Vanquished Syria was made to contribute to the endowments of the

Egyptian temples. Thus the temple of Amon at Thebes was endowed by

Thothmes III. with the revenues of the three cities Anugas, Inu'am, and

Harankal; while Seti I., the father of Ramses II., bestowed upon it "all

the silver, gold, lapis-lazuli, malachite, and precious stones which he

carried off from the humbled land of Syria." Temples of the Egyptian

gods, as well as towns, were built in Syria itself; Meneptah founded a

city in the land of the Amorites; Ramses III. erected a temple to Amon

in "the land of Canaan, great as the horizon of heaven above, to which

the people of Syria come with their gifts"; and hieroglyphic

inscriptions lately discovered at Gaza show that another temple had been

built there by Amenophis II. to the goddess Mut.

Amenophis had suppressed the rebellion in Northern Syria with little

trouble. Seven Amorite kings were carried prisoners to Egypt from the

land of Takhis, and taken up the river as far as Thebes. There six of

them were hung outside the walls of the city, as the body of Saul was

hung by the Philistines outside the walls of Beth-shan, while the

seventh was conveyed to Napata in Ethiopia, and there punished in the

same way in order to impress a lesson of obedience upon the negroes of

the Soudan.

Amenophis II. was succeeded by Thothmes IV., who was called upon to face

a new enemy, the Hittites. It was at the commencement of his reign that

they first began to descend from their mountain homes, and the frontier

city of Tunip had to bear the brunt of the attack. It was probably in

order to strengthen himself against these formidable foes that the

Pharaoh married the daughter of the king of Mitanni, who changed her

name to Mut-em-ua. It was the beginning of those inter-marriages with

the princes of Asia which led to the Asiatized court and religion of

Amenophis IV., and finally to the overthrow of the eighteenth dynasty.

The son of Mut-em-ua was Amenophis III., whose long reign of

thirty-seven years was as brilliant and successful as that of

Thothmes III. At Soleb between the second and third cataracts he built a

temple to his own deified self, and engraved upon its columns the names

of his vassal states. Among them are Tunip and Kadesh, Carchemish and

Apphadana on the Khabûr. Sangar, Assyria, Naharaim, and the Hittites

also appear among them, but this must be on the strength of the tribute

or presents which had been received from them. The Pharaoh filled his

harîm with Asiatic princesses. His queen Teie, who exercised an

important influence upon both religion and politics, came from Asia, and

among his wives were the sisters and daughters of the kings of Babylonia

and Mitanni, while one of his own daughters was married to Burna-buryas

the Babylonian sovereign. His marriage with Gilu-khipa, the daughter of

Sutarna, king of Aram-Naharaim, was celebrated on a scarab, where it is

further related that she was accompanied to Egypt by three hundred and

seventeen "maids of honour." Besides allying himself in marriage to the

royal houses of Asia, Amenophis III. passed a good deal of his time in

Syria and Mesopotamia, amusing himself with hunting lions. During the

first ten years of his reign he boasts of having killed no less than one

hundred and two of them. It was in the last of these years that he

married queen Teie, who is said on scarabs to have been the daughter of

"Yua and Tua." Possibly these are contracted forms of Tusratta and Yuni,

who were at the time king and queen of Mitanni. But if so, it is curious

that no royal titles are given to her parents; moreover, the author of

the scarabs has made Yua the father of the queen and Tua her mother.

Tuya is the name of an Amorite in one of the Tel el-Amarna letters,

while from another of them it would seem as if Teie had been the

daughter of the Babylonian king. One of the daughters of Tusratta,

Tadu-khipa, was indeed married to Amenophis, but she did not rank as

chief queen. In the reign of Meneptah of the nineteenth dynasty the

vizier was a native of Bashan, Ben-Mazana by name, whose father was

called Yu the elder. Yua may therefore be a word of Amorite origin; and

a connection has been suggested between it and the Hebrew Yahveh. This,

however, though possible, cannot be proved.

When Amenophis III. died his son Amenophis IV. seems to have been still

a minor. At all events the queen-mother Teie became all-powerful in the

government of the state. Her son, the new Pharaoh, had been brought up

in the religious beliefs of his mother, and had inherited the ideas and

tendencies of his Asiatic forefathers. A plaster-cast of his face, taken

immediately after death, was discovered by Prof. Petrie at Tel

el-Amarna, and it is the face of a refined and thoughtful theorist, of a

philosopher rather than of a king, earnest in his convictions almost to

fanaticism.

Amenophis IV. undertook no less a task than that of reforming the State

religion of Egypt. For many centuries the religion of the priests and

scribes had been inclining to pantheism. Inside the temples there had

been an esoteric teaching, that the various deities of Egypt were but

manifestations of the one supreme God. But it had hardly passed outside

them. With the accession of Amenophis IV. to the throne came a change.

The young king boldly rejected the religion of which he was officially

the head, and professed himself a worshipper of the one God whose

visible semblance was the solar disk. Alone of the deities of Egypt Ra,

the ancient Sun-god of Heliopolis, was acknowledged to be the

representative of the true God. It was the Baal-worship of Syria,

modified by the philosophic conceptions of Egypt. The Aten-Ra of the

"heretic" Pharaoh was an Asiatic Baal, but unlike the Baal of Canaan he

stood alone; there were no other Baals, no Baalim, by the side of him.

Amenophis was not content with preaching and encouraging the new faith;

he sought to force it upon his subjects. The other gods of Egypt were

proscribed, and the name and head of Amon, the patron god of Thebes, to

whom his ancestors had ascribed their power and victories, were erased

from the monuments wherever they occurred. Even his own father's name

was not spared, and the emissaries of the king, from one end of the

country to the other, defaced that portion of it which contained the

name of the god. His own name was next changed, and Amenophis IV. became

Khu-n-Aten, "the splendour of the solar disk."

Khu-n-Aten's attempt to overthrow the ancient faith of Egypt was

naturally resisted by the powerful priesthood of Thebes. A religious war

was declared for the first time, so far as we know, in the history of

mankind. On the one side a fierce persecution was directed against the

adherents of the old creed; on the other side every effort was made to

impede and defeat the Pharaoh. His position grew daily more insecure,

and at last he turned his back on the capital of his fathers, and built

himself a new city far away to the north. The priests of Amon had thus

far triumphed; the old idolatrous worship was carried on once more in

the great temple of Karnak, though its official head was absent, and

Khu-n-Aten with his archives and his court had fled to a safer home.

Upper Egypt was left to its worship of Amon and Min, while the king

established himself nearer his Canaanite possessions.

Here on the eastern bank of the Nile, about midway between Minyeh and

Siût, the new capital was founded on a strip of land protected from

attack by a semi-amphitheatre of cliffs. The city, with its palaces and

gardens, extended nearly two miles in length along the river bank. In

its midst rose the temple of the new god of Egypt, and hard by the

palace of the king. Both were brilliant with painting and sculpture, and

inlaid work in precious stones and gold. Even the floors were frescoed,

while the walls and columns were enamelled or adorned with the most

costly materials that the Egyptian world could produce. Here and there

were statues of alabaster, of bronze or of gold, some of them almost

Greek in form and design. Along with the reform in religion there had

gone a reform in art. The old conventionalized art of Egypt was

abandoned, and a new art had been introduced which aimed at imitating

nature with realistic fidelity.

The mounds which mark the site of Khu-n-Aten's city are now known as Tel

el-Amarna. It had a brief but brilliant existence of about thirty years.

Then the enemies of the Pharaoh and his work of reform finally

prevailed, and his city with its temple and palaces was levelled to the

ground. It is from among its ruins that the wondering fellah and

explorer of to-day exhume the gorgeous relics of its past.

But among these relics none have proved more precious than the clay

tablets inscribed with cuneiform characters, which have revolutionized

our conceptions of the ancient East. They were preserved in the Foreign

Office of the day. This formed part of the public buildings connected

with the palace, and the bricks of which it was built were stamped with

an inscription describing its character. Many of the tablets had been

brought from the archive chamber of Thebes, but the greater part of the

collection belongs to the reign of Khu-n-Aten himself. It consists

almost entirely of official correspondence; of letters from the kings of

Babylonia and Assyria, of Mesopotamia and Kappadokia, and of despatches

from the Egyptian governors and vassal-princes in Syria and Palestine.

They furnish us with a living and unexpected picture of Canaan about

1400 B.C.

Fragments of dictionaries for the use of the scribes have also been

recovered from the _débris_ of the building, as well as the seal of a

servant of Samas-akh-iddin who looked after the cuneiform

correspondence. Like several of the Canaanitish governors, he bore a

Babylonian name. Even the brother of Amenophis III., who had been made

king of Nukhasse, had received the Babylonian name of Rimmon-nirari. No

stronger proof could be found of the extent and strength of Babylonian

influence in the West.

At Khut-Aten, as the "heretic" Pharaoh called his new capital, he was

surrounded by the adherents of the new faith. Many of them were

doubtless Egyptians, but many, perhaps the majority, were of Asiatic

extraction. Already under his father and grandfather the court had been

filled with Canaanites and other natives of Asia, and the great offices

of state had been occupied by them. Now under Khu-n-Aten the Asiatic

character of the government was increased tenfold. The native Egyptian

had to make way for the foreigner, and the rule of the Syrian stranger

which seemed to have been expelled with the Hyksos was restored under

another form. Canaan was nominally a subject province of Egypt, but in

reality it had led its conqueror captive. A semi-Asiatic Pharaoh was

endeavouring to force an Asiatic form of faith upon his subjects, and

entrusting his government to Asiatic officials; even art had ceased to

be Egyptian and had put on an Asiatic dress.

The tombs of Khu-n-Aten's followers are cut in the cliffs at the back of

the city, while his own sepulchre is towards the end of a long ravine

which runs out into the eastern desert between two lofty lines of

precipitous rock. But few of them are finished, and the sepulchre of the

king himself, magnificent in its design, is incomplete and mutilated.

The sculptures on the walls have been broken, and the granite

sarcophagus in which the body of the great king rested has been

shattered into fragments before it could be lifted into the niche where

it was intended to stand. The royal mummy was torn into shreds, and the

porcelain figures buried with it dashed to the ground.

It is clear that the death of Khu-n-Aten must have been quickly followed

by the triumph of his enemies. His capital was overthrown, the stones of

its temple carried away to Thebes, there to adorn the sanctuary of the

victorious Amon, and the adherents of his reform either slain or driven

into exile. The vengeance executed upon them was national as well as

religious. It meant not only a restoration of the national faith, but

also the restoration of the native Egyptian to the government of his

country. The feelings which inspired it were similar to those which

underlay the movement of Arabi in our own time, and there was no English

army to stand in the way of its success. The rise of the nineteenth

dynasty represents the triumph of the national cause.

The cuneiform letters of Tel el-Amarna show that already before

Khu-n-Aten's death his empire and power were breaking up. Letter after

letter is sent to him from the governors in Canaan with urgent requests

for troops. The Hittites were attacking the empire in the north, and

rebels were overthrowing it within. "If auxiliaries come this year,"

writes Ebed-Tob of Jerusalem, "the provinces of the king my lord will be

preserved; but if no auxiliaries come the provinces of the king my lord

will be destroyed." To these entreaties no answer could be returned.

There was civil and religious war in Egypt itself, and the army was

needed to defend the Pharaoh at home.

The picture of Canaan presented to us by the Tel el-Amarna

correspondence has been supplemented by the discovery of Lachish. Five

years ago Prof. Flinders Petrie undertook to excavate for the Palestine

Exploration Fund in the lofty mound of Tel el-Hesi in Southern

Palestine. Tel el-Hesi stands midway between Gaza and Hebron on the edge

of the Judaean mountains, and overlooking a torrent stream. His

excavations resulted in the discovery of successive cities built one

upon the ruins of the other, and in the probability that the site was

that of Lachish. The excavations were resumed by Mr. Bliss in the

following year, and the probability was raised to practical certainty.

The lowest of the cities was the Lachish of the Amorite period, whose

crude brick walls, nearly twenty-nine feet in thickness, have been

brought to light, while its pottery has revealed to us for the first

time the characteristics of Amorite manufacture. The huge walls bear out

the testimony of the Israelitish spies, that the cities of the Amorites

were "great and walled up to heaven" (Deut. i. 28). They give

indications, however, that in spite of their strength the fortresses

they enclosed must have been captured more than once. Doubtless this was

during the age of the Egyptian wars in Canaan.

As at Troy, it is probable that it was only the citadel which was thus

strongly fortified. Below it was the main part of the town, the

inhabitants of which took refuge in the citadel when an enemy threatened

to attack them. The fortified part, indeed, was not of very large

extent. Its ruins measured only about two hundred feet each way, while

the enclosure within which it stands is a quarter of a mile in diameter.

Here a regular series of pottery has been found, dating from the

post-exilic age through successive strata back to the primitive

Amoritish fortress. To Prof. Petrie belongs the credit of determining

the characteristics of these various strata, and fixing their

approximate age.

The work begun by Prof. Petrie was continued by Mr. Bliss. Deep down

among the ruins of the Amoritish town he found objects which take us

back to the time of Khu-n-Aten and his predecessors. They consist of

Egyptian beads and scarabs of the eighteenth dynasty, and on one of the

beads are the name and title of "the royal wife Teie." Along with them

were discovered beads of amber which came from the Baltic as well as

seal-cylinders, some of them imported from Babylonia, others western

imitations of Babylonian work. The Babylonian cylinders belong to the

period which extends from 3000 to 1500 B.C., while the imitations are

similar in style to those which have been found in the pre-historic

tombs of Cyprus and Phoenicia.

But there was one discovery made by Mr. Bliss which far surpasses in

interest all the rest. It is that of a cuneiform tablet, similar in

character, in contents, and in age to those which have come from Tel

el-Amarna. Even the Egyptian governor mentioned in it was already known

to us from the Tel el-Amarna correspondence as the governor of Lachish.

One of the cuneiform letters now preserved at Berlin was written by him,

and Ebed-Tob informs us that he was subsequently murdered by the people

of his own city.

Here is a translation of the letter discovered at Tel el-Hesi:--

"To ... rabbat (?) [or perhaps: To the officer Baya] (thus speaks) ...

abi. At thy feet I prostrate myself. Verily thou knowest that Dan-Hadad

and Zimrida have inspected the whole of the city, and Dan-Hadad says to

Zimrida: Send Yisyara to me [and] give me 3 shields (?) and 3 slings and

3 falchions, since I am prefect (?) over the country of the king and it

has acted against me; and now I will restore thy possession which the

enemy took from thee; and I have sent my ..., and ... rabi-ilu ... has

despatched his brother [with] these words."

(This translation differs in some respects from that previously given by

me, as it is based on the copy of the text made from the original at

Constantinople by Dr. Scheil (_Recueil de Trailaux relatifs à la

Philologie et à l'Archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes_, xv. 3, 4,

137). As I stated at the time, my copy was made from a cast and was

therefore uncertain in several places. I am doubtful whether even now

the published text is correct throughout.)

Yisyara was the name of an Amorite, as we learn from one of the Tel

el-Amarna tablets, where he is mentioned along with other rebels as

being sent in fetters of bronze to the king. Of Dan-Hadad we know

nothing further, but Zimrida's letter is as follows:--

"To the king my lord, my god, my Sun-god, the Sun-god who is from

heaven, thus (writes) Zimridi, the governor of the city of Lachish. Thy

servant, the dust of thy feet, at the feet of the king my lord, the

Sun-god from heaven, bows himself seven times seven. I have very

diligently listened to the words of the messenger whom the king my lord

has sent to me, and now I have despatched (a mission) according to his

message."

It was towards the end of Khu-n-Aten's reign, when the Egyptian empire

was falling to pieces, that the murder of Zimrida took place. Ebed-Tob

thus describes it in a letter to the secretary of the Pharaoh: "The

Khabiri (or Confederates) are capturing the fortresses of the king. Not

a single governor remains among them to the king my lord; all are

destroyed. Behold, Turbazu thy officer [has fallen] in the great gate of

the city of Zelah. Behold, the servants who acted against the king have

slain Zimrida of Lachish. They have murdered Jephthah-Hadad thy officer

in the gate of the city of Zelah."

We hear of another governor of Lachish, Yabni-el by name, but he

probably held office before Zimrida. At all events the following

despatch of his has been preserved:--

"To the king my lord, my god, my Sun-god, the Sun-god who is from

heaven, thus (writes) Yabni-el, the governor of the city of Lachish, thy

servant, the dust of thy feet, the groom of thy horses; at the feet of

the king my lord, my god, my Sun-god, the Sun-god who is from heaven,

seven times seven I bow myself. Glorious and supreme [art thou]. I the

groom of [the horses] of the king my lord, listen to the [words] of the

king my lord. Now have I heard all the words which Baya the prefect has

spoken to me. Now have I done everything."

Zimrida of Lachish must be distinguished from another Canaanite of the

same name who was governor of Sidon. This latter was a personal enemy of

Rib-Hadad the governor of Gebal, whose letters to Khu-n-Aten form a

considerable portion of the Tel el-Amarna collection. The authority of

Rib-Hadad originally extended over the greater part of Phoenicia, and

included the strong fortress of Zemar or Simyra in the mountains. One by

one, however, his cities were taken from him by his adversaries whom he

accuses of rebellion against the Pharaoh. His letters to Egypt are

accordingly filled with imploring appeals for help. But none was sent,

and as his enemies equally professed their loyalty to the Egyptian

government, it is doubtful whether this was because the Pharaoh

suspected Rib-Hadad himself of disaffection or because no troops could

be spared.

Rib-Hadad had been appointed to his post by Amenophis III., and in one

of his letters he looks back regretfully on "the good old times." When

his letters were written he was old and sick. Abimelech, the governor of

Tyre, was almost the only friend who remained to him. Not content with

fomenting rebellion in his district, and taking his cities from him, his

enemies accused him to the Pharaoh of disloyalty and misdoing. Those

accusations were in some cases founded on truth. He confesses to having

fled from his city, but he urges that it was to save his life. The

troops he had begged for had not been sent to him, and he could no

longer defend either his city or himself. He also alleges that the

excesses committed by some of his servants had been without his

knowledge. This seems to have been in answer to a despatch of Ammunira,

the prefect of Beyrout, in which he informed the king that he was

keeping the brother of the governor of Gebal as a hostage, and that the

latter had been intriguing against the government in the land of the

Amorites.

Chief among the adversaries of Rib-Hadad was Ebed-Asherah, a native of

the land of Barbarti, and the governor of the Amoritish territory.

Several of his sons are mentioned, but the ablest and most influential

of them was Aziru or Ezer, who possessed a considerable amount of power.

The whole family, while professing to be the obedient servants of the

Pharaoh, nevertheless acted with a good deal of independence, and sought

to aggrandise themselves at the expense of the neighbouring governors.

They had at their disposal a large body of "plunderers," or Beduin from

the eastern desert, and Rib-Hadad accuses them of forming secret

alliances with the kings of Babylonia, of Mitanni and of the Hittites.

The authority of Aziru extended to the northern frontier of the empire;

we find him sent with the Egyptian general Khatip, or Hotep, to oppose

the Hittite invasion, and writing to the king as well as to the prime

minister Dudu to explain why they had not succeeded in doing so. Tunip

had been invested by the enemy, and Aziru fears that it may fall into

their hands. The Hittites had already made their way into the land of

Nukhasse, and were from thence marching up into the land of the

Amorites.

On the heels of these despatches came a long letter from the people of

Tunip, complaining of the conduct of Aziru, and protesting against his

doing to them what he had done to the city of Ni. He was at the time in

the land of the Hittites, doubtless carrying on the war against the

general enemy.

To these accusations Aziru made a full reply. "O my lord," he begins,

"hearken not to the wicked men who slander me before the king my lord: I

am thy servant for ever." He had been charged with want of respect to

the Pharaoh, on the ground that he had not received the royal

commissioner Khani on his arrival at Tunip. But, he replies, he did not

know that the commissioner was coming, and as soon as he heard that he

was on the road he "followed him, but failed to overtake him." In his

absence Khani was duly received by the brethren of Aziru, and Belti-el

(or Bethuel) furnished him with meat and bread and wine. Moreover, on

his way home he was met by Aziru himself, who provided the commissioner

with horses and mules. A more serious charge was that of seizing the

city of Zemar. To this Aziru answers that it was done in self-defence,

as the kings of Nukhasse had always been hostile to him, and had robbed

him of his cities at the instigation of Khatip, who had also carried

away all the silver and gold which the king had placed under his care.

Moreover he had not really seized Zemar, but had won the people over to

himself by means of gifts. Lastly, he denied the accusation that he had

received the envoy of the king of the Hittites and refused to receive

the Egyptian messenger, although the country he governed belonged to the

king, and the king had appointed him over it. Let the Egyptian envoy

make inquiries, he urges, and he will find that Aziru has acted

uprightly.

The capture of Zemar forms the burden of many of the letters of

Rib-Hadad. It had been besieged for two months by Ebed-Asherah, who had

vainly attempted to corrupt the loyalty of the governor of Gebal. For

the time Rib-Hadad managed to save the city, but Aziru allied himself

with Arvad and the neighbouring towns of Northern Phoenicia, captured

twelve of Rib-Hadad's men, demanded a ransom of fifty pieces of silver

for each of them, and seized the ships of Zemar, Beyrout, and Sidon. The

forces sent from Gebal to Zemar were made prisoners by the Amorite chief

at Abiliya, and the position of Rib-Hadad daily became more desperate.

Pa-Hor, the Egyptian governor of Kumidi, joined his opponents, and

induced the Sute or Beduin to attack his Sardinian guards. Yapa-Hadad,

another governor, followed the example of Pa-Hor, and Zimridi the

governor of Sidon had from the first been his enemy. Tyre alone remained

faithful to his cause, though an "Ionian" who had been sent there on a

mission from Egypt had handed over horses, chariots, and men to

Ebed-Asherah, and it was accordingly to Tyre that Rib-Hadad sent his

family for safety. Tyre, however, now began to suffer like Gebal in

consequence of the alliance between Zimridi and Ebed-Asherah.

Zemar eventually fell into the hands of Ebed-Asherah and his sons, its

prefect Khayapa or Khaip being slain during the assault. Abimelech, the

governor of Tyre, accuses Zimridi of having been the cause. Whether this

were so or not, it placed the whole of Northern Phoenicia under the

government or the influence of the Amorite chiefs. If Rib-Hadad spoke

the truth, Ebed-Asherah had "sent to the soldiers in Bit-Ninip, saying,

'Gather yourselves together, and let us march up against Gebal, if

therein are any who have saved themselves from our hands, and we will

appoint governors throughout all the provinces;' so all the provinces

went over to the Beduin." Provisions began to be scarce in Gebal, and

the governor writes to Egypt for corn.

Rib-Hadad now threatened the Pharaoh with deserting to his enemies if

succour was not forth-coming immediately, and at the same time he

appealed to Amon-apt and Khayapa, the Egyptian commissioners who had

been sent to inquire into the condition of affairs in Canaan. The appeal

was so far successful that troops were despatched to Zemar. But it was

too late: along with Arka it had already been occupied by Ebed-Asherah,

who thereupon writes to the Pharaoh, protesting his loyalty to

Khu-n-Aten, declaring that he is "the house-dog" of the king, and that

he guards the land of the Amorites for "the king" his lord. He further

calls on the Egyptian commissioner Pakhanate, who had been ordered to

visit him, to bear witness that he was "defending" Zemar and its fields

for the king. That Pakhanate was friendly to Ebed-Asherah may be

gathered from a despatch of Rib-Hadad, in which he accuses that officer

of refusing to send any troops to the relief of Gebal, and of looking on

while Zemar fell. Ebed-Asherah goes on to beg the king to come himself,

and see with his own eyes how faithful a governor he really was.

The letters of Abimelech of Tyre told a different tale, and the

unfortunate Pharaoh might well be excused if he was as much puzzled as

we are to know on which side the truth lay, or whether indeed it lay on

either. Abimelech had a grievance of his own. As soon as Zimridi of

Sidon learned that he had been appointed governor of Tyre, he seized the

neighbouring city of Usu, which seems to have occupied the site of

Palætyros on the mainland, thereby depriving the Tyrians of their

supplies of wood, food, and fresh water. The city of Tyre was at the

time confined to a rocky island, to which provisions and water had to be

conveyed in boats. Hence the hostile occupation of the town on the

mainland caused many of its inhabitants to die of want. To add to their

difficulties, the city was blockaded by the combined fleet of Sidon,

Arvad, and Aziru. Ilgi, "king of Sidon," seems to have fled to Tyre for

protection, while Abimelech reports that the king of Hazor had joined

the Beduin under Ebed-Asherah and his sons. It may be noted that a

letter of this very king of Hazor has been preserved, as well as another

from Ebed-Sullim, the Egyptian governor of the city, whose powers were

co-extensive with those of the king.

Soon afterwards, however, the Sidonian ships were compelled to retreat,

and the Tyrian governor made ready to pursue them. Meanwhile he sent his

messenger Elimelech to Khu-n-Aten with various presents, and gave the

king an account of what had been happening in "Canaan." The Hittite

troops had departed, but Etagama--elsewhere called Aidhu-gama--the

_pa-ur_ or "prince" of Kadesh, in the land of Kinza, had joined Aziru in

attacking Namya-yitsa, the governor of Kumidi. Abimelech adds that his

rival Zimridi of Sidon had collected ships and men from the cities of

Aziru against him, and had consequently defeated him, but if the Pharaoh

would send only four companies of troops to his rescue all would be

well.

Zimridi, however, was not behindhand in forwarding his version of events

to the Egyptian court, and assuring the king of his unswerving fidelity.

"Verily the king my lord knows," he says, "that the queen of the city of

Sidon is the handmaid of the king my lord, who has given her into my

hand, and that I have hearkened to the words of the king my lord that he

would send to his servant, and my heart rejoiced and my head was

exalted, and my eyes were enlightened, and my ears heard the words of

the king my lord.... And the king my lord knows that hostility is very

strong against me; all the [fortresses] which the king gave into [my

hand] had revolted" to the Beduin, but had been retaken by the commander

of the Egyptian forces. The letter throws a wholly different light on

the relations of the two rival parties in Phoenicia.

The assertions of Rib-Hadad, however, are supported by those of his

successor in the government of Gebal, El-rabi-Hor. Rib-Hadad himself

disappears from the scene. He may have died, for he complains that he is

old and sick; he may have been driven out of Gebal, for in one of his

despatches he states that the city was inclined to revolt, while in

another he tells us that even his own brother had turned against him and

gone over to the Amorite faction. Or he may have been displaced from his

post; at all events, we hear that the Pharaoh had written to him, saying

that Gebal was rebellious, and that there was a large amount of royal

property in it. We hear also that Rib-Hadad had sent his son to the

Egyptian court to plead his cause there, alleging age and infirmities as

a reason for not going himself. However it may have been, we find a new

governor in Gebal, who bears the hybrid name of El-rabi-Hor, "a great

god is Horus."

His first letter is to protest against Khu-n-Aten's mistrust of Gebal,

which he calls "thy city and the city of [thy] fathers," and to assert

roundly that "Aziru is in rebellion against the king my lord." Aziru had

made a league (?) with the kings of Ni, Arvad, and Ammiya (the Beni-Ammo

of Num. xxii. 5) (See above, p. 64.), and with the help of the Amorite

Palasa was destroying the cities of the Pharaoh. So El-rabi-Hor asks the

king not to heed anything the rebel may write about his seizure of Zemar

or his massacre of the royal governors, but to send some troops to

himself for the defence of Gebal. In a second letter he reiterates his

charges against Aziru, who had now "smitten" Adon, the king of Arka, and

possessed himself of Zemar and the other towns of Phoenicia, so that

Gebal "alone" is on the side of the king, who "looks on" without doing

anything. Moreover a fresh enemy had arisen in the person of Eta-gama of

Kadesh, who had joined himself with the king of the Hittites and the

king of Naharaim.

Letters to Khu-n-Aten from Akizzi the governor of Qatna, which, as we

learn from the inscriptions of Assur-natsir-pal, was situated on the

Khabûr, represent Aziru in the same light. First of all, the Egyptian

government is informed that the king of the Hittites, together with

Aidhu-gama (or Eta-gama) of Kadesh has been invading the Egyptian

territory, burning its cities, and carrying away from Qatna the image of

the Sun-god. Khu-n-aten, it is urged, could not allow the latter crime

to go unpunished. The Sun-god had created him and his father, and had

caused them to be called after his own name. He was the supreme object

of the Pharaoh's worship, the deity for whose sake Khu-n-Aten had

deserted Thebes.

The Hittite king had been joined in his invasion of Syria by the

governors of some otherwise unknown northern cities, but the kings of

Nukhasse, Ni, Zinzar (the Sonzar of the Egyptian texts), and Kinanat

(the Kanneh of Ezek. xxvii. 23) remained faithful to the Egyptian

monarch. The rebel governors, however, were in the land of Ube,--the Aup

of the hieroglyphics,--which they were urging Aidhu-gama to invade.

Another letter brings Aziru upon the scene. He is accused of having

invaded the land of Nukhasse, and made prisoners of the people of Qatna.

The Pharaoh is prayed to rescue or ransom them, and to send chariots and

soldiers to the help of his Mesopotamian subjects. If they come all the

lands round about will acknowledge him as lord, and he will be lord also

of Nukhasse; if they do not come, the men of Qatna will be forced to

obey Aziru.

It is probable that the misdeeds of Aziru which are here referred to

were committed at the time he was in Tunip, professedly protecting it

against Hittite attack. It would seem from what Akizzi says, that

instead of faithfully performing his mission, he had aimed at

establishing his own power in Northern Syria. While nominally an officer

of the Pharaoh, he was really seeking to found an Amorite kingdom in the

north. In this he would have been a predecessor of Og and Sihon, whose

kingdoms were built up on the ruins of the Egyptian empire.

A despatch, however, from Namya-yitsa, the governor of Kumidi, sets the

conduct of Aziru in a more favourable light. It was written at a

somewhat later time, when rebellion against the Egyptian authority was

spreading throughout Syria. A certain Biridasyi had stirred up the city

of Inu'am, and after shutting its gate upon Namya-yitsa had entered the

city of Ashtaroth-Karnaim in Bashan, and there seized the chariots

belonging to the Pharaoh, handing them over to the Beduin. He then

joined the kings of Buzruna (now Bosra) and Khalunni (near the Wadi

'Allân), in a plot to murder Namya-yitsa, who escaped, however, to

Damascus, though his own brothers turned against him. The rebels next

attacked Aziru, captured some of his soldiers, and in league with

Etu-gama wasted the district of Abitu. Etakkama, however, as Etu-gama

spells his own name, professed to be a loyal servant of the Egyptian

king, and one of the Tel el-Amarna letters is from him.

We next hear of Namya-yitsa in Accho or Acre, where he had taken refuge

with Suta, or Seti, the Egyptian commissioner. Seti had already been in

Jerusalem, and had been inquiring there into the behaviour of Ebed-Tob.

The picture of incipient anarchy and rebellion which is set before us by

the correspondence from Phoenicia and Syria is repeated in that from the

centre and south of Palestine. In the centre the chief seats of the

Egyptian government were at Megiddo, at Khazi (the Gaza of 1 Chron. vii.

28), near Shechem, and at Gezer. Each of these towns was under an

Egyptian governor, specially appointed by the Pharaoh.

The governor of Khazi bore the name of Su-yarzana, Megiddo was under the

authority of Biridî, while the governor of Gaza was Yapakhi. There are

several letters in the Tel el-Amarna collection from the latter

official, chiefly occupied with demands for help against his enemies.

The district under his control was attacked by the Sute or Beduin, led

by a certain Labai or Labaya and his sons. Labai, though of Beduin

origin, was himself professedly an Egyptian official, the Egyptian

policy having been to give the title of governor to the powerful Beduin

sheikhs, and to attach them to the Egyptian government by the combined

influence of bribery and fear. Labai accordingly writes to the Pharaoh

to defend himself against the charges that had been brought against him,

and to assure Khu-n-Aten that he was "a faithful servant of the king";

"I have not sinned, and I have not offended, and I do not withhold my

tribute or neglect the command to turn back my officers." Labai, it

would seem, had been appointed by Amenophis III. governor of Shunem and

Bene-berak (Joshua xix. 45), and had captured the city of Gath-Rimmon

when it revolted against the Pharaoh; but after the death of Amenophis

he and his two sons had attacked the Egyptian officials in true Beduin

style, and had taken every opportunity of pillaging central and Southern

Palestine. As we shall see, Labai and his ally, Malchiel, were among the

chief adversaries of Ebed-Tob of Jerusalem.

On one occasion, however, Labai was actually made prisoner by one of the

Egyptian officers. There is a letter from Biridî stating that Megiddo

was threatened by Labai, and that although the garrison had been

strengthened by the arrival of some Egyptian troops, it was impossible

to venture outside the gates of the town for fear of the enemy, and that

unless two more regiments were sent the city itself was likely to fall.

Whether the additional forces were sent or not we do not know. Labai,

however, had to fly for his life along with his confederate Yasdata, who

was the governor of some city near Megiddo, as we learn from a letter of

his in which he speaks of being with Biridî. Of Yasdata we hear nothing

further, but Labai was captured in Megiddo by Zurata, the prefect of

Acre, who, under the pretext that he was going to send his prisoner in a

ship to Egypt, took him first to the town of Khinatuna ('En'athôn), and

then to his own house, where he was induced by a bribe to set him free

along with his companion, Hadad-mekhir (who, by the way, has bequeathed

to us two letters).

It was probably after this that Labai wrote to the Pharaoh to exculpate

himself, though his language, in spite of its conventional

submissiveness, could not have been very acceptable at the Egyptian

court. In one of his letters he excuses himself partly on the ground

that even "the food of his stomach" had been taken from him, partly that

he had attacked and entered Gezer only in order to recover the property

of himself and his friend Malchiel, partly because a certain Bin-sumya

whom the Pharaoh had sent against him had really "given a city and

property in it to my father, saying that if the king sends for my wife I

shall withhold her, and if the king sends for myself I shall give him

instead a bar of copper in a large bowl and take the oath of

allegiance." A second letter is still more uncompromising. In this he

complains that the Egyptian troops have ill-treated his people, and that

the officer who is with him has slandered him before the king; he

further declares that two of his towns have been taken from him, but

that he will defend to the last whatever still remains of his patrimony.

Malchiel, the colleague of Labai in his attack upon Gezer, as afterwards

upon Ebed-Tob of Jerusalem, does not appear to have been of Beduin

origin. But as long as the Beduin chief could be of use to him he was

very willing to avail himself of his assistance, and it was always easy

to drop the alliance as soon as it became embarrassing. Malchiel was the

son-in-law of Tagi of Gath, and the colleague of Su-yardata, one of the

few Canaanite governors whom the Egyptian government seems to have been

able to trust. Both Su-yardata and Malchiel held commands in Southern

Palestine, and we hear a good deal about them from Ebed-Tob. "The two

sons of Malchiel" are also mentioned in a letter from a lady who bears a

Babylonian name, and who refers to them in connection with an attempt to

detach the cities of Ajalon and Zorah (Joshua xv. 33) from their

allegiance to Egypt. The female correspondents of the Pharaoh are among

the most curious and interesting features of the state of society

depicted in the Tel el-Amarna tablets; they entered keenly into the

politics of the day, and kept the Egyptian king fully informed of all

that was going on.

The letters of Ebed-Tob are so important that it is as well to give them

in full. They all seem to have been written within a few months, or

perhaps even weeks, of one another, when the enemies of the governor of

Jerusalem were gathering around him, and no response came from Egypt to

his requests for help. The dotted lines mark the words and passages

which have been lost through the fracture of the clay tablets.

(I.) "To the king my lord [my] Sun-god, thus [speaks] Ebed-Tob thy

servant: at the feet of the king my lord seven times seven I prostrate

myself. Behold, the king has established his name at the rising of the

sun and the setting of the sun. Slanders have been uttered against me.

Behold, I am not a governor, a vassal of the king my lord. Behold, I am

an ally of the king, and I have paid the tribute due to the king, even

I. Neither my father nor my mother, but the oracle (or arm) of the

Mighty King established [me] in the house of [my] fathers.... There have

come to me as a present 13 [women] and 10 slaves. Suta (Seti) the

Commissioner of the king has come to me: 21 female slaves and 20 male

slaves captured in war have been given into the hands of Suta as a gift

for the king my lord, as the king has ordained for his country. The

country of the king is being destroyed, all of it. Hostilities are

carried on against me as far as the mountains of Seir (Joshua xv. 10)

and the city of Gath-Karmel (Joshua xv. 55). All the other governors are

at peace, but there is war against myself, since I see the foe, but I do

not see the tears of the king my lord because war has been raised

against me. While there is a ship in the midst of the sea, the arm (or

oracle) of the Mighty King shall conquer the countries of Naharaim

(Nakhrima) and Babylonia. But now the Confederates (Khabiri) are

capturing the fortresses of the king. Not a single governor remains

among them to the king my lord; all have perished. Behold, Turbazu, thy

military officer, [has fallen] in the great gate of the city of Zelah

(Josh, xviii. 28). Behold, Zimrida of Lachish has been murdered by the

servants who have revolted against the king. Jephthah-Hadad, thy

military officer, has been slain in the great gate of Zelah.... May the

king [my lord] send help [to his country]! May the king turn his face to

[his subjects]! May he despatch troops to [his] country! [Behold,] if no

troops come this year, all the countries of the king my lord will be

utterly destroyed. They do not say before the face of the king my lord

that the country of the king my lord is destroyed, and that all the

governors are destroyed, if no troops come this year. Let the king send

a commissioner, and let him come to me, even to me, with auxiliary

troops, and we will die with the king [our] lord.--[To] the secretary of

the king my lord [speaks] Ebed-Tob [thy] servant. At [thy] feet [I

prostrate myself]. Let a report of [my] words be laid before the king

[my] lord. Thy [loyal] servant am I."

(II.) "To the king my lord thus speaks Ebed-Tob thy servant: at the feet

of the king my lord seven times seven I prostrate myself. What have I

done against the king my lord? They have slandered me, laying wait for

me in the presence of the king, the lord, saying: Ebed-Tob has revolted

from the king his lord. Behold, neither my father nor my mother has

exalted me in this place; the prophecy of the Mighty King has caused me

to enter the house of my father. Why should I have committed a sin

against the king the lord? With the king my lord is life. I say to the

officer of the king [my] lord: Why dost thou love the Confederates and

hate the governors? And constantly I am sending to the presence of the

king my lord to say that the countries of the king my lord are being

destroyed. Constantly I am sending to the king my lord, and let the king

my lord consider, since the king my lord has appointed the men of the

guard who have taken the fortresses. Let Yikhbil-Khamu [be sent].... Let

the king send help to his country. [Let him send troops] to his country

which protects the fortresses of the king my lord, all of them, since

Elimelech is destroying all the country of the king; and let the king

send help to his country. Behold, I have gone down along with the king

my lord, and I have not seen the tears of the king my lord; but

hostility is strong against me, yet I have not taken anything whatever

from the king my lord; and let the king incline towards my face; let him

despatch a guard [for me], and let him appoint a commissioner, and I

shall not see the tears of the king my lord, since the king [my] lord

shall live when the commissioner has departed. Behold, the countries of

the king [my lord] are being destroyed, yet thou dost not listen to me.

All the governors are destroyed; no governor remains to the king the

lord. Let the king turn his face to his subjects, and let him send

auxiliaries, even the troops of the king my lord. No provinces remain

unto the king; the confederates have wasted all the provinces of the

king. If auxiliaries come this year, the provinces of the king the lord

will be preserved; but if no auxiliaries come the provinces of the king

my lord are destroyed.--[To] the secretary of the king my lord Ebed-Tob

[says:] Give a report of my words to the king my lord: the provinces of

the king my lord are being destroyed by the enemy."

(III.) "[To] the king my lord [speaks] Ebed-Tob [thy] servant: [at the

feet of the king] my lord seven [times seven I prostrate myself. Behold,

let] the king [listen to] the words [of his servant].... Let [the king]

consider all the districts which are leagued in hostility against me,

and let the king send help to his country. Behold, the country of the

city of Gezer, the country of the city of Ashkelon and the city of

La[chish] have given as their peace offerings food and oil and

whatsoever the fortress needs. And let the king send help to his troops;

let him despatch troops against the men who have rebelled against the

king my lord. If troops come this year, there will remain both provinces

[and] governors to the king my lord; [but] if no troops arrive, there

will remain no provinces or governors to the king [my lord]. Behold,

neither my father nor my mother has given this country of the city of

Jerusalem unto me: it was an oracle [of the Mighty King] that gave it to

me, even to me. Behold, Malchiel and the sons of Labai have given the

country of the king to the Confederates. Behold, the king my lord is

righteous towards me. As to the Babylonians, let the king ask the

commissioner how very strong is the temple-[fortress of Jerusalem.]....

Thou hast delivered (?) the provinces into the hands of the city of

Ash[kelon]. Let the king demand of them abundance of food, abundance of

oil, and abundance of wine until Pa-ur, the commissioner of the king,

comes up to the country of the city of Jerusalem to deliver Adai along

with the garrison and the [rest of the people]. Let the king consider

the [instructions] of the king; [let him] speak to me; let Adai deliver

me--Thou wilt not desert it, even this city, sending to me a garrison

[and] sending a royal commissioner. Thy grace [is] to send [them]. To

the king [my lord] I have despatched [a number of] prisoners [and a

number of] slaves. [I have looked after] the roads of the king in the

plain (_kikkar_, Gen. xiii. 10) and in the mountains. Let the king my

lord consider the city of Ajalon. I am not able to direct my way to the

king my lord according to his instructions. Behold, the king has

established his name in the country of Jerusalem for ever, and he cannot

forsake the territories of the city of Jerusalem.--To the secretary of

the king my lord thus speaks Ebed-Tob thy servant. At thy feet I

prostrate myself. Thy servant am I. Lay a report of my words before the

king my lord. The vassal of the king am I. Mayest thou live long!--And

thou hast performed deeds which I cannot enumerate against the men of

the land of Ethiopia.... The men of the country of the Babylonians

[shall never enter] into my house...."

(IV.) (The beginning of the letter is lost, and it is not certain that

Ebed-Tob was the writer of it.) "And now as to the city of Jerusalem, if

this country is still the king's, why is Gaza made the seat of the

king's government? Behold, the district of the city of Gath-Carmel has

fallen away to Tagi and the men of Gath. He is in Bit-Sani

(Beth-Sannah), and we have effected that they should give Labai and the

country of the Sute to the men of the district of the Confederates.

Malchiel has sent to Tagi and has seized some boy-slaves. He has granted

all their requests to the men of Keilah, and we have delivered (or

departed from) the city of Jerusalem. The garrison thou hast left in it

is under the command of Apis the son of Miya-riya (Meri-Ra). Hadad-el

has remained in his house in Gaza...."

(V.) "To the king my lord thus [speaks] Ebed-Tob thy servant: at the

feet of my lord [the king] seven times seven [I prostrate myself].

Behold, Malchiel does not separate himself from the sons of Labai and

the sons of Arzai to demand the country of the king for themselves. As

for the governor who acts thus, why does not the king question him?

Behold, Malchiel and Tagi are they who have acted so, since they have

taken the city of Rubute (Rabbah, Josh. xv. 60).... (Many lines are lost

here.) There is no royal garrison [in Jerusalem]. May the king live

eternally! Let Pa-ur go down to him. He has departed in front of me and

is in the city of Gaza; and let the king send to him a guard to defend

the country. All the country of the king has revolted! Direct

Yikhbil-Khamu [to come], and let him consider the country of the king

[my lord].--To the secretary of the king [my lord] thus [speaks]

Ebed-Tob thy servant: [at thy feet I prostrate myself]. Lay [a report]

of my words [before] the king. Mayest thou live long! Thy servant am I."

(VI.) "[To] the king my lord thus speaks Ebed-Tob thy servant: at the

feet of the king my lord seven times seven I prostrate myself. [The king

knows the deed] which they have done, even Malchiel and Su-ardatum,

against the country of the king my lord, commanding the forces of the

city of Gezer, the forces of the city of Gath, and the forces of the

city of Keilah. They have seized the district of the city of Rabbah. The

country of the king has gone over to the Confederates. And now at this

moment the city of the mountain of Jerusalem, the city of the temple of

the god Nin-ip, whose name is Salim (?)," (Or, adopting the reading of

Dr. Zimmern, "The city whose name is Bit-Nin-ip.") "the city of the

king, is gone over to the side of the men of Keilah. Let the king listen

to Ebed-Tob thy servant, and let him despatch troops and restore the

country of the king to the king. But if no troops arrive, the country of

the king is gone over to the men even to the Confederates. This is the

deed [of Su-ar]datun and Malchiel...."

The loyalty of Ebed-Tob, however, seems to have been doubted at the

Egyptian court, where more confidence was placed in his rival and enemy

Su-ardata (or Su-yardata, as the owner of the name himself writes it).

Possibly the claim of the vassal-king of Jerusalem to have been

appointed to his royal office by the "Mighty King" rather than by the

"great king" of Egypt, and consequently to be an ally of the Pharaoh and

not an ordinary governor, may have had something to do with the

suspicions that were entertained of him. At all events we learn from a

letter of Su-yardata that the occupation of Keilah by Ebed-Tob's

enemies, of which the latter complains so bitterly, was due to the

orders of the Egyptian government itself. Su-yardata there says--"The

king [my lord] directed me to make war in the city of Keilah: war was

made; (and now) a complaint is brought against me. My city against

myself has risen upon me. Ebed-Tob sends to the men of the city of

Keilah; he sends silver, and they have marched against my rear. And the

king knows that Ebed-Tob has taken my city from my hand." The writer

adds that "now Labai has taken Ebed-Tob and they have taken our cities."

In his subsequent despatches to the home government Su-yardata complains

that he is "alone," and asks that troops should be sent to him, saying

that he is forwarding some _almehs_ or maidens as a present along with

his "dragoman." At this point the correspondence breaks off.

Malchiel and Tagi also write to the Pharaoh. According to Tagi the roads

between Southern Palestine and Egypt were under the supervision and

protection of his brother; while Malchiel begs for cavalry to pursue and

capture the enemy who had made war upon Su-yardata and himself, had

seized "the country of the king," and threatened to slay his servants.

He also complains of the conduct of Yankhamu, the High Commissioner, who

had been ordered to inquire into the conduct of the governors in

Palestine. Yankhamu, it seems, had seized Malchiel's property and

carried off his wives and children. It was doubtless to this act of

injustice that Labai alludes in his letter of exculpation.

The territory of which Jerusalem was the capital extended southward as

far as Carmel of Judah, Gath-Carmel as it is called by Ebed-Tob, as well

as in the geographical lists of Thothmes III., while on the west it

reached to Keilah, Kabbah, and Mount Seir. No mention is made of Hebron

either in the Tel el-Amarna letters or in the Egyptian geographical

lists, which are earlier than the rise of the nineteenth dynasty. The

town must therefore have existed under some other name, or have been in

the hands of a power hostile to Egypt.

The name of Hebron has the same origin as that of the Khabiri, who

appear in Ebed-Tob's letters by the side of Labai, Babylonia, and

Naharaim as the assailants of Jerusalem and its territory. The word

means "Confederates," and occurs in the Assyrian texts; among other

passages in a hymn published by Dr. Brünnow, where we read, _istu pan

khabiri-ya iptarsanni_, "from the face of my associates he has cut me

off." The word, however, is not Assyrian, as in that case it would have

had a different form, but must have been borrowed from the Canaanitish

language of the West.

Who the Khabiri or "Confederates" were has been disputed. Some scholars

see in them Elamite marauders who followed the march of the Babylonian

armies to Syria. This opinion is founded on the fact that the Khabiri

are once mentioned as an Elamite tribe, and that in a Babylonian

document a "Khabirite" (_Khabirâ_) is referred to along with a "Kassite"

or Babylonian. Another view is that they are to be identified with

Heber, the grandson of Asher (Gen. xlvi. 17), since Malchiel is said to

be the brother of Heber, just as in the letters of Ebed-Tob Malchiel is

associated with the Khabiri. But all such identifications are based upon

the supposition that "Khabiri" is a proper name rather than a

descriptive title. Any band of "Confederates" could be called Khabiri

whether in Elam or in Palestine, and it does not follow that the two

bands were the same. In the "Confederates" of Southern Canaan we have to

look for a body of confederated tribes who made themselves formidable to

the governor of Jerusalem in the closing days of the Egyptian empire.

It would seem that Elimelech, who of course was a different person from

Malchiel, was their leader, and as Elimelech is a Canaanitish name, we

may conclude that the majority of his followers were also of Canaanitish

descent. The scene of their hostilities was to the south of Jerusalem.

Gath-Carmel, Zelah, and Lachish are the towns mentioned in connection

with their attempts to capture and destroy "the fortresses of the king."

"The country of the king" which had "gone over to the Confederates" was

the territory over which Ebed-Tob claimed rule, while the district

occupied by Labai and his Beduin followers was handed over "to the men

of the district of the Confederates." The successes of the latter were

gained through the intrigues of Malchiel and the sons of Labai.

All this leads us to the neighbourhood of Hebron, and suggests the

question whether "the district of the Confederates" was not that of

which Hebron, "the Confederacy," was the central meeting-place and

sanctuary. Hebron has preserved its sacred character down to the present

day; it long disputed with Jerusalem the claim of being the oldest and

most hallowed shrine in Southern Palestine, and it was for many years

the capital of Judah, Moreover, we know that "Hebron" was not the only

name the city possessed. When Abram was "confederate" with the three

Amorite chieftains it was known as Mamre (Gen. xiii. 18), and at a later

day under the rule of the three sons of Anak it was called Kirjath-Arba.

According to the Biblical narrative Hebron was at once Amorite, Hittite,

and Canaanite. Here, therefore, there was a confederation of tribes and

races who would have met together at a common sanctuary. When Ezekiel

says that Jerusalem was both Hittite and Amorite in its parentage, he

may have been referring to its conquest and settlement by such a

confederacy as that of Hebron. At all events we learn from Su-yardata's

letter that Ebed-Tob eventually fell into the hands of his enemies; he

was captured by Labai, and it is possible that his city became at the

same time the prey of the Khabiri.

But all this is speculation, which may or may not prove to be correct.

All we can be sure of is that the Khabiri or "Confederates" had their

seat in the southern part of Palestine, and that we need not go outside

Canaan to discover who they were. Ebed-Tob, at all events, carefully

distinguishes them from either the Babylonians or the people of

Naharaim.

In his letters, as everywhere else in the Tel el-Amarna correspondence,

the Babylonians are called Kassi or Kassites. The name is written

differently in the cuneiform texts from that of the Ethiopians, the Kash

of the hieroglyphic inscriptions. Both, however, are alike represented

in Hebrew by Cush, and hence we have not only a Cush who is the brother

of Mizrairn, but also another Cush who is the father of Nimrod. The name

of the latter takes us back to the age of the Tel el-Amarna tablets.

Nahrima, or Naharaim, was the name by which the kingdom of Mitanni was

known to its Canaanite and Egyptian neighbours. Mitanni, in fact, was

its capital, and it may be that Lutennu (or Lotan), as the Egyptians

called Syria and Palestine, was but a mispronunciation of it. Along with

the Babylonians the people of Naharaim had made themselves formidable to

the inhabitants of Canaan, and their name was feared as far south as

Jerusalem. Even the governor of the Canaanite town of Musikhuna, not far

from the Sea of Galilee, bore the Mitannian name of Sutarna. It was not,

indeed, until after the Israelitish conquest that the last invasion of

Canaan by a king of Aram-Naharaim took place.

Gaza and Joppa were at one time under the same governor, Yabitiri, who

in a letter which has come down to us asks to be relieved of the burden

of his office. Ashkelon, however, which lay between the two sea-ports,

was in the hands of another prefect, Yidya by name, from whom we have

several letters, in one of which mention is made of the Egyptian

commissioner Rianap, or Ra-nofer. The jurisdiction of Rianap extended as

far north as the plain of Megiddo, since he is also referred to by

Pu-Hadad, the governor of Yurza, now Yerzeh, south-eastward of Taanach.

But it was more particularly in the extreme south of Palestine that the

duties of this officer lay. Hadad-dan, who was entrusted with the

government of Manahath and Tamar, to the west of the Dead Sea, calls him

"my Commissioner" in a letter in which he complains of the conduct of a

certain Beya, the son of "the woman Gulat." Hadad-dan begins by saying

that he had protected the commissioner and cities of the king, and then

adds that "the city of Tumur is hostile to me, and I have built a house

in the city of Mankhate, so that the household troops of the king my

lord may be sent to me; and lo, Bâya has taken it from my hand, and has

placed his commissioner in it, and I have appealed to Rianap, my

commissioner, and he has restored the city unto me, and has sent the

household troops of the king my lord to me." After this the writer goes

on to state that Beya had also intrigued against the city of Gezer, "the

handmaid of the king my lord who created me." The rebel then carried off

a quantity of plunder, and it became necessary to ransom his prisoners

for a hundred pieces of silver, while those of his confederate were

ransomed for thirty pieces of silver.

The misdeeds of Beya or Bâya did not end here. We hear of him again as

attacking and capturing a body of soldiers who had been sent to defend

the royal palace at Joppa, and as occupying that city itself. He was,

however, subsequently expelled from it by the king's orders. Beya, too,

professed to be an Egyptian governor and a faithful servant of the

Pharaoh, to whom he despatched a letter to say that Yankhamu, the High

Commissioner, was not in his district. Probably this was in answer to a

charge brought against him by the Egyptian officer.

The official duties of Yankhamu extended over the whole of Palestine,

and all the governors of its cities were accountable to him. We find him

exercising his authority not only in the south, but also in the north,

at Zemar and Gebal, and even among the Amorites. Amon-apt, to whom the

superintendence of Phoenicia was more particularly entrusted, was

supplied by him with corn, and frequent references are made to him in

the letters of Rib-Hadad. Malchiel complained of his high-handed

proceedings, and the complaint seems to have led to some confidential

inquiries on the part of the home government, since we find a certain

Sibti-Hadad writing in answer to the Pharaoh's questions that Yankhamu

was a faithful servant of the king.

The country east of the Jordan also appears to have been within his

jurisdiction. At all events the following letter was addressed to him by

the governor Mut-Hadad, "the man of Hadad." "To Yankhamu my lord thus

speaks Mut-Hadad thy servant: at the feet of my lord I prostrate myself.

Since Mut-Hadad has declared in thy presence that Ayab has fled, and it

is certified (?) that the king of Bethel has fled from before the

officers of the king his lord, may the king my lord live, may the king

my lord live! I pray thee ask Ben-enima, ask ... tadua, ask Isuya, if

Ayâb has been in this city of Bethel for [the last] two months. Ever

since the arrival of [the image of] the god Merodach, the city of

Astarti (Ashtaroth-Karnaim) has been assisted, because all the

fortresses of the foreign land are hostile, namely, the cities of Udumu

(Edom), Aduri (Addar), Araru, Mestu (Mosheh), Magdalim (Migdol),

Khinianabi ('En han-nabi), Zarki-tsabtat, Khaini ('En), and Ibi-limma

(Abel). Again after thou hadst sent a letter to me I sent to him (i.e.

Ayâb), [to wait] until thy arrival from thy journey; and he reached the

city of Bethel and [there] they heard the news."

We learn from this letter that Edom was a "foreign country" unsubdued by

the Egyptian arms. The "city of Edom," from which the country took its

name, is again mentioned in the inscriptions of the Assyrian king

Esar-haddon, and it was there that the Assyrian tax-gatherers collected

the tribute of the Edomite nation. It would seem that the land of Edom

stretched further to the north in the age of Khu-n-Aten than it did at a

subsequent period of history, and that it encroached upon what was

afterwards the territory of Moab. The name of the latter country is met

with for the first time among the Asiatic conquests of Ramses II.

engraved on the base of one of the colossal figures which stand in front

of the northern pylon of the temple of Luxor; when the Tel el-Amarna

letters were written Moab was included in the Canaanite province of

Egypt.

A curious letter to Khu-n-Aten from Burnaburyas, the Babylonian king,

throws a good deal of light on the nature of the Egyptian government in

Canaan. Between the predecessors of the two monarchs there had been

alliance and friendly intercourse, and nevertheless the Canaanitish

subjects of the Pharaoh had committed an outrageous crime against some

Babylonian merchants, which if left unpunished would have led to a

rupture between the two countries. The merchants in question had entered

Palestine under the escort of the Canaanite Ahitub, intending afterwards

to visit Egypt. At Ên-athôn, near Acre, however, "in the country of

Canaan," Sum-Adda, or Shem-Hadad, the son of Balumme (Balaam), and

Sutatna, or Zid-athon, the son of Saratum, [His name is written Zurata

in the letter of Biridî, the governor of Megiddo; see above, p. 135.]

who was governor of Acre, set upon them, killing some of them,

maltreating others, and carrying away their goods. Burna-buryas

therefore sent a special envoy, who was instructed to lay the following

complaint before the Pharaoh: "Canaan is thy country and the king [of

Acre is thy servant]. In thy country I have been injured; do thou punish

[the offenders]. The silver which they carried off was a present [for

thee], and the men who are my servants they have slain. Slay them and

requite the blood [of my servants]. But if thou dost not put these men

to death, [the inhabitants] of the high-road that belongs to me will

turn and verily will slay thy ambassadors, and a breach will be made in

the agreement to respect the persons of ambassadors, and I shall be

estranged from thee. Shem-Hadad, having cut off the feet of one of my

men, has detained him with him; and as for another man, Sutatna of Acre

made him stand upon his head and then stood upon his face."

There are three letters in the Tel el-Amarna collection from Sutatna, or

Zid-atna ("the god Zid has given") as he writes his name, in one of

which he compares Akku or Acre with "the city of Migdol in Egypt."

Doubtless satisfaction was given to the Babylonian king for the wrong

that had been done to his subjects, though whether the actual culprits

were punished may be questioned. There is another letter from

Burna-buryas, in which reference is again made to the Canaanites. He

there asserts that in the time of his father, Kurigalzu, they had sent

to the Babylonian sovereign, saying: "Go down against Qannisat and let

us rebel." Kuri-galzu, however, had refused to listen to them, telling

them that if they wanted to break away from the Egyptian king and ally

themselves "with another," they must find some one else to assist them.

Burna-buryas goes on to declare that he was like-minded with his father,

and had accordingly despatched an Assyrian vassal to assure the Pharaoh

that he would carry on no intrigues with disaffected Canaanites. As the

first part of his letter is filled with requests for gold for the

adornment of a temple he was building at Babylon, such an assurance was

very necessary. The despatches of Rib-Hadad and Ebed-Tob, however, go to

show that in spite of his professions of friendship, the Babylonian

monarch was ready to afford secret help to the insurgents in Palestine.

The Babylonians were not likely to forget that they had once been

masters of the country, or to regard the Egyptian empire in Asia with

other than jealous eyes.

The Tel el-Amarna correspondence breaks off suddenly in the midst of a

falling empire, with its governors in Canaan fighting and intriguing one

against the other, and appealing to the Pharaoh for help that never

came. The Egyptian commissioners are vainly endeavouring to restore

peace and order, like General Gordon in the Soudan, while Babylonians

and Mitannians, Hittites and Beduin are assailing the distracted

province. The Asiatic empire of the eighteenth dynasty, however, did not

wholly perish with the death of Khu-n-Aten. A picture in the tomb of

prince Hui at Thebes shows that under the reign of his successor,

Tut-ankh-Amon, the Egyptian supremacy was still acknowledged in some

parts of Syria. The chiefs of the Lotan or Syrians are represented in

their robes of many colours, some with white and others with brown

skins, and coming before the Egyptian monarch with the rich tribute of

their country. Golden trays full of precious stones, vases of gold and

silver, the covers of which are in the form of the heads of gazelles and

other animals, golden rings richly enamelled, horses, lions, and a

leopard's skin--such are the gifts which they offer to the Pharaoh. It

was the last embassy of the kind which was destined to come from Syria

for many a day.

With the rise of the nineteenth dynasty and the restoration of a strong

government at home, the Egyptians once more began to turn their eyes

towards Palestine. Seti I. drove the Beduin before him from the

frontiers of Egypt to those of "Canaan," and established a line of

fortresses and wells along "the way of the Philistines," which ran by

the shore of the Mediterranean to Gaza. The road was now open for him to

the north along the sea-coast. We hear accordingly of his capture of

Acre, Tyre, and Usu or Palætyros, from whence he marched into the

Lebanon and took Kumidi and Inu'am. One of his campaigns must have led

him into the interior of Palestine, since in his list of conquered

cities we find the names of Carmel and Beth-anoth, of Beth-el and Pahil

or Pella, as well as of Qamham or Chimham (see Jer. xli. 17). Kadesh,

"in the land of the Amorites," was captured by a sudden assault, and

Seti claims to have defeated or received the submission of Alasiya and

Naharaim, the Hittites and the Assyrians, Cyprus and Sangar. It would

seem, however, that north of Kadesh he really made his way only along

the coast as far as the Gulf of Antioch and Cilicia, overrunning towns

and districts of which we know little more than the names.

Seti was succeeded by his son Ramses II., the Pharaoh of the Oppression,

and the builder of Pithom and Ramses. His long reign of sixty-seven

years lasted from 1348 B.C. to 1281 B.C. The first twenty-one years of

it were occupied in the re-conquest of Palestine, and sanguinary wars

with the Hittites. But these mountaineers of the north had established

themselves too firmly in the old Egyptian province of Northern Syria to

be dislodged. All the Pharaoh could effect was to stop their further

progress towards the south, and to save Canaan from their grasp. The war

between the two great powers of Western Asia ended at last through the

sheer exhaustion of the rival combatants. A treaty of alliance,

offensive and defensive, was drawn up between Ramses II. and Khata-sil,

"the great king of the Hittites," and it was cemented by the marriage of

the Pharaoh to the daughter of the Hittite prince. Syria was divided

between the Hittites and Egyptians, and it was agreed that neither

should under any pretext invade the territories of the other. It was

also agreed that if either country was attacked by foreign foes or

rebellious subjects, the other should come to its help. Political

refugees, moreover, were to be delivered up to the sovereign from whom

they had escaped, but it was stipulated that in this case they should

receive a full pardon for the offences they had committed. The Hittite

copy of the treaty was engraved on a silver plate, and the gods of Egypt

and the Hittites were called upon to witness the execution of it.

The legendary exploits of Sesostris, that creation of Greek fancy and

ignorance, were fastened upon Ramses II., whose long reign, inordinate

vanity, and ceaseless activity as a builder made him one of the most

prominent of the old Pharaohs. It was natural, therefore, at the

beginning of hieroglyphic decipherment that the Greek accounts should be

accepted in full, and that Ramses II. should have been regarded as the

greatest of Egyptian conquerors. But further study soon showed that, in

this respect at least, his reputation had little to support it. Like his

monuments, too many of which are really stolen from his predecessors, or

else sacrifice honesty of work to haste and pretentiousness, a large

part of the conquests and victories that have been claimed for him was

due to the imagination of the scribes. In the reaction which followed on

this discovery, the modern historians of ancient Egypt were disposed to

dispute his claim to be a conqueror at all. But we now know that such a

scepticism was exaggerated, and though Ramses II. was not a conqueror

like Thothmes III., he nevertheless maintained and extended the Asiatic

empire which his father had recovered, and the lists of vanquished

cities which he engraved on the walls of his temples were not mere

repetitions of older catalogues, or the empty fictions of flattering

chroniclers. Egyptian armies really marched once more into Northern

Syria and the confines of Cilicia, and probably made their way to the

banks of the Euphrates. We have no reason for denying that Assyrian

troops may have been defeated by his arms, or that the king of Mitanni

may have sent an embassy to his court. And we now have a good deal more

than the indirect evidence of the treaty with the Hittites to show that

Canaan was again a province of the Egyptian empire. The names of some of

its cities which were captured in the early part of the Pharaoh's reign

may still be read on the walls of the Ramesseum at Thebes. Among them

are Ashkelon, Shalam or Jerusalem, Merom, and Beth-Anath, which were

taken by storm in his eighth year. Dapul, "in the land of the Amorites,"

was captured at the same time, proving that the Egyptian forces

penetrated as far as the Hittite frontiers. At Luxor other Canaanite

names figure in the catalogue of vanquished states. Thus we have Carmel

of Judah, Ir-shemesh and Hadashah (Josh. xv. 37), Gaza, Sela and

Jacob-el, Socho, Yurza, and Korkha in Moab. The name of Moab itself

appears for the first time among the subject nations, while we gather

from a list of mining settlements, that Cyprus as well as the Sinaitic

peninsula was under Egyptian authority.

A sarcastic account of the misadventures of a military officer in

Palestine, which was written in the time of Ramses, is an evidence of

the complete occupation of that country by the Egyptians. All parts of

Canaan are alluded to in it, and as Dr. Max Müller has lately pointed

out, we find in it for the first time the names of Shechem and

Kirjath-Sepher. Similar testimony is borne by a hieroglyphic inscription

recently discovered by Dr. Schumacher on the so-called "Stone of Job" in

the Haurân. The stone (_Sakhrat 'Ayyub_) is a monolith westward of the

Sea of Galilee, and not far from Tel 'Ashtereh, the ancient

Ashtaroth-Karnaim, which was a seat of Egyptian government in the time

of Khu-n-Aten. The monolith is adorned with Egyptian sculptures and

hieroglyphs. One of the sculptures represents a Pharaoh above whose

likeness is the cartouche of Ramses II., while opposite the king, to the

left, is the figure of a god who wears the crown of Osiris, but has a

full face. Over the god is his name in hieroglyphics. The name, however,

is not Egyptian, but seems to be intended for the Canaanite Yakin-Zephon

or "Yakin of the North." It is plain, therefore, that we have here a

monument testifying to the rule of Ramses II., but a monument which was

erected by natives of the country to a native divinity. For a while the

hieroglyphic writing of Egypt had taken the place formerly occupied by

the cuneiform syllabary of Babylonia, and Egyptian culture had succeeded

in supplanting that which had come from the East.

The nineteenth dynasty ended even more disastrously than the eighteenth.

It is true that the great confederacy of northern and Libyan tribes

which attacked Egypt by sea and land in the reign of Meneptah, the son

and successor of Ramses II., was successfully repulsed, but the energy

of the Egyptian power seemed to exhaust itself in the effort. The throne

fell into the hands of usurpers, and the house of Ramses was swept away

by civil war and anarchy. The government was seized by a Syrian, Arisu

by name, and for a time Egypt was compelled to submit to a foreign yoke.

The overthrow of the foreigner and the restoration of the native

monarchy was due to the valour of Set-nekht, the founder of the

twentieth dynasty and the father of Ramses III.

It was under one of the immediate successors of Ramses II. that the

exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt must have taken place. Egyptian

tradition pointed to Meneptah; modern scholars incline rather to his

successors Seti II. and Si-Ptah. With this event the patriarchal history

of Canaan ought properly to come to an end. But the Egyptian monuments

still cast light upon it, and enable us to carry it on almost to the

moment when Joshua and his followers entered the Promised Land.

Palestine still formed part of the kingdom of Meneptah, at all events in

the earlier years of his reign. A scribe has left us a record of the

officials who passed to and from Canaan through the frontier fortress of

Zaru during the middle of the month Pakhons in the third year of the

king. One of these was Baal- ... the son of Zippor of Gaza, who carried

a letter for the Egyptian overseer of the Syrian peasantry (or

Perizzites), as well as another for Baal-[sa]lil-ga[b]u, the

vassal-prince of Tyre. Another messenger was Sutekh-mes, the son of

'Aper-dagar, who also carried a despatch to the overseer of the

peasantry, while a third envoy came in the reverse direction, from the

city of Meneptah, "in the land of the Amorites."

In the troubles which preceded the accession of the twentieth dynasty

the Asiatic possessions of Egypt were naturally lost, and were never

again recovered. Ramses III., however, the last of the conquering

Pharaohs, made at least one campaign in Palestine and Syria. Like

Meneptah, he had to bear the brunt of an attack upon Egypt by the

confederated hordes of the north which threatened to extinguish its

civilization altogether. The nations of Asia Minor and the Ægean Sea had

poured into Syria as the northern barbarians in later days poured into

the provinces of the Roman Empire. Partly by land, partly by sea, they

made their way through Phoenicia and the land of the Hittites,

destroying everything as they went, and carrying in their train the

subjugated princes of Naharaim and Kadesh. For a time they encamped in

the "land of the Amorites," and then pursued their southward march.

Ramses III. met them on the north-eastern frontier of his kingdom, and

in a fiercely-contested battle utterly overthrew them. The ships of the

invaders were captured or sunk, and their forces on land were decimated.

Immense quantities of booty and prisoners were taken, and the shattered

forces of the enemy retreated into Syria. There the Philistines and

Zakkal possessed themselves of the sea-coast, and garrisoned the cities

of the extreme south. Gaza ceased to be an Egyptian fortress, and became

instead an effectual barrier to the Egyptian occupation of Canaan.

When Ramses III. followed the retreating invaders of his country into

Syria, it is doubtful whether the Philistines had as yet settled

themselves in their future home. At all events Gaza fell into his hands,

and he found no difficulty in marching along the Mediterranean coast

like the conquering Pharaohs who had preceded him. In his temple palace

at Medînet Habu he has left a record of the conquests that he made in

Syria. The great cities of the coast were untouched. No attempt was made

to besiege or capture Tyre and Sidon, Beyrout and Gebal, and the

Egyptian army marched past them, encamping on the way only at such

places as "the headland of Carmel," "the source of the Magoras," or

river of Beyrout, and the Bor or "Cistern." Otherwise its resting-places

were at unknown villages like Inzath and Lui-el. North of Beyrout it

struck eastward through the gorge of the Nahr el-Kelb, and took the city

of Kumidi. Then it made its way by Shenir or Hermon to Hamath, which

surrendered, and from thence still northward to "the plain" of Aleppo.

In the south of Palestine, in what was afterwards the territory of

Judah, Ramses made yet another campaign. Here he claims to have taken

Lebanoth and Beth-Anath, Carmel of Judah and Shebtin, Jacob-el and

Hebron, Libnah and Aphek, Migdal-gad and Ir-Shemesh, Hadashah and the

district of Salem or Jerusalem. From thence the Egyptian forces

proceeded to the Lake of Reshpon or the Dead Sea, and then crossing the

Jordan seized Korkha in Moab. But the campaign was little more than a

raid; it left no permanent results behind it, and all traces of Egyptian

authority disappeared with the departure of the Pharaoh's army. Canaan

remained the prey of the first resolute invader who had strength and

courage at his back.