrown down, their drivers would fallwounded, and the disabled chariots would check the approach of thosefollowing and overturn them, so that by the time the main body came upwith the enemy the slaughter would have been serious enough to rendervictory hopeless. Nevertheless, more than one charge would be necessaryfinally to overturn or scatter the Syrian chariots, which, onceaccomplished, the Egyptian charioteer would turn against thefoot-soldiers, and, breaking up their ranks, would tread them down underthe feet of his horses. *

 * The whole of the above description is based on incidents from the various pictures of battles which appear on the monuments of Ramses II. 

Nor did the Pharaoh spare himself in the fight; his splendid dress, theurasus on his forehead, and the nodding plumes of his horses made hima mark for the blows of the enemy, and he would often find himself inpositions of serious danger. In a few hours, as a rule, the conflictwould come to an end. 

[Illustration: 328. Jpg Ramses II. ]

[Illustration: 328-text. Jpg]

Once the enemy showed signs of giving way, the Egyptian chariots dashedupon them precipitously, and turned the retreat into a rout: the pursuitwas, however, never a long One; some fortress was always to be foundclose at hand where the remnant of the defeated host could take refuge. *The victors, moreover, would be too eager to secure the booty, and tostrip the bodies of the dead, to allow time for following up the foe. 

 * After the battle of Megiddo, the remnants of the Syrian army took refuge in the city, where Thūtmosis III. Besieged them; similarly under Ramses II. The Hittite princes took refuge in Qodshū after their defeat. 

The prisoners were driven along in platoons, their arms bound in strangeand contorted attitudes, each under the charge of his captor; then camethe chariots, arms, slaves, and provisions collected on the battle-fieldor in the camp, then other trophies of a kind unknown in modern warfare. When an Egyptian killed or mortally wounded any one, he cut off, notthe head, but the right hand or the phallus, and brought it to theroyal scribes. These made an accurate inventory of everything, and evenPharaoh did not disdain to be present at the registration. The booty didnot belong to the persons who obtained it, but was thrown into a commonstock which was placed at the disposal of the sovereign: one part hereserved for the gods, especially for his father Amon of Thebes, whohad given him the victory; another part he kept for himself, and theremainder was distributed among his army. Each man received a rewardin proportion to his rank and services, such as male or female slaves, bracelets, necklaces, arms, vases, or a certain measured weight of gold, known as the "gold of bravery. " A similar sharing of the spoil tookplace after every successful engagement: from Pharaoh to the meanestcamp-follower, every man who had contributed to the success of acampaign returned home richer than he had set out, and the profits whichhe derived from a war were a liberal compensation for the expenses inwhich it had involved him. 

[Illustration: 330. Jpg COUNTING OF THE HANDS]

The results of the first expedition of Thūtmosis I. Were of a decisivecharacter; so much so, indeed, that he never again, it would seem, found it necessary during the remainder of his life to pass the isthmus. Northern Syria, it is true, did not remain long under tribute, ifindeed it paid any at all after the departure of the Egyptians, butthe southern part of the country, feeling itself in the grip of the newmaster, accepted its defeat: Gaza became the head-quarters of a garrisonwhich secured the door of Asia for future invasion, * and Pharaoh, freedfrom anxiety in this quarter, gave his whole time to the consolidationof his power in Ethiopia. 

 * This fact is nowhere explicitly stated on the monuments: we may infer it, however, from the way in which Thūtmosis III. Tells how he reached Gaza without opposition at the beginning of his first campaign, and celebrated the anniversary of his coronation there. On the other hand, we learn from details in the lists that the mountains and plains beyond Gaza were in a state of open rebellion. 

The river and desert tribes of this region soon forgot the severe lessonwhich he had given them: as soon as the last Egyptian soldier had lefttheir territory they rebelled once more, and began a fresh series ofinroads which had to be repressed anew year after year. Thūtmosis I. Hadseveral times to drive them back in the years II. And III. , but was ableto make short work of their rebellions. An inscription at Tombos on theNile, in the very midst of the disturbed districts, told them in bravewords what he was, and what he had done since he had come to the throne. Wherever he had gone, weapon in hand, "seeking a warrior, he had foundnone to withstand him; he had penetrated to valleys which were unknownto his ancestors, the inhabitants of which had never beheld the wearersof the double diadem. " All this would have produced but little effecthad he not backed up his words by deeds, and taken decisive measuresto restrain the insolence of the barbarians. Tombos lies opposite toHannek, at the entrance to that series of rapids known as the ThirdCataract. The course of the Nile is here barred by a formidable dykeof granite, through which it has hollowed out six winding channels ofvarying widths, dotted here and there with huge polished boulders andverdant islets. When the inundation is at its height, the rocks arecovered and the rapids disappear, with the exception of the lowest, which is named Lokoli, where faint eddies mark the place of the moredangerous reefs; and were it not that the fall here is rather morepronounced and the current somewhat stronger, few would suspect theexistence of a cataract at the spot. As the waters go down, however, thechannels gradually reappear. When the river is at its lowest, the threewesternmost channels dry up almost completely, leaving nothing but aseries of shallow pools; those on the east still maintain their flow, but only one of them, that between the islands of Tombos and Abadīn, remains navigable. Here Thūtmosis built, under invocation of the gods ofHeliopolis, one of those brickwork citadels, with its rectangular keep, which set at nought all the efforts and all the military science of theEthiopians: attached to it was a harbour, where each vessel on its waydownstream put in for the purpose of hiring a pilot. *

The monarchs of the XIIth and XIIIth dynasties had raised fortificationsat the approaches to Wady Haifa, and their engineers skilfully chose thesites so as completely to protect from the ravages of the Nubian piratesthat part of the Nile which lay between Wady Haifa and Philse. *

 * The foundation of this fortress is indicated in an emphatic manner in the Tombos inscription: "The masters of the Great Castle (the gods of Heliopolis) have made a fortress for the soldiers of the king, which the nine peoples of Nubia combined could not carry by storm, for, like a young panther before a bull which lowers its head, the souls of his Majesty have blinded them with fear. " Quarries of considerable size, where Cailliaud imagined he could distinguish an overturned colossus, show the importance which the establishment had attained in ancient times; the ruins of the town cover a fairly large area near the modern village of Kerman. 

Henceforward the garrison at Tombos was able to defend the mighty curvedescribed by the river through the desert of Mahas, together with theisland of Argo, and the confines of Dongola. The distance between Thebesand this southern frontier was a long one, and communication was slowduring the winter months, when the subsidence of the waters had renderedthe task of navigation difficult for the Egyptian ships. The kingwas obliged, besides, to concentrate his attention mainly on Asiaticaffairs, and was no longer able to watch the movements of the Africanraces with the same vigilance as his predecessors had exercised beforeEgyptian armies had made their way as far as the banks of the Euphrates. Thutmosis placed the control of the countries south of Assuan in thehands of a viceroy, who, invested with the august title of "Royal Son ofKūsh, " must have been regarded as having the blood of Rā himself runningin his veins. *

 * The meaning of this title was at first misunderstood. Champollion and Rosellini took it literally, and thought it referred to Ethiopian princes, who were vassals or enemies of Egypt. Birch persists in regarding them as Ethiopians driven out by their subjects, restored by the Pharaohs as viceroys, while admitting that they may have belonged to the solar family. 

Sura, the first of these viceroys whose name has reached us, was inoffice at the beginning of the campaign of the year III. * He belonged, it would seem, to a Theban family, and for several centuries afterwardshis successors are mentioned among the nobles who were in the habitof attending the court. Their powers were considerable: they commandedarmies, built or restored temples, administered justice, and receivedthe homage of loyal sheikhs or the submission of rebellious ones. ** Theperiod for which they were appointed was not fixed by law, and they heldoffice simply at the king's pleasure. During the XIXth dynasty it wasusual to confer this office, the highest in the state, on a son of thesovereign, preferably the heir-apparent. Occasionally his appointmentwas purely formal, and he continued in attendance on his father, whilea trusty substitute ruled in his place: often, however, he took thegovernment on himself, and in the regions of the Upper Nile served anapprenticeship to the art of ruling. 

 * He is mentioned in the Sehźl inscriptions as "the royal son Sura. " Nahi, who had been regarded as the first holder of the office, and who was still in office under Thutmosis III. , had been appointed by Thutmosis I. , but after Sura. 

 ** Under Thutmosis III. , the viceroy Nahi restored the temple at Semneh; under Tutankhamon, the viceroy Hui received tribute from the Ethiopian princes, and presented them to the sovereign. 

[Illustration: 336. Jpg A CITY OF MODERN NUBIA--THE ANCIENT DONGOLA]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken by Insinger. 

This district was in a perpetual state of war--a war without danger, butfull of trickery and surprises: here he prepared himself for the largerarena of the Syrian campaigns, learning the arts of generalship moreperfectly than was possible in the manouvres of the parade-ground. Moreover, the appointment was dictated by religious as well as bypolitical considerations. The presumptive heir to the throne was to hisfather what Horus had been to Osiris--his lawful successor, or, if needbe, his avenger, should some act of treason impose on him the duty ofvengeance: and was it not in Ethiopia that Horus had gained his firstvictories over Typhon? To begin like Horus, and flesh his maiden steelon the descendants of the accomplices of Sit, was, in the case of thefuture sovereign, equivalent to affirming from the outset the reality ofhis divine extraction. *

 * In the _Orbiney Papyrus_ the title of "Prince of Kūsh" was assigned to the heir-presumptive to the throne. 

As at the commencement of the Theban dynasties, it was the river valleyonly in these regions of the Upper Nile which belonged to the Pharaohs. From this time onward it gave support to an Egyptian population as faras the juncture of the two Niles: it was a second Egypt, but a poorerone, whose cities presented the same impoverished appearance as thatwhich we find to-day in the towns of Nubia. The tribes scattered rightand left in the desert, or distributed beyond the confluence of the twoNiles among the plains of Sennar, were descended from the old indigenousraces, and paid valuable tribute every year in precious metals, ivory, timber, or the natural products of their districts, under penalty ofarmed invasion. *

 * The tribute of the Ganbātiū, or people of the south, and that of Kūsh and of the Ūaūaīū, is mentioned repeatedly in the _Annales de Thūtmosis III. _ for the year XXXI. , for the year XXXIII. , and for the year XXXIV. The regularity with which this item recurs, unaccompanied by any mention of war, following after each Syrian campaign, shows that it was an habitual operation which was registered as an understood thing. True, the inscription does not give the item for every year, but then it only dealt with Ethiopian affairs in so far as they were subsidiary to events in Asia; the payment was none the less an annual one, the amount varying in accordance with local agreement. 

Among these races were still to be found descendants of the Mazaiū andŪaūaīū, who in days gone by had opposed the advance of the victoriousEgyptians: the name of the Uaūaīū was, indeed, used as a generic term todistinguish all those tribes which frequented the mountains between theNile and the Red Sea, * but the wave of conquest had passed far beyondthe boundaries reached in early campaigns, and had brought the Egyptiansinto contact with nations with whom they had been in only indirectcommercial relations in former times. 

 * The Annals of Thūtmosis III. Mention the tribute of Pūanīt for the peoples of the coast, the tribute of Uaūaīt for the peoples of the mountain between the Nile and the sea, the tribute of Kūsh for the peoples of the south, or Ganbātiū. 

[Illustration: 338. Jpg ARRIVAL OF AN ETHIOPIAN QUEEN BRINGING TRIBUTE TOTHE VICEROY OF KŪSII]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger. 

Some of these were light-coloured men of a type similar to that of themodern Abyssinians or Gallas: they had the same haughty and imperiouscarriage, the same well-developed and powerful frames, and the same loveof fighting. Most of the remaining tribes were of black blood, and suchof them as we see depicted on the monuments resemble closely the negroesinhabiting Central Africa at the present day. 

[Illustration: 339. Jpg TYPICAL GALLA WOMAN]

They have the same elongated skull, the low prominent forehead, hollowtemples, short flattened nose, thick lips, broad shoulders, and salientbreast, the latter contrasting sharply with the undeveloped appearanceof the lower part of the body, which terminates in thin legs almostdevoid of calves. Egyptian civilization had already penetrated amongthese tribes, and, as far as dress and demeanour were concerned, theirchiefs differed in no way from the great lords who formed the escortof the Pharaoh. We see these provincial dignitaries represented in thewhite robe and petticoat of starched, pleated, and gauffered linen;an innate taste for bright colours, even in those early times, beingbetrayed by the red or yellow scarf in which they wrapped themselves, passing it over one shoulder and round the waist, whence the endsdepended and formed a kind of apron. A panther's skin covered the back, and one or two ostrich-feathers waved from the top of the head orwere fastened on one side to the fillet confining the hair, which wasarranged in short curls and locks, stiffened with gum and matted withgrease, so as to form a sort of cap or grotesque aureole round theskull. The men delighted to load themselves with rings, bracelets, earrings, and necklaces, while from their arms, necks, and belts hunglong strings of glass beads, which jingled with every movement of thewearer. They seem to have frequently chosen a woman as their ruler, andher dress appears to have closely resembled that of the Egyptianladies. She appeared before her subjects in a chariot drawn by oxen, and protected from the sun by an umbrella edged with fringe. The commonpeople went about nearly naked, having merely a loin-cloth of some wovenstuff or an animal's skin thrown round their hips. Their heads wereeither shaven, or adorned with tufts of hair stiffened with gum. Thechildren of both sexes wore no clothes until the age of puberty; thewomen wrapped themselves in a rude garment or in a covering of linen, and carried their children on the hip or in a basket of esparto grass onthe back, supported by a leather band which passed across the forehead. One characteristic of all these tribes was their love of singing anddancing, and their use of the drum and cymbals; they were active andindustrious, and carefully cultivated the rich soil of the plain, devoting themselves to the raising of cattle, particularly of oxen, whose horns they were accustomed to train fantastically into the shapesof lyres, bows, and spirals, with bifurcations at the ends, or withsmall human figures as terminations. As in the case of other negrotribes, they plied the blacksmith's and also the goldsmith's trade, working up both gold and silver into rings, chains, and quaintly shapedvases, some specimens of their art being little else than toys, similarin design to those which delighted the Byzantine Caesars of later date. 

[Illustration: 341. Jpg GOLD EPERGNE REPRESENTING SCENES FROM ETHIOPIANLIFE]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting on the tomb of Hūi. 

A wall-painting remains of a gold epergne, which represents men andmonkeys engaged in gathering the fruit of a group of dōm-palms. Twoindividuals lead each a tame giraffe by the halter, others kneeling onthe rim raise their hands to implore mercy from an unseen enemy, whilenegro prisoners, grovelling on their stomachs, painfully attemptto raise their head and shoulders from the ground. This, doubtless, represents a scene from the everyday life of the people of the UpperNile, and gives a faithful picture of what took place among many of itstribes during a rapid inroad of some viceroy of Kush or a raid by hislieutenants. 

The resources which Thūtmosis I. Was able to draw regularly from thesesouthern regions, in addition to the wealth collected during his Syriancampaign, enabled him to give a great impulse to building work. Thetutelary deity of his capital--Amon-Rā--who had ensured him the victoryin all his battles, had a prior claim on the bulk of the spoil; hereceived it as a matter of course, and his temple at Thebes was therebyconsiderably enlarged; we are not, however, able to estimate exactlywhat proportion fell to other cities, such as Kummeh, Elephantine, *Abydos, ** and Memphis, where a few scattered blocks of stone still bearthe name of the king. Troubles broke out in Lower Egypt, but they werespeedily subdued by Thūtmosis, and he was able to end his days in theenjoyment of a profound peace, undisturbed by any care save that ofensuring a regular succession to his throne, and of restraining theambitions of those who looked to become possessed of his heritage. ***

 * Wiedemann found his name there cut in a block of brown freestone. 

 ** A stele at Abydos speaks of the building operations carried on by Thūtmosis I. In that town. 

 *** The expressions from which we gather that his reign was disturbed by outbreaks of internal rebellion seem to refer to a period subsequent to the Syrian expedition, and prior to his alliance with the Princess Hātshopsītū. 

His position was, indeed, a curious one; although _de facto_ absolute inpower, his children by Queen Ahmasi took precedence of him, for by hermother's descent she had a better right to the crown than her husband, and legally the king should have retired in favour of hie sons as soonas they were old enough to reign. The eldest of them, Uazmosū, diedearly. * The second, Amenmosu, lived at least to attain adolescence; hewas allowed to share the crown with his father from the fourth year ofthe latter's reign, and he also held a military command in the Delta, **but before long he also died, and Thūtmosis I. Was left with only oneson--a Thūtmosis like himself--to succeed him. The mother of this princewas a certain Mūtnofrit, *** half-sister to the king on his father'sside, who enjoyed such a high rank in the royal family that her husbandallowed her to be portrayed in royal dress; her pedigree on the mother'sside, however, was not so distinguished, and precluded her son frombeing recognised as heir-apparent, hence the occupation of the "seat ofHorus" reverted once more to a woman, Hātshopsītū, the eldest daughterof Āhmasi. 

 * Uazmosū is represented on the tomb of Pahiri at El-Kab, where Mr. Griffith imagines he can trace two distinct Uazmosū; for the present, I am of opinion that there was but one, the son of Thūtmosis I. His funerary chapel was discovered at Thebes; it is in a very bad state of preservation. 

 ** Amenmosū is represented at El-Kab, by the side of his brother Uazmosū. Also on a fragment where we find him, in the fourth year of his father's reign, honoured with a cartouche at Memphis, and consequently associated with his father in the royal power. 

 *** Mūtnofrit was supposed by Mariette to have been a daughter of Thūtmosis IL; the statue reproduced on p. 345 has shown us that she was wife of Thūtmosis I. And mother of Thūtmosis II. 

Hātshopsītū herself was not, however, of purely divine descent. Hermaternal ancestor, Sonisonbū, had not been a scion of the royal house, and this flaw in her pedigree threatened to mar, in her case, thesanctity of the solar blood. According to Egyptian belief, this defectof birth could only be remedied by a miracle, * and the ancestral god, becoming incarnate in the earthly father at the moment of conception, had to condescend to infuse fresh virtue into his race in this manner. 

* A similar instance of divine substitution is known to us in the caseof two other sovereigns, viz. Amenōthes III. , whose father, TitmosisIV. , was born under conditions analogous to those attending the birth ofThūtmosis I. ; and Ptolemy Caesarion, whose father, Julius Cęsar, was notof Egyptian blood. 

[Illustration: 344. Jpg PORTRAIT OF THE QUEEN ĀHMASI]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Naville. 

The inscriptions with which Hātshopsītū decorated her chapel relate how, on that fateful night, Amon descended upon Ahmasi in a flood of perfumeand light. The queen received him favourably, and the divine spouse onleaving her announced to her the approaching birth of a daughter, inwhom his valour and strength should be manifested once more here below. The sequel of the story is displayed in a series of pictures before oureyes. 

[Illustration: 345. Jpg QUEEN MŪTNOFRĪT IN THE GĪZEH MUSEUM]

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

The protecting divinities who preside over the birth of children conductthe queen to her couch, and the sorrowful resignation depicted on herface, together with the languid grace of her whole figure, display inthis portrait of her a finished work of art. The child enters the worldamid shouts of joy, and the propitious genii who nourish both her andher double constitute themselves her nurses. At the appointed time, her earthly father summons the great nobles to a solemn festival, andpresents to them his daughter, who is to reign with him over Egypt andthe world. *

 * The association of Hātshopsītū with her father on the throne, has now been placed beyond doubt by the inscriptions discovered and commented on by Naville in 1895. 

[Illustration: 346. Jpg QUEEN HĀTSHOPSĪTŪ IN MALE COSTUME]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Naville. 

From henceforth Hātshopsītū adopts every possible device to conceal herreal sex. She changes the termination of her name, and calls herselfHātshopsīū, the chief of the nobles, in lieu of Hātshopsītū, the chiefof the favourites. She becomes the King Mākerī, and on the occasionof all public ceremonies she appears in male costume. We see herrepresented on the Theban monuments with uncovered shoulders, devoid ofbreasts, wearing the short loin-cloth and the keffieh, while the diademrests on her closely cut hair, and the false beard depends from herchin. 

[Illustration: 347. Jpg BUST OF QUEEN HĀTSHOPSĪTŪ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by M. De Mertens. This was the head of one of the sphinxes which formed an avenue at Deīr el-Baharī; it was brought over by Lepsius and is now in the Berlin Museum. The fragment has undergone extensive restoration, but this has been done with the help of fragments of other statues, in which the details here lost were in a good state of preservation. 

She retained, however, the feminine pronoun in speaking of herself, andalso an epithet, inserted in her cartouche, which declared her to be thebetrothed of Amon--khnūmīt Amaūnū. *

 * We know how greatly puzzled the early Egyptologists were by this manner of depicting the queen, and how Champollion, in striving to explain the monuments of the period, was driven to suggest the existence of a regent, Amenenthes, the male counterpart and husband of Hātshopsītū, whose name he read Amense. This hypothesis, adopted by Rosellini, with some slight modifications, was rejected by Birch. This latter writer pointed out the identity of the two personages separated by Champollion, and proved them to be one and the same queen, the Amenses of Manetho; he called her Amūn-nūm- hc, but he made her out to be a sister of Amenōthes I. , associated on the throne with her brothers Thūtmosis I. And Thūtmosis IL, and regent at the beginning of the reign of Thūtmosis III. Hineks tried to show that she was the daughter of Thūtmosis I. , the wife of Thūtmosis II. And the sister of Thūtmosis III. ; it is only quite recently that her true descent and place in the family tree has been recognised. She was, not the sister, but the aunt of Thūtmosis III. The queen, called by Birch Amūn-nūm-het, the latter part of her name being dropped and the royal prenomen being joined to her own name, was subsequently styled Ha-asū or Hatasū, and this form is still adopted by some writers; the true reading is Hātshopsītū or Hātshopsītū, then Hātshopsīū, or Hātshepsīū, as Naville has pointed out. 

Her father united her while still young to her brother Thūtmosis, whoappears to have been her junior, and this fact doubtless explains thevery subordinate part which he plays beside the queen. When ThūtmosisI. Died, Egyptian etiquette demanded that a man should be at the head ofaffairs, and this youth succeeded his father in office: but Hātshopsītū, while relinquishing the semblance of power and the externals of pomp toher husband, * kept the direction of the state entirely in her own hands. The portraits of her which have been preserved represent her as havingrefined features, with a proud and energetic expression. The oval ofthe face is elongated, the cheeks a little hollow, and the eyes deep setunder the arch of the brow, while the lips are thin and tightly closed. 

 * It is evident, from the expressions employed by Thūtmosis I. In associating his daughter with himself on the throne, that she was unmarried at the time, and Naville thinks that she married her brother Thūtmosis II. After the death of her father. It appears to me more probable that Thūtmosis I. Married her to her brother after she had been raised to the throne, with a view to avoiding complications which might have arisen in the royal family after his own death. The inscription at Shutt-er-Ragel, which has furnished Mariette with the hypothesis that Thūtmosis I. And Thūtmosis IL reigned simultaneously, proves that the person mentioned in it, a certain Penaīti, flourished under both these Pharaohs, but by no means shows that these two reigned together; he exercised the functions which he held by their authority during their successive reigns. 

[Illustration: 348. Jpg PAINTING ON THE TOMB OF THE KINGS]

She governed with so firm a hand that neither Egypt nor its foreignvassals dared to make any serious attempt to withdraw themselves fromher authority. One raid, in which several prisoners were taken, punisheda rising of the Shaūsū in Central Syria, while the usual expeditionsmaintained order among the peoples of Ethiopia, and quenched any attemptwhich they might make to revolt. When in the second year of his reignthe news was brought to Thutmosis II. That the inhabitants of the UpperNile had ceased to observe the conditions which his father had imposedupon them, he "became furious as a panther, " and assembling his troopsset out for war without further delay. The presence of the king with thearmy filled the rebels with dismay, and a campaign of a few weeks put anend to their attempt at rebelling. 

The earlier kings of the XVIIIth dynasty had chosen for their lastresting-place a spot on the left bank of the Nile at Thebes, where thecultivated land joined the desert, close to the pyramids built by theirpredecessors. Probably, after the burial of Amenōthes, the space wasfully occupied, for Thutmosis I. Had to seek his burying-ground some wayup the ravine, the mouth of which was blocked by their monuments. TheLibyan chain here forms a kind of amphitheatre of vertical cliffs, whichdescend to within some ninety feet of the valley, where a sloping massof detritus connects them by a gentle declivity with the plain. 

[Illustration: 350. Jpg THE AMPHITHEATRE AT DEĪR EL-BAHARĪ, AS ITAPPEARED BEPOEE NAVILLe's EXCAVATIONS]

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

The great lords and the queens in the times of the Antufs and theUsirtasens had taken possession of this spot, but their chapels were bythis period in ruins, and their tombs almost all lay buried under thewaves of sand which the wind from the desert drives perpetually overthe summit of the cliffs. This site was seized on by the architectsof Thūtmosis, who laid there the foundations of a building which wasdestined to be unique in the world. Its ground plan consisted of anavenue of sphinxes, starting from the plain and running between thetombs till it reached a large courtyard, terminated on the west by acolonnade, which was supported by a double row of pillars. 

[Illustration: 351. Jpg THE NORTHERN COLLONADE]

 Drawn by Bouclier, from a photograph supplied by Naville. 

Above and beyond this was the vast middle platform, * connected with theupper court by the central causeway which ran through it from end toend; this middle platform, like that below it, was terminated on thewest by a double colonnade, through which access was gained to twochapels hollowed out of the mountain-side, while on the north it wasbordered with excellent effect by a line of proto-Dorio columns rangedagainst the face of the cliff. 

 * The English nomenclature employed in describing this temple is that used in the _Guide to Deir el-Bahari_, published by the _Egypt Exploration Fund_. --Tr. 

This northern colonnade was never completed, but the existing part is ofas exquisite proportions as anything that Greek art has ever produced. At length we reach the upper platform, a nearly square courtyard, cutting on one side into the mountain slope, the opposite side beingenclosed by a wall pierced by a single door, while to right and left rantwo lines of buildings destined for purposes connected with the dailyworship of the temple. The sanctuary was cut out of the solid rock, but the walls were faced with white limestone; some of the chambersare vaulted, and all of them decorated with bas-reliefs of exquisiteworkmanship, perhaps the finest examples of this period. Thūtmosis I. Scarcely did more than lay the foundations of this magnificent building, but his mummy was buried in it with great pomp, to remain there until aperiod of disturbance and general insecurity obliged those in charge ofthe necropolis to remove the body, together with those of his family, tosome securer hiding-place. * The king was already advanced in age at thetime of his death, being over fifty years old, to judge by the incisorteeth, which are worn and corroded by the impurities of which theEgyptian bread was full. 

 * Both E. De Rougé and Mariette were opposed to the view that the temple was founded by Thūtmosis I. , and Naville agrees with them. Judging from the many new texts discovered by Naville, I am inclined to think that Thūtmosis I. Began the structure, but from plans, it would appear, which had not been so fully developed as they afterwards became. Prom indications to be found here and there in the inscriptions of the Ramesside period, I am not, moreover, inclined to regard Deīr el-Bāhāri as the funerary chapel of tombs which were situated in some unknown place elsewhere, but I believe that it included the burial-places of Thūtmosis I. , Thūtmosis II. , Queen Hātshopsītū, and of numerous representatives of their family; indeed, it is probable that Thūtmosis III. And his children found here also their last resting-place. 

[Illustration: 353. Jpg HEAD OF THE MUMMY OF THŪTMOSIS I. ]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken by Emil Brugsch-Bey. 

The body, though small and emaciated, shows evidence of unusual muscularstrength; the head is bald, the features are refined, and the mouthstill bears an expression characteristic of shrewdness and cunning. *

 * The coffin of Thūtmosis I. Was usurped by the priest-king Pinozmū I. , son of Piōnkhi, and the mummy was lost. I fancy I have discovered it in mummy No. 5283, of which the head presents a striking resemblance to those of Thūtmosis II. And III. 

Thūtmosis II. Carried on the works begun by his father, but did not longsurvive him. * The mask on his coffin represents him with a smiling andamiable countenance, and with the fine pathetic eyes which show hisdescent from the Pharaohs of the XIIth dynasty. 

 * The latest year up to the present known of this king is the IInd, found upon the Aswan stele. Erman, followed by Ed. Meyer, thinks that Hātshop-sītū could not have been free from complicity in the premature death of Thūtmosis II. ; but I am inclined to believe, from the marks of disease found on the skin of his mummy, that the queen was innocent of the crime here ascribed to her. 

[Illustration: 354. Jpg HEAD OF THE MUMMY OF THŪTMOSIS II. ]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph in the possession of Emil Brugsch Bey. 

His statues bear the same expression, which indeed is that of the mummyitself. He resembles Thūtmosis I. , but his features are not so marked, and are characterised by greater gentleness. He had scarcely reached theage of thirty when he fell a victim to a disease of which the process ofembalming could not remove the traces. The skin is scabrous in patches, and covered with scars, while the upper part of the skull is bald; thebody is thin and somewhat shrunken, and appears to have lacked vigourand muscular power. By his marriage with his sister, Thūtmosis leftdaughters only, * but he had one son, also a Thūtmosis, by a woman oflow birth, perhaps merely a slave, whose name was Isis. ** Hātshopsītūproclaimed this child her successor, for his youth and humble parentagecould not excite her jealousy. She betrothed him to her one survivingdaughter, Hātshopsītū II. , and having thus settled the succession in themale line, she continued to rule alone in the name of her nephew who wasstill a minor, as she had done formerly in the case of her half-brother. 

 * Two daughters of Queen Hātshopsītū I. Are known, of whom one, Nofīrūrī, died young, and Hātshopsītū II. Marītrī, who was married to her half-brother on her father's side, Thūtmosis III. , who was thus her cousin as well. Amenōthes II. Was offspring of this marriage. 

 ** The name of the mother of Thūtmosis III. Was revealed to us on the wrappings found with the mummy of this king in the hiding-place of Deīr el-Baharī; the absence of princely titles, while it shows the humble extraction of the lady Isis, explains at the same time the somewhat obscure relations between Hātshopsītū and her nephew. 

Her reign was a prosperous one, but whether the flourishing conditionof things was owing to the ability of her political administration orto her fortunate choice of ministers, we are unable to tell. She pressedforward the work of building with great activity, under the directionof her architect Sanmūt, not only at Deīr el-Baharī, but at Karnak, andindeed everywhere in Thebes. The plans of the building had been arrangedunder Thūtmosis I. , and their execution had been carried out so quickly, that in many cases the queen had merely to see to the sculpturalornamentation on the all but completed walls. 

This work, however, afforded her sufficient excuse, according toEgyptian custom, to attribute the whole structure to herself, and theopinion she had of her own powers is exhibited with great naiveness inher inscriptions. She loves to pose as premeditating her actions longbeforehand, and as never venturing on the smallest undertaking withoutreference to her divine father. 

[Illustration: 356. Jpg The Coffin Of Thūtmosis I. ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph in the possession of Emil Brugsch-Bey. 

This is what I teach to mortals who shall live in centuries to come, andwhose hearts shall inquire concerning the monument which I have raisedto my father, speaking and exclaiming as they contemplate it: as for me, when I sat in the palace and thought upon him who created me, my heartprompted me to raise to him two obelisks of electrum, whose apicesshould pierce the firmaments, before the noble gateway which is betweenthe two great pylons of the King Thūtmosis I. And my heart led me toaddress these words to those who shall see my monuments in after-yearsand who shall speak of my great deeds: Beware of saying, 'I know not, I know not why it was resolved to carve this mountain wholly of gold!'These two obelisks, My Majesty has made them of electrum for my fatherAnion, that my name may remain and live on in this temple for ever andever; for this single block of granite has been cut, without let orobstacle, at the desire of My Majesty, between the first of the secondmonth of Pirīfc of the Vth year, and the 30th of the fourth month ofShomū of the VIth year, which makes seven months from the day when theybegan to, quarry it. One of these two monoliths is still standing amongthe ruins of Karnak, and the grace of its outline, the finish of itshieroglyphics, and the beauty of the figures which cover it, amplyjustify the pride which the queen and her brother felt in contemplatingit. 

[Illustration: 356b Avenue Of Rams And Pylon At Karnak]

[Illustration: 356b-text]

[Illustration: 357. Jpg THE STATUE OF SANMŪT]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by M. De Mortens: the original is in the Berlin Museum, whither Lepsius brought it. Sanmūt is squatting and holding between his arras and knees the young king Thūt-mosis III, whose head with the youthful side lock appears from under his chin. 

The tops of the pyramids were gilt, so that "they could be seen fromboth banks of the river, " and "their brilliancy lit up the two lands ofEgypt:" needless to say these metal apices have long disappeared. 

[Illustration: 338. Jpg Page Image]

 Drawn by Fauoher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato. 

Later on, in the the queen's reign, Amon enjoined a work which was moredifficult to carry out. On a day when Hātshopsītū had gone to the templeto offer prayers, "her supplications arose up before the throne of theLord of Karnak, and a command was heard in the sanctuary, a behest ofthe god himself, that the ways which lead to Pūanīt should be explored, and that the roads to the 'Ladders of Incense' should be trodden. "*

 * The word "Ladders" is the translation of the Egyptian word "Khātiū, " employed in the text to designate the country laid out in terraces where the incense trees grew; cf. With a different meaning, the "ladders" of the eastern Mediterranean. 

Gums required for the temple service had hitherto reached the Thebanpriests solely by means of foreign intermediaries; so that in the slowtransport across Africa they lost much of their freshness, besides beingdefiled by passing through impure hands. In addition to these drawbacks, the merchants confounded under the one term "Anīti" substances whichdiffered considerably both in value and character, several of them, indeed, scarcely coming under the category of perfumes, and hence beingunacceptable to the gods. One kind, however, found favour with themabove all others, being that which still abounds in Somali-land at thepresent day--a gum secreted by the incense sycomore. *

 * From the form of the trees depicted on the monument, it is certain that the Egyptians went to Pūanīt in search of the _Boswellia Thurifera_ Cart. ; but they brought back with them other products also, which they confounded together under the name "incense. "

It was accounted a pious work to send and obtain it direct from thelocality in which it grew, and if possible to procure the plantsthemselves for acclimatisation in the Nile valley. But the relationsmaintained in former times with the people of these aromatic regionshad been suspended for centuries. "None now climbed the 'Ladders ofIncense, ' none of the Egyptians; they knew of them from hearsay, fromthe stories of people of ancient times, for these products were broughtto the kings of the Delta, thy fathers, to one or other of them, fromthe times of thy ancestors the kings of the Said who lived of yore. " Allthat could be recalled of this country was summed up in the facts, thatit lay to the south or to the extreme east, that from thence many of thegods had come into Egypt, while from out of it the sun rose anew everymorning. Amon, in his omniscience, took upon himself to describe it andgive an exact account of its position. "The 'Ladders of Incense' is asecret province of Tonūtir, it is in truth a place of delight. I createdit, and I thereto lead Thy Majesty, together with Mūt, Hāthor, Uīrīt, the Lady of Pūanīt, Uīrīt-hikaū, the magician and regent of the gods, that the aromatic gum may be gathered at will, that the vessels may beladen joyfully with living incense trees and with all the products ofthis earth. " Hātshopsītū chose out five well-built galleys, andmanned them with picked crews. She caused them to be laden with suchmerchandise as would be most attractive to the barbarians, and placingthe vessels under the command of a royal envoy, she sent them forth onthe Bed Sea in quest of the incense. 

We are not acquainted with the name of the port from which the fleet setsail, nor do we know the number of weeks it took to reach the land ofPūanīt, neither is there any record of the incidents which befell itby the way. It sailed past the places frequented by the mariners ofthe XIIth dynasty--Suakīn, Massowah, and the islands of the Ked Sea;it touched at the country of the Ilīm which lay to the west of the Babel-Mandeb, went safely through the Straits, and landed at last in theLand of Perfumes on the Somali coast. * There, between the bay of Zeīlahand Bas Hafun, stretched the Barbaric region, frequented in later timesby the merchants of Myos Hormos and of Berenice. 

 * That part of Pūanīt where the Egyptians landed was at first located in Arabia by Brugsch, then transferred to Somali-land by Mariette, whose opinion was accepted by most Egyptologists. Dumichen, basing his hypothesis on a passage where Pūanīt is mentioned as "being on both sides of the sea, " desired to apply the name to the Arabian as well as to the African coast, to Yemen and Hadhramaut as well as to Somali-land; this suggestion was adopted by Lieblein, and subsequently by Ed. Meyer, who believed that its inhabitants were the ancestors of the Sabseans. Since then Krall has endeavoured to shorten the distance between this country and Egypt, and he places the Pūanīt of Hātshopsītū between Suakin and Massowah. This was, indeed, the part of the country known under the XIIth dynasty at the time when it was believed that the Nile emptied itself thereabouts into the Red Sea, in the vicinity of the Island of the Serpent King, but I hold, with Mariette, that the Pūanīt where the Egyptians of Hātshopsītū's time landed is the present Somali-land--a view which is also shared by Navillo, but which Brugsch, in the latter years of his life, abandoned. 

[Illustration: 361. Jpg AN INHABITANT OF THE LAND OF PŪANĪT]

 Drawn by Fauchon-Gudin, from a photograph by Gayet. 

The first stations which the latter encountered beyond CapeDireh--Avails, Malao, Mundos, and Mosylon--were merely open roadsteadsoffering no secure shelter; but beyond Mosylon, the classical navigatorsreported the existence of several wadys, the last of which, the ElephantRiver, lying between Bas el-Eīl and Cape Guardafui, appears to have beenlarge enough not only to afford anchorage to several vessels of lightdraught, but to permit of their performing easily any evolutionsrequired. During the Roman period, it was there, and there only, thatthe best kind of incense could be obtained, and it was probably at thispoint also that the Egyptians of Hātshopsītū's time landed. The Egyptianvessels sailed up the river till they reached a place beyond theinfluence of the tide, and then dropped anchor in front of a villagescattered along a bank fringed with sycomores and palms. *

 * I have shown, from a careful examination of the bas- reliefs, that the Egyptians must have landed, not on the coast itself, as was at first believed, but in the estuary of a river, and this observation has been accepted as decisive by most Egyptologists; besides this, newly discovered fragments show the presence of a hippopotamus. Since then I have sought to identify the landing-place of the Egyptians with the most important of the creeks mentioned by the Gręco-Roman merchants as accessible for their vessels, viz. That which they called the Elephant River, near to the present Ras el-Fīl. 

The huts of the inhabitants were of circular shape, each beingsurmounted with a conical roof; some of them were made of closelyplaited osiers, and there was no opening in any of them save the door. They were built upon piles, as a protection from the rise of theriver and from wild animals, and access to them was gained by means ofmoveable ladders. Oxen chewing the cud rested beneath them. The nativesbelonged to a light-coloured race, and the portraits we possess of themresemble the Egyptian type in every particular. They were tall and thin, and of a colour which varied between brick-red and the darkest brown. Their beards were pointed, and the hair was cut short in some instances, while in others it was arranged in close rows of curls or in smallplaits. The costume of the men consisted of a loin-cloth only, while thedress of the women was a yellow garment without sleeves, drawn in at thewaist and falling halfway below the knee. 

The royal envoy landed under an escort of eight soldiers and an officer, but, to prove his pacific intentions, he spread out upon a low table avariety of presents, consisting of five bracelets two gold necklaces, adagger with strap and sheath complete, a battle-axe, and eleven stringsof glass beads. 

[Illustration: 303. Jpg A VILLAGE ON THE BANK OF THE RIVER, WITH LADDERSOF INCENSE]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph. 

The inhabitants, dazzled by the display of so many valuable objects, ranto meet the new-comers, headed by their sheikh, and expressed a naturalastonishment at the sight of the strangers. "How is it, " they exclaimed, "that you have reached this country hitherto unknown to men? Have youcome down by way of the sky, or have you sailed on the waters of theTonūtir Sea? You have followed the path of the sun, for as for the kingof the land of Egypt, it is not possible to elude him, and we live, yea, we ourselves, by the breath which he gives us. " The name of their chiefwas Parihū, who was distinguished from his subjects by the boomerangwhich he carried, and also by his dagger and necklace of beads: hisright leg, moreover, appears to have been covered with a kind ofsheath composed of rings of some yellow metal, probably gold. * He wasaccompanied by his wife Ati, riding on an ass, from which she alightedin order to gain a closer view of the strangers. She was endowed witha type of beauty much admired by the people of Central Africa, being soinordinately fat that the shape of her body was scarcely recognisableunder the rolls of flesh which hung down from it. Her daughter, whoappeared to be still young, gave promise of one day rivalling, if notexceeding, her mother in size. **

 * Mariette compares this kind of armour to the "dangabor" of the Congo tribes, but the "dangabor "is worn on the arm. Livingstone saw a woman, the sister of Sebituaneh, the highest lady of the Sesketeh, who wore on each leg eighteen rings of solid brass as thick as the finger, and three rings of copper above the knee. The weight of these shining rings impeded her walking, and produced sores on her ankles; but it was the fashion, and the inconvenience became nothing. As to the pain, it was relieved by a bit of rag applied to the lower rings. 

 ** These are two instances of abnormal fat production--the earliest with which we are acquainted. 

After an exchange of compliments, the more serious business of theexpedition was introduced. The Egyptians pitched a tent, in which theyplaced the objects of barter with which they were provided, and toprevent these from being too great a temptation to the natives, theysurrounded the tent with a line of troops. 

[Illustration: 365. Jpg PRINCE PARIHŪ AND THE PRINCESS OF PUANĪT]

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

The main conditions of the exchange were arranged at a banquet, inwhich they spread before the barbarians a sumptuous display of Egyptiandelicacies, consisting of bread, beer, wine, meat, and carefullyprepared and flavoured vegetables. Payment for every object was to bemade at the actual moment of purchase. For several days there was aconstant stream of people, and asses groaned beneath their burdens. TheEgyptian purchases comprised the most varied objects: ivory tusks, gold, ebony, cassia, myrrh, cynocephali and green monkeys, greyhounds, leopardskins, large oxen, slaves, and last, but not least, thirty-one incensetrees, with their roots surrounded by a ball of earth and placed inlarge baskets. The lading of the ships was a long and tedious affair. All available space being at length exhausted, and as much cargo placedon board as was compatible with the navigation of the vessel, thesquadron set sail and with all speed took its way northwards. 

[Illustration: 366. Jpg THE EMBARKATION OF THE INCENSE SYCOMORES ONBOARD THE EGYPTIAN FLEET]

 Drawn by Bouclier, from a photograph by Beato. 

The Egyptians touched at several places on the coast on their returnjourney, making friendly alliances with the inhabitants; the Him addeda quota to their freight, for which room was with difficulty found onboard, --it consisted not only of the inevitable gold, ivory, and skins, but also of live leopards and a giraffe, together with plants and fruitsunknown on the banks of the Nile. *

 * Lieblein thought that their country was explored, not by the sailors who voyaged to Pūanīt, but by a different body who proceeded by land, and this view was accepted by Ed. Meyer. The completed text proves that there was but a single expedition, and that the explorers of Pūanīt visited the Ilīm also. The giraffe which they gave does not appear in the cargo of the vessels at Pūanīt; the visit must, therefore, have been paid on the return voyage, and the giraffe was probably represented on the destroyed part of the walls where Naville found the image of this animal wandering at liberty among the woods. 

The fleet at length made its reappearance in Egyptian ports, havingon board the chiefs of several tribes on whose coasts the sailors hadlanded, and "bringing back so much that the like had never been broughtof the products of Pūanīt to other kings, by the supreme favour ofthe venerable god, Amon Rā, lord of Karnak. " The chiefs mentioned wereprobably young men of superior family, who had been confided to theofficer in command of the squadron by local sheikhs, as pledges to thePharaoh of good will or as commercial hostages. National vanity, nodoubt, prompted the Egyptians to regard them as vassals coming to dohomage, and their gifts as tributes denoting subjection. The Queeninaugurated a solemn festival in honour of the explorers. The Thebanmilitia was ordered out to meet them, the royal flotilla escorting themas far as the temple landing-place, where a procession was formed tocarry the spoil to the feet of the god. The good Theban folk, assembledto witness their arrival, beheld the march past of the native hostages, the incense sycomores, the precious gum itself, the wild animals, the giraffe, and the oxen, whose numbers were doubtless increased ahundredfold in the accounts given to posterity with the usual officialexaggeration. The trees were planted at Deīr el-Baharī, where a sacredgarden was prepared for them, square trenches being cut in the rock andfilled with earth, in which the sycomore, by frequent watering, came toflourish well. *

 * Naville found these trenches still filled with vegetable mould, and in several of them roots, which gave every indication of the purpose to which the trenches were applied. A scene represents seven of the incense sycomores still growing in their pots, and offered by the queen to the Majesty "of this god Amonrā of Karnak. "

The great heaps of fresh resin were next the objects of specialattention. Hātshopsītū "gave a bushel made of electrum to gauge the massof gum, it being the first time that they had the joy of measuring theperfumes for Amon, lord of Karnak, master of heaven, and of presentingto him the wonderful products of Pūanīt. Thot, the lord of Hermo-polis, noted the quantities in writing; Safkhītābūi verified the list. HerMajesty herself prepared from it, with her own hands, a perfumed unguentfor her limbs; she gave forth the smell of the divine dew, her perfumereached even to Pūanīt, her skin became like wrought gold, * and hercountenance shone like the stars in the great festival hall, in thesight of the whole earth. "

 * In order to understand the full force of the imagery here employed, one must remember that the Egyptian artists painted the flesh of women as light yellow. 

Hātshopsītū commanded the history of the expedition to be carved on thewall of the colonnades which lay on the west side of the middle platformof her funerary chapel: we there see the little fleet with sailsspread, winging its way to the unknown country, its safe arrival at itsdestination, the meeting with the natives, the animated palavering, theconsent to exchange freely accorded; and thanks to the minutenesswith which the smallest details have been portrayed, we can as it werewitness, as if on the spot, all the phases of life on board ship, notonly on Egyptian vessels, but, as we may infer, those of otherOriental nations generally. For we may be tolerably sure that when thePhoenicians ventured into the distant parts of the Mediterranean, it wasafter a similar fashion that they managed and armed their vessels. 

[Illustration: 369. Jpg SOME OF THE INCENSE TREES BROUGHT FROM PŪANĪT TODEĪR EL-BAIIAKĪ]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato. 

Although the natural features of the Asiatic or Greek coast on whichthey effected a landing differed widely from those of Pūanīt, thePhoenician navigators were themselves provided with similar objects ofexchange, and in their commercial dealings with the natives the methodsof procedure of the European traders were doubtless similar to those ofthe Egyptians with the barbarians of the Red Sea. 

Hātshopsītū reigned for at least eight years after this memorableexpedition, and traces of her further activity are to be observed inevery part of the Nile valley. She even turned her attention to theDelta, and began the task of reorganising this part of her kingdom, which had been much neglected by her predecessors. The wars between theTheban princes and the lords of Avaris had lasted over a century, andduring that time no one had had either sufficient initiative or leisureto superintend the public works, which were more needed here than in anyother part of Egypt. The canals were silted up with mud, the marshes andthe desert had encroached on the cultivated lands, the towns had becomeimpoverished, and there were some provinces whose population consistedsolely of shepherds and bandits. Hātshopsītū desired to remedy theseevils, if only for the purpose of providing a practicable road for herarmies marching to Zalū _en route_ for Syria. *

 * This follows from the great inscription at Stabl-Antar, which is commonly interpreted as proving that the Shepherd- kings still held sway in Egypt in the reign of Thūtmosis III. , and that they were driven out by him and his aunt. It seems to me that the queen is simply boasting that she had repaired the monuments which had been injured by the Shepherds during the time they sojourned in Egypt, in the land of Avaris. Up to the present time no trace of these restorations has been found on the sites. The expedition to Pūanīt being mentioned in lines 13, 14, they must be of later date than the year IX. Of Hātshopsītū and Thūtmosis III. 

She also turned her attention to the mines of Sinai, which had not beenworked by the Egyptian kings since the end of the XIIth dynasty. In theyear XVI. An officer of the queen's household was despatched to theWady Magharah, the site of the ancient works, with orders to inspect thevalleys, examine the veins, and restore there the temple of the goddessHāthor; having accomplished his mission, he returned, bringing withhim a consignment of those blue and green stones which were so highlyesteemed by the Egyptians. 

Meanwhile, Thūtmosis III. Was approaching manhood, and his aunt, thequeen, instead of abdicating in his favour, associated him with herselfmore frequently in the external acts of government. *

 * The account of the youth of Thūtmosis III. , such as Brugsch made it out to be from an inscription of this king, the exile of the royal child at Būto, his long sojourn in the marshes, his triumphal return, must all be rejected. Brugsch accepted as actual history a poetical passage where the king identifies himself with Horus son of Isis, and goes so far as to attribute to himself the adventures of the god. 

She was forced to yield him precedence in those religious ceremonieswhich could be performed by a man only, such as the dedication of one ofthe city gates of Ombos, and the foundation and marking out of a templeat Medinet-Habū; but for the most part she obliged him to remain inthe background and take a secondary place beside her. We are unable todetermine the precise moment when this dual sovereignty came to an end. It was still existent in the XVIth year of the reign, but it had ceasedbefore the XXIInd year. Death alone could take the sceptre from thehands that held it, and Thūtmosis had to curb his impatience for manya long day before becoming the real master of Egypt. He was abouttwenty-five years of age when this event took place, and he immediatelyrevenged himself for the long repression he had undergone, byendeavouring to destroy the very remembrance of her whom he regarded asa usurper. Every portrait of her that he could deface without exposinghimself to being accused of sacrilege was cut away, and he substitutedfor her name either that of Thūtmosis I. Or of Thūtmosis II. 

[Illustration: 372. Jpg THUTMOSIS III. , FROM HIS STATUE IN THE TURINMUSEUM]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Petrie. 

A complete political change was effected both at home and abroad fromthe first day of his accession to power. Hātshopsītū had been averse towar. During the whole of her reign there had not been a single campaignundertaken beyond the isthmus of Suez, and by the end of her life she hadlost nearly all that her father had gained in Syria; the people of Kharuhad shaken off the yoke, * probably at the instigation of the king of theAmorites, ** and nothing remained to Egypt of the Asiatic province butGaza, Sharūhana, *** and the neighbouring villages. The young king setout with his army in the latter days of the year XXII. He reached Gazaon the 3rd of the month of Pakhons, in time to keep the anniversaryof his coronation in that town, and to inaugurate the 24th year of hisreign by festivals in honour of his father Amon. **** They lasted theusual length of time, and all the departments of State took part inthem, but it was not a propitious moment for lengthy ceremonies. 

 * E. De Rougé thought that he had discovered, in a slightly damaged inscription bearing upon the Pūanīt expedition, the mention of a tribute paid by the Lotanū. There is nothing in the passage cited but the mention of the usual annual dues paid by the chiefs of Pūanīt and of the Ilīm. 

 ** This is at least what may be inferred from the account of the campaign, where the Prince of Qodshū, a town of the Amaūru (Amorites), figures at the head of the coalition formed against Thūtmosis III. 

 *** This is the conclusion to be adopted from the beginning of the inscription of Thūtmosis III. : "Now, during the duration of these same years, the country of the Lotanū was in discord until other times succeeded them, when the people who were in the town of Sharūhana, from the town of Yūrza, to the most distant regions of the earth, succeeded in making a revolt against his Majesty. "

 **** The account of this campaign has been preserved to us on a wall adjoining the granite sanctuary at Karnak. 

The king left Gaza the following day, the 5th of Pakhons; he marchedbut slowly at first, following the usual caravan route, and despatchingtroops right and left to levy contributions on the cities of thePlain--Migdol, Yapu (Jaffa), Lotanū, Ono--and those within reach on themountain spurs, or situated within the easily accessible wadys, such asSauka (Socho), Hadid, and Harīlu. On the 16th day he had not proceededfurther than Yahmu, where he received information which caused him topush quickly forward. The lord of Qodshū had formed an alliance with theSyrian princes on the borders of Naharaim, and had extorted from thempromises of help; he had already gone so far as to summon contingentsfrom the Upper Orontes, the Litany, and the Upper Jordan, and wasconcentrating them at Megiddo, where he proposed to stop the way of theinvading army. Thūtmosis called together his principal officers, andhaving imparted the news to them, took counsel with them as to a planof attack. Three alternative routes were open to him. The most directapproached the enemy's position on the front, crossing Mount Carmel bythe saddle now known as the Umm el-Fahm; but the great drawback attachedto this route was its being so restricted that the troops would beforced to advance in too thin a file; and the head of the column wouldreach the plain and come into actual conflict with the enemy while therear-guard would only be entering the defiles in the neighbourhoodof Aluna. The second route bore a little to the east, crossing themountains beyond Dutīna and reaching the plain near Taānach; but itoffered the same disadvantages as the other. The third road ran northof _Zafīti_, to meet the great highway which cuts the hill-district ofNablūs, skirting the foot of Tabor near Jenīn, a little to the north ofMegiddo. It was not so direct as the other two, but it was easier fortroops, and the king's generals advised that it should be followed. Theking was so incensed that he was tempted to attribute their prudence tocowardice. "By my life! by the love that Rā hath for me, by the favourthat I enjoy from my master Amon, by the perpetual youth of my nostrilin life and power, My Majesty will go by the way of Aluna, and let himthat will go by the roads of which ye have spoken, and let him that willfollow My Majesty. What will be said among the vile enemies detested ofRā: 'Doth not His Majesty go by another way? For fear of us he givesus a wide berth, ' they will cry. " The king's counsellors did not insistfurther. "May thy father Amon of Thebes protect thee!" they exclaimed;"as for us, we will follow Thy Majesty whithersoever thou goest, as itbefitteth a servant to follow his master. " The word of command was givento the men; Thūtmosis himself led the vanguard, and the whole army, horsemen and foot-soldiers, followed in single file, wending their waythrough the thickets which covered the southern slopes of Mount Carmel. *

 * The position of the towns mentioned and of the three roads has been discussed by E. De Rougé, also by P. De Saulcy, who fixed the position of Yahmu at El-Kheimeh, and showed that the Egyptian army must have passed through the defiles of Umm el-Rahm. Conder disagreed with this opinion in certain respects, and identified Aluna, Aruna, at first with Arrabeh, and afterwards with Arraneh; he thought that Thūtmosis came out upon Megiddo from the south-east, and he placed Megiddo at Mejeddah, near Beisan, while Tomkins placed Aruna in the Wady el-Arriān. W. Max Millier seems to place Yahinu too much to the north, in the neighbourhood of Jett. 

They pitched their camp on the evening of the 19th near Aluna, and onthe morning of the 20th they entered the wild defiles through which itwas necessary to pass in order to reach the enemy. The king had takenprecautionary measures against any possible attempt of the natives tocut the main column during this crossing of the mountains. His positionmight at any moment have become a critical one, had the allies takenadvantage of it and attacked each battalion as it issued on to the plainbefore it could re-form. But the Prince of Qodshū, either from ignoranceof his adversary's movements, or confident of victory in the open, declined to take the initiative. Towards one o'clock in the afternoon, the Egyptians found themselves once more united on the further side ofthe range, close to a torrent called the Qina, a little to the south ofMegiddo. When the camp was pitched, Thūtmosis announced his intention ofengaging the enemy on the morrow. A council of war was held to decideon the position that each corps should occupy, after which the officersreturned to their men to see that a liberal supply of rations was servedout, and to organise an efficient system of patrols. They passed roundthe camp to the cry: "Keep a good heart: courage! Watch well, watchwell! Keep alive in the camp!" The king refused to retire to rest untilhe had been assured that "the country was quiet, and also the host, bothto south and north. " By dawn the next day the whole army was in motion. It was formed into a single line, the right wing protected by thetorrent, the left extended into the plain, stretching beyond Megiddotowards the north-west. Thūtmosis and his guards occupied the centre, standing "armed in his chariot of electrum like unto Horus brandishinghis pike, and like Montū the Theban god. " The Syrians, who had notexpected such an early attack, were seized with panic, and fled in thedirection of the town, leaving their horses and chariots on the field;but the citizens, fearing lest in the confusion the Egyptians shouldeffect an entrance with the fugitives, had closed their gates andrefused to open them. Some of the townspeople, however, let down ropesto the leaders of the allied party, and drew them up to the top of theramparts: "and would to heaven that the soldiers of His Majesty had notso far forgotten themselves as to gather up the spoil left by the vileenemy! They would then have entered Megiddo forthwith; for while the menof the garrison were drawing up the Lord of Qodshū and their own prince, the fear of His Majesty was upon their limbs, and their hands failedthem by reason of the carnage which the royal urous carried intotheir ranks. " The victorious soldiery were dispersed over the fields, gathering together the gilded and silvered chariots of the Syrianchiefs, collecting the scattered weapons and the hands of the slain, andsecuring the prisoners; then rallying about the king, they greeted himwith acclamations and filed past to deliver up the spoil. He reproachedthem for having allowed themselves to be drawn away from the heat ofpursuit. "Had you carried Megiddo, it would have been a favour grantedto me by Rā my father this day; for all the kings of the country beingshut up within it, it would have been as the taking of a thousand townsto have seized Megiddo. " The Egyptians had made little progress in theart of besieging a stronghold since the times of the XIIth dynasty. Whenscaling failed, they had no other resource than a blockade, and even themost stubborn of the Pharaohs would naturally shrink from the tedium ofsuch an undertaking. Thūtmosis, however, was not inclined to lose theopportunity of closing the campaign by a decisive blow, and began theinvestment of the town according to the prescribed modes. 

[Illustration: 378. Jpg AN EGYPTIAN ENCAMPMENT BEFORE A BESIEGED TOWN]

 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato. 

His men were placed under canvas, and working under the protection ofimmense shields, supported on posts, they made a ditch around the walls, strengthening it with a palisade. The king constructed also on the eastside a fort which he called "Manakhpirrī-holds-the-Asiatics. " Faminesoon told on the demoralised citizens, and their surrender brought aboutthe submission of the entire country. Most of the countries situatedbetween the Jordan and the sea--Shunem, Cana, Kinnereth, Hazor, Bedippa, Laish, Merom, and Acre--besides the cities of the Haurān--Hamath, Magato, Ashtarōth, Ono-repha, and even Damascus itself--recognised thesuzerainty of Egypt, and their lords came in to the camp to do homage. *

 * The names of these towns are inscribed on the lists of Karnak published by Mariette. 

The Syrian losses did not amount to more than 83 killed and 400prisoners, showing how easily they had been routed; but they hadabandoned considerable supplies, all of which had fallen into the handsof the victors. Some 724 chariots, 2041 mares, 200 suits of armour, 602bows, the tent of the Prince of Qodshū with its poles of cypress inlaidwith gold, besides oxen, cows, goats, and more than 20, 000 sheep, wereamong the spoil. Before quitting the plain of Bsdraelon, the king causedan official survey of it to be made, and had the harvest reaped. Ityielded 208, 000 bushels of wheat, not taking into account what had beenlooted or damaged by the marauding soldiery. The return homewards of theEgyptians must have resembled the exodus of some emigrating tribe ratherthan the progress of a regular army

Thūtmosis caused a long list of the vanquished to be engraved on thewalls of the temple which he was building at Karnak, thus affording thegood people of Thebes an opportunity for the first time of readingon the monuments the titles of the king's Syrian subjects written inhieroglyphics. One hundred and nineteen names follow each other inunbroken succession, some of them representing mere villages, whileothers denoted powerful nations; the catalogue, however, was not to endeven here. Having once set out on a career of conquest, the Pharaoh hadno inclination to lay aside his arms. From the XXIIth year of his reignto that of his death, we have a record of twelve military expeditions, all of which he led in person. Southern Syria was conquered at theoutset--the whole of Kharū as far as the Lake of Grennesareth, and theAmorite power was broken at one blow. 

[Illustration: 380. Jpg SOME OF THE PLANTS AND ANIMALS BROUGHT BACK FROMPUANĪT]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph. 

The three succeeding campaigns consolidated the rule of Egypt in thecountry of the Negeb, which lay to the south-west of the Dead Sea, inPhoenicia, which prudently resigned itself to its fate, and in that partof Lotanii occupying the northern part of the basin of the Orontes. **

 * We know of these three campaigns from the indirect testimony of the Annals, which end in the year XXIX. With the mention of the fifth campaign. The only dated one is referred to the year XXV. , and we know of that of the Negeb only by the _Inscription of Amenemhabī_, 11. 3-5: the campaign began in the Negeb of Judah, but the king carried it to Naharaim the same year. 

None of these expeditions appear to have been marked by any successescomparable to the victory at Megiddo, for the coalition of the Syrianchiefs did not survive the blow which they then sustained; but Qodshūlong remained the centre of resistance, and the successive defeats whichits inhabitants suffered never disarmed for more than a short intervalthe hatred which they felt for the Egyptian. 

[Illustration: 381. Jpg PART OF THE TRIUMPHAL LISTS OF THUTMOSIS III. ]

 On One Of The Pylons Of The Temple At Karnak. Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. 

During these years of glorious activity considerable tribute poured into both Memphis and Thebes; not only ingots of gold and silver, bars andblocks of copper and lead, blocks of lapis-lazuli and valuable vases, but horses, oxen, sheep, goats, and useful animals of every kind, inaddition to all of which we find, as in Hātshopsītū's reign, the mentionof rare plants and shrubs brought back from countries traversed by thearmies in their various expeditions. The Theban priests and _savants_exhibited much interest in such curiosities, and their royal pupil gaveorders to his generals to collect for their benefit all that appearedeither rare or novel. They endeavoured to acclimatise the species orthe varieties likely to be useful, and in order to preserve a record ofthese experiments, they caused a representation of the strange plants oranimals to be drawn on the walls of one of the chapels which they werethen building to one of their gods. These pictures may still be seenthere in interminable lines, portraying the specimens brought fromthe Upper Lotanū in the XXVth year of Thūtmosis, and we are able todistinguish, side by side with many plants peculiar to the regions ofthe Euphrates, others having their habitat in the mountains and valleysof tropical Africa. 

This return to an aggressive policy on the part of the Egyptians, afterthe weakness they had exhibited during the later period of Hātshopsītū'sregency, seriously disconcerted the Asiatic sovereigns. They had vainlyflattered themselves that the invasion of Thūtmosis I. Was merely thecaprice of an adventurous prince, and they hoped that when his love ofenterprise had expended itself, Egypt would permanently withdraw withinher traditional boundaries, and that the relations of Elam with Babylon, Carchemish with Qodshū, and the barbarians of the Persian Gulf with theinhabitants of the Iranian table-land would resume their former course. This vain delusion was dispelled by the advent of a new Thūtmosis, whoshowed clearly by his actions that he intended to establish and maintainthe sovereignty of Egypt over the western dependencies, at least, ofthe ancient Chaldęan empire, that is to say, over the countries whichbordered the middle course of the Euphrates and the coasts of theMediterranean. The audacity of his marches, the valour of his men, thefacility with which in a few hours he had crushed the assembled forcesof half Syria, left no room to doubt that he was possessed of personalqualities and material resources sufficient to carry out projects ofthe most ambitious character. Babylon, enfeebled by the perpetualdissensions of its Cossęan princes, was no longer in a position tocontest with him the little authority she still retained over thepeoples of Naharaim or of Coele-Syria; protected by the distance whichseparated her from the Nile valley, she preserved a sullen neutrality, while Assyria hastened to form a peaceful alliance with the invadingpower. Again and again its kings sent to Thūtmosis presents inproportion to their resources, and the Pharaoh naturally treated theiradvances as undeniable proofs of their voluntary vassalage. Each timethat he received from them a gift of metal or lapis-lazuli, he proudlyrecorded their tribute in the annals of his reign; and if, in exchange, he sent them some Egyptian product, it was in smaller quantities, asmight be expected from a lord to his vassal. *

 * The "tribute of Assūr" is mentioned in this way under the years XXIII. And XXIV. The presents sent by the Pharaoh in return are not mentioned in any Egyptian text, but there is frequent reference to them in the Tel el-Amarna tablets. It may be mentioned here that the name of Nineveh does not occur on the Egyptian monuments, but only that of the town Nīi, in which Champollion wrongly recognised the later capital of Assyria. 

Sometimes there would accompany the convoy, surrounded by an escort ofslaves and women, some princess, whom the king would place in his haremor graciously pass on to one of his children; but when, on the otherhand, an even distant relative of the Pharaoh was asked in marriage forsome king on the banks of the Tigris or Euphrates, the request was metwith a disdainful negative: the daughters of the Sun were of too noblea race to stoop to such alliances, and they would count it a humiliationto be sent in marriage to a foreign court. 

[Illustration: 384. Jpg SOME OF THE OBJECTS CARRIED IN TRIBUTE TO THESYRIANS]

 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Champollion. 

Free transit on the main road which ran diagonally through Kharū wasensured by fortresses constructed at strategic points, * and from thistime forward Thūtmosis was able to bring the whole force of his armyto bear upon both Coele-Syria and Naharaim. ** He encamped, in the yearXXVII. , on the table-land separating the Afrīn and the Orontes from theEuphrates, and from that centre devastated the district of Ūānīt, ***which lay to the west of Aleppo; then crossing "the water of Naharaim"in the neighbourhood of Carchemish, he penetrated into the heart ofMitanni. 

 * The castle, for instance, near Megiddo, previously referred to, which, after having contributed to the siege of the town, probably served to keep it in subjection. 

 ** The accounts of the campaigns of Thūtmosis III. Have been preserved in the Annals in a very mutilated condition, the fragments of which were discovered at different times. They are nothing but extracts from an official account, made for Amon and his priests. 

 *** The province of the Tree Ūanū; cf. With this designation the epithet "Shad Erini, " "mountain of the cedar tree, " which the Assyrians bestowed on the Amanus. 

The following year he reappeared in the same region. Tunipa, which hadmade an obstinate resistance, was taken, together with its king, and 329of his nobles were forced to yield themselves prisoners. Thūtmosis "witha joyous heart" was carrying them away captive, when it occurred to himthat the district of Zahi, which lay away for the most part from thegreat military highroads, was a tempting prey teeming with spoil. Thebarns were stored with wheat and barley, the cellars were filled withwine, the harvest was not yet gathered in, and the trees bent under theweight of their fruit. Having pillaged Senzaūrū on the Orontes, * hemade his way to the westwards through the ravine formed by the Ishahrel-Kebīr, and descended suddenly on the territory of Arvad. The townsonce more escaped pillage, but Thutmosis destroyed the harvests, plundered the orchards, carried off the cattle, and pitilessly wastedthe whole of the maritime plain. 

 * Senzaūrū was thought by Ebers to be "the double Tyre. " Brugsch considered it to be Tyre itself. It is, I believe, the Sizara of classical writers, the Shaizar of the Arabs, and is mentioned in one of the Tel el-Amarna tablets in connection with Nīi. 

There was such abundance within the camp that the men were continuallygetting drunk, and spent their time in anointing themselves with oil, which they could do only in Egypt at the most solemn festivals. Theyreturned to Syria in the year XXX. , and their good fortune againfavoured them. The stubborn Qodshū was harshly dealt with; Simyra andArvad, which hitherto had held their own, now opened their gates to him;the lords of Upper Lotanū poured in their contributions without delay, and gave up their sons and brothers as hostages. In the year XXXI. , thecity of Anamut in Tikhisa, on the shores of Lake Msrana, yielded in itsturn;* on the 3rd of Pakhons, the anniversary of his coronation, theLotanū renewed their homage to him in person. 

 * The site of the Tikhisa country is imperfectly defined. Nisrana was seemingly applied to the marshy lake into which the Koweik flows, and it is perhaps to be found in the name Kin-nesrīn. In this case Tikhisa would be the country near the lake; the district of the Grseco-Roruan Chalkis is situated on the right of the military road. 

The return of the expedition was a sort of triumphal procession. Atevery halting-place the troops found quarters and provisions preparedfor them, bread and cakes, perfumes, oil, wine, and honey being providedin such quantities that they were obliged on their departure to leavethe greater part behind them. The scribes took advantage of thispeaceful state of affairs to draw up minute accounts of the products ofLotanū--corn, barley, millet, fruits, and various kinds of oil--prompteddoubtless by the desire to arrive at a fairly just apportionment ofthe tribute. Indeed, the results of the expedition were considered sosatisfactory that they were recorded on a special monument dedicated inthe palace at Thebes. The names of the towns and peoples might changewith every war, but the spoils suffered no diminution. In the yearXXXIII. , the kingdoms situated to the west of the Euphrates were sofar pacified that Thutmosis was able without risk to carry his arms toMesopotamia. He entered the country by the fords of Carchemish, near tothe spot where his grandfather, Thutmosis I. , had erected his stele halfa century previously. He placed another beside this, and a third to theeastward to mark the point to which he had extended the frontier of hisempire.. The Mitanni, who exercised a sort of hegemony over the whole ofNaharaim, were this time the objects of his attack. Thirty-two of theirtowns fell one after another, their kings were taken captive and thewalls of their cities were razed, without any serious resistance. Thebattalions of the enemy were dispersed at the first shock, and Pharaoh"pursued them for the space of a mile, without one of them daring tolook behind him, for they thought only of escape, and fled before himlike a flock of goats. " Thutmosis pushed forward as far certainly as theBalikh, and perhaps on to the Khabur or even to the Hermus; and as heapproached the frontier, the king of Singar, a vassal of Assyria, senthim presents of lapis-lazuli. 

When this prince had retired, another chief, the lord of the GreatKkati, whose territory had not even been threatened by the invaders, deemed it prudent to follow the example of the petty princes of theplain of the Euphrates, and despatched envoys to the Pharaoh bearingpresents of no great value, but testifying to his desire to live on goodterms with Egypt. Still further on, the inhabitants of Nīi begged theking's acceptance of a troop of slaves and two hundred and sixty mares;he remained among them long enough to erect a stele commemorating histriumph, and to indulge in one of those extensive hunts which were thedelight of Oriental monarchs. The country abounded in elephants. Thesoldiers were employed as beaters, and the king and his court succeededin killing one hundred and twenty head of big game, whose tusks wereadded to the spoils. These numbers indicate how the extinction of suchanimals in these parts was brought about. Beyond these regions, again, the sheikhs of the Lamnaniū came to meet the Pharaoh. They were a poorpeople, and had but little to offer, but among their gifts were somebirds of a species unknown to the Egyptians, and two geese, with which, however, His Majesty deigned to be satisfied. *

 * The campaign of the year XXXI. It is mentioned in the _Annals of Thulmosis III. _, 11. 17-27; the reference to the elephant-hunt occurs only in the _Inscription of Amenemhabi_, 11. 22, 23; an allusion to the defeat of the kings of Mitanni is found in a mutilated inscription from the tomb of Manakhpirrīsonbū. It was probably on his return from this campaign that Thūtmosis caused the great list to be engraved which, while it includes a certain number of names assigned to places beyond the Euphrates, ought necessarily to contain the cities of the Mitanni. 

END OF VOL. IV.