CHAPTER III--THE FIRST THEBAN EMPIRE

_The two Heracleopolitan dynasties and the XIIth dynasty--The conquest

of Ethiopia, and the making of Greater Egypt by the Theban kings._

The principality of the Oleander--Nârû--was bounded on the north by the

Memphite nome; the frontier ran from the left bank of the Nile to the

Libyan range, from the neighbourhood of Riqqah to that of Mêdûm. The

principality comprised the territory lying between the Nile and the Bahr

Yûsûf, from the above-mentioned two villages to the Harabshent Canal--a

district known to Greek geographers as the island of Heracleopolis;--it

moreover included the whole basin of the Fâyûm, on the west of the

valley. In very early times it had been divided into three parts: the

Upper Oleander--Nârû Khonîti--the Lower Oleander--Nârû Pahûi--and

the lake land--To-shît; and these divisions, united usually under

the supremacy of one chief, formed a kind of small state, of which

Heracleopolis was always the capital. The soil was fertile, well

watered, and well tilled, but the revenues from this district, confined

between the two arms of the river, were small in comparison with the

wealth which their ruler derived from his hands on the other side of the

mountain range. The Fayûm is approached by a narrow and winding gorge,

more than six miles in length--a depression of natural formation,

deepened by the hand of man to allow a free passage to the waters of the

Nile. The canal which conveys them leaves the Bahr Yûsûf at a point a

little to the north of Heracleopolis, carries them in a swift stream

through the gorge in the Libyan chain, and emerges into an immense

amphitheatre, whose highest side is parallel to the Nile valley, and

whose terraced slopes descend abruptly to about a hundred feet below the

level of the Mediterranean. Two great arms separate themselves from this

canal to the right and left--the Wady Tamieh and the Wady Nazleh; they

wind at first along the foot of the hills, and then again approaching

each other, empty themselves into a great crescent or horn-shaped lake,

lying east and west--the Moeris of Strabo, the Birket-Kerun of the

Arabs. A third branch penetrates the space enclosed by the other two,

passes the town of Shodû, and is then subdivided into numerous canals

and ditches, whose ramifications appear on the map as a network

resembling the reticulations of a skeleton leaf. The lake formerly

extended beyond its present limits, and submerged districts from which

it has since withdrawn.*

* Most of the specialists who have latterly investigated the

Fayûm have greatly exaggerated the extent of the Birket-

Kerûn in historic times. Prof. Petrie states that it covered

the whole of the present province throughout the time of the

Memphite kings, and that it was not until the reign of

Amenemhâît I. that even a very small portion was drained.

Major Brown adopts this theory, and considers that it was

under Amenemhâît III. that the great lake of the Fayûm was

transformed into a kind of artificial reservoir, which was

the Mceris of Herodotus. The city of Shodû, Shadû, Shadît--

the capital of the Fayûm--and its god Sovkû are mentioned

even in the Pyramid texts: and the eastern district of the

Fayûm is named in the inscription of Amten, under the IIIrd

dynasty.

[Illustration: 297.jpg MAP, THE FAYUM]

In years when the inundation was excessive, the surplus waters were

discharged into the lake; when, however, there was a low Nile, the

storage which had not been absorbed by the soil was poured back into

the valley by the same channels, and carried down by the Bahr-Yûsûf to

augment the inundation of the Western Delta.

[Illustration: 298.jpg FLAT-BOTTOMED VESSEL OF BRONZE OPEN-WORK BEARING

THE CARTOUCHES OF PHARAOH KHÎTI I]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original in the Louvre

Museum.

The Nile was the source of everything in this principality, and hence

they were gods of the waters who received the homage of the three nomes.

The inhabitants of Heracleopolis worshipped the ram Harshafîtû, with

whom they associated Osiris of Narûdûf as god of the dead; the people

of the Upper Oleander adored a second ram, Khnûmû of Hâsmonîtû, and the

whole Fayûm was devoted to the cult of Sovkû the crocodile. Attracted by

the fertility of the soil, the Pharaohs of the older dynasties had

from time to time taken up their residence in Heracleopolis or its

neighbourhood, and one of them--Snofrûi--had built his pyramid at Mêdûm,

close to the frontier of the nome. In proportion as the power of the

Memphites declined, the princes of the Oleander grew more vigorous and

enterprising; and when the Memphite kings passed away, these princes

succeeded their former masters and sat “upon the throne of Horus.”

The founder of the IXth dynasty was perhaps Khîti I., Miribrî, the

Akhthoës of the Greeks. He ruled over all Egypt, and his name has been

found on rocks at the first cataract. A story dating from the time of

the Ramessides mentions his wars against the Bedouin of the regions east

of the Delta; and what Manetho relates of his death is merely a romance,

in which the author, having painted him as a sacrilegious tyrant like

Kheops and Khephren, states that he was dragged down under the water and

there devoured by a crocodile or hippopotamus, the appointed avengers of

the offended gods. His successors seem to have reigned ingloriously

for more than a century. Their deeds are unknown to history, but it

was under the reign of one of them--Nibkaûrî--that a travelling fellah,

having been robbed of his earnings by an artisan, is said to have

journeyed to Heracleopolis to demand justice from the governor, or

to charm him by the eloquence of his pleadings and the variety of his

metaphors. It would, of course, be idle to look for the record of any

historic event in this story; the common people, moreover, do not long

remember the names of unimportant princes, and the tenacity with

which the Egyptians treasured the memories of several kings of the

Heracleopolitan line amply proves that, whether by their good or evil

qualities, they had at least made a lasting impression upon the popular

imagination.

[Illustration: 300.jpg PART OF THE WALLS OF EL-KAB ON THE NORTHERN SIDE]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Grébaut. The

illustration shows a breach where the gate stood, and the

curves of the brickwork courses can clearly be traced both

to the right and the left of the opening.

The history of this period, as far as we can discern it through the

mists of the past, appears to be one confused struggle: from north to

south war raged without intermission; the Pharaohs fought against their

rebel vassals, the nobles fought among themselves, and--what scarcely

amounted to warfare--there were the raids on all sides of pillaging

bands, who, although too feeble to constitute any serious danger to

large cities, were strong enough either in numbers or discipline to

render the country districts uninhabitable, and to destroy national

prosperity. The banks of the Nile already bristled with citadels,

where the monarchs lived and kept watch over the lands subject to their

authority: other fortresses were established wherever any commanding

site--such as a narrow part of the river, or the mouth of a defile

leading into the desert--presented itself. All were constructed on

the same plan, varied only by the sizes of the areas enclosed, and the

different thickness of the outer walls. The outline of their ground-plan

formed a parallelogram, whose enclosure wall was often divided into

vertical panels easily distinguished by the different arrangements of

the building material. At El-Kab and other places the courses of crude

brick are slightly concave, somewhat resembling a wide inverted arch

whose outer curve rests on the ground. In other places there was a

regular alternation of lengths of curved courses, with those in which

the courses were strictly horizontal. The object of this method of

structure is still unknown, but it is thought that such building offers

better resistance to shocks of earthquake. The most ancient fortress

at Abydos, whose ruins now lie beneath the mound of Kom-es-Sultân, was

built in this way. Tombs having encroached upon it by the time of the

VIth dynasty, it was shortly afterwards replaced by another and similar

fort, situate rather more than a hundred yards to the south-east;

the latter is still one of the best-preserved specimens of military

architecture dating from the times immediately preceding the first

Theban empire.*

* My first opinion was that the second fortress had been

built towards the time of the XVIIIth dynasty at the

earliest, perhaps even under the XXth. Further consideration

of the details of its construction and decoration now leads

me to attribute it to the period between the VIth and XIIth

dynasties.

[Illustration: 302.jpg THE SECOND FORTRESS OF ABYDOS--THE

SHÛNET-EZ-ZEBÎB--AS SEEN FROM THE EAST]

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

Modern Arabs call it Shûnet-ez-Zébïb, the storehouse of

raisins.

The exterior is unbroken by towers or projections of any kind, and

consists of four sides, the two longer of which are parallel to each

other and measure 143 yards from east to west: the two shorter sides,

which are also parallel, measure 85 yards from north to south. The outer

wall is solid, built in horizontal courses, with a slight batter, and

decorated by vertical grooves, which at all hours of the day diversify

the surface with an incessant play of light and shade. When perfect it

can hardly have been less than 40 feet in height. The walk round the

ramparts was crowned by a slight, low parapet, with rounded battlements,

and was reached by narrow staircases carefully constructed in the

thickness of the walls. A battlemented covering wall, about five and a

half yards high, encircled the building at a distance of some four feet.

The fortress itself was entered by two gates, and posterns placed at

various points between them provided for sorties of the garrison. The

principal entrance was concealed in a thick block of building at the

southern extremity of the east front. The corresponding entrance in

the covering wall was a narrow opening closed by massive wooden doors;

behind it was a small _place d’armes_, at the further end of which was

a second gate, as narrow as the first, and leading into an oblong court

hemmed in between the outer rampart and two bastions projecting at right

angles from it; and lastly, there was a gate purposely placed at the

furthest and least obvious corner of the court. Such a fortress was

strong enough to resist any modes of attack then at the disposal of the

best-equipped armies, which knew but three ways of taking a place by

force, viz. scaling, sapping, and breaking open the gates. The height

of the walls effectually prevented scaling. The pioneers were kept at

a distance by the brave, but if a breach were made in that, the small

flanking galleries fixed outside the battlements enabled the besieged to

overwhelm the enemy with stones and javelins as they approached, and to

make the work of sapping almost impossible. Should the first gate of

the fortress yield to the assault, the attacking party would be crowded

together in the courtyard as in a pit, few being able to enter together;

they would at once be constrained to attack the second gate under a

shower of missiles, and did they succeed in carrying that also, it was

at the cost of enormous sacrifice. The peoples of the Nile Valley

knew nothing of the swing battering-ram, and no representation of

the hand-worked battering-ram has ever been found in any of their

wall-paintings or sculptures; they forced their way into a stronghold

by breaking down its gates with their axes, or by setting fire to its

doors.

[Illustration: 304.jpg ATTACK UPON AN EGYPTIAN FORTRESS BY TROOPS OF

VARIOUS ARMS]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a scene in the tomb of Amoni-

Amenemhâît at Beni-Hasan.

While the sappers were hard at work, the archers endeavoured, by the

accuracy of their aim, to clear the enemy from the curtain, while

soldiers sheltered behind movable mantelets tried to break down the

defences and dismantle the flanking galleries with huge metal-tipped

lances. In dealing with a resolute garrison none of these methods proved

successful; nothing but close siege, starvation, or treachery could

overcome its resistance.

The equipment of Egyptian troops was lacking in uniformity, and men

armed with slings, or bows and arrows, lances, wooden swords, clubs,

stone or metal axes, all fought side by side. The head was protected

by a padded cap, and the body by shields, which were small for light

infantry, but of great width for soldiers of the line. The issue of a

battle depended upon a succession of single combats between foes armed

with the same weapons; the lancers alone seem to have charged in line

behind their huge bucklers. As a rule, the wounds were trifling, and the

great skill with which the shields were used made the risk of injury to

any vital part very slight. Sometimes, however, a lance might be driven

home into a man’s chest, or a vigorously wielded sword or club might

fracture a combatant’s skull and stretch him unconscious on the ground.

With the exception of those thus wounded and incapacitated for flight,

very few prisoners were taken, and the name given to them, “Those struck

down alive”--_sokirûonkhû_--sufficiently indicates the method of their

capture. The troops were recruited partly from the domains of military

fiefs, partly from tribes of the desert or Nubia, and by their aid

the feudal princes maintained the virtual independence which they had

acquired for themselves under the last kings of the Memphite line.

Here and there, at Hermopolis, Shit, and Thebes, they founded actual

dynasties, closely connected with the Pharaonic dynasty, and even

occasionally on an equality with it, though they assumed neither

the crown nor the double cartouche. Thebes was admirably adapted for

becoming the capital of an important state. It rose on the right bank

of the Nile, at the northern end of the curve made by the river towards

Hermonthis, and in the midst of one of the most fertile plains of Egypt.

Exactly opposite to it, the Libyan range throws out a precipitous spur

broken up by ravines and arid amphitheatres, and separated from the

river-bank by a mere strip of cultivated ground which could be easily

defended. A troop of armed men stationed on this neck of land could

command the navigable arm of the Nile, intercept trade with Nubia at

their pleasure, and completely bar the valley to any army attempting to

pass without having first obtained authority to do so. The advantages

of this site do not seem to have been appreciated during the Memphite

period, when the political life of Upper Egypt was but feeble.

Elephantine, El-Kab, and Koptos were at that period the principal cities

of the country. Elephantine particularly, owing to its trade with the

Soudan, and its constant communication with the peoples bordering the

Red Sea, was daily increasing in importance. Hermonthis, the Aûnû of the

South, occupied much the same position, from a religious point of view,

as was held in the Delta by Heliopolis, the Aûnû of the North, and its

god Montû, a form of the Solar Horus, disputed the supremacy with Mînû,

of Koptos. Thebes long continued to be merely an insignificant village

of the Uisit nome and a dependency of Hermonthis. It was only towards

the end of the VIIIth dynasty that Thebes began to realize its power,

after the triumph of feudalism over the crown had culminated in the

downfall of the Memphite kings.

[Illustration: 306.jpg Denderah--Temple of Tentyra]

[Illustration: 306-text.jpg--Temple of Tentyra]

A family which, to judge from the fact that its members affected the

name of Monthotpû, originally came from Hermonthis, settled in Thebes

and made that town the capital of a small principality, which rapidly

enlarged its borders at the expense of the neighbouring nomes. All the

towns and cities of the plain, Mâdûfc, Hfûîfc, Zorît, Hermonthis,

and towards the south, Aphroditopolis Parva, at the gorge of the Two

Mountains (Gebelên) which formed the frontier of the fief of El-Kab,

Kûsît towards the north, Denderah, and Hû, all fell into the hands of

the Theban princes and enormously increased their territory. After the

lapse of a very few years, their supremacy was accepted more or less

willingly by the adjacent principalities of El-Kab, Elephantine, Koptos,

Qasr-es-Sayad, Thinis, and Ekhmîm. Antûf, the founder of the family,

claimed no other title than that of Lord of Thebes, and still submitted

to the suzerainty of the Heracleopolitan kings. His successors

considered themselves strong enough to cast off this allegiance, if

not to usurp all the insignia of royalty, including the uraeus and the

cartouche. Monthotpû I., Antûf II., and Antûf III. must have occupied a

somewhat remarkable position among the great lords of the south, since

their successors credited them with the possession of a unique preamble.

It is true that the historians of a later date did not venture to

place them on a par with the kings who were actually independent; they

enclosed their names in the cartouche without giving them a prenomen;

but, at the same time, they invested them with a title not met with

elsewhere, that of the first Horus--_Horû tapi_. They exercised

considerable power from the outset. It extended over Southern Egypt,

over Nubia, and over the valleys lying between the Nile and the Red

Sea.* The origin of the family was somewhat obscure, but in support

of their ambitious projects, they did not fail to invoke the memory of

pretended alliances between their ancestors and daughters of the solar

race; they boasted of their descent from the Papis, from Usirnirî Anû,

Sahûri, and Snofrûi, and claimed that the antiquity of their titles did

away with the more recent rights of their rivals.

The revolt of the Theban princes put an end to the IXth dynasty, and,

although supported by the feudal powers of Central and Northern Egypt,

and more especially by the lords of the Terebinth nome, who viewed the

sudden prosperity of the Thebans with a very evil eye, the Xth dynasty

did not succeed in bringing them back to their allegiance.**

* In the “Hall of Ancestors” the title of “Horus” is

attributed to several Antûfs and Monthotpûs bearing the

cartouche. This was probably the compiler’s ingenious device

for marking the subordinate position of these personages as

compared with that of the Heracleopolitan Pharaohs, who

alone among their contemporaries had a right to be placed on

such official lists, even when those lists were compiled

under the great Theban dynasties. The place in the XIth

dynasty of princes bearing the title of “Horus” was first

determined by E. de Rougé.

** The history of the house of Thebes was restored at the

same time as that of the Heracleopolitan dynasties, by

Maspero, in the _Revue Critique_, 1889, vol. ii. p. 220. The

difficulty arising from the number of the Theban kings

according to Manetho, considered in connection with the

forty-three years which made the total duration of the

dynasty, has been solved by Barucchi, _Discord critici

sojpra la Cronologia Egizia_, pp. 131-134. These forty-three

years represent the length of time that the Theban dynasty

reigned alone, and which are ascribed to it in the Royal

Canon; but the number of its kings includes, besides the

recognized Pharaohs of the line, those princes who were

contemporary with the Heracleopolitan rulers and are

officially reckoned as forming the Xth dynasty.

The family which held the fief of Siût when the war broke out, had

ruled there for three generations. Its first appearance on the scene of

history coincided with the accession of Akhthoës, and its elevation was

probably the reward of services rendered by its chief to the head of the

Heracleopolitan family.*

* By ascribing to the princes of Siut an average reign equal

to that of the Pharaohs, and admitting with Lepsius that the

IXth dynasty consisted of four or five kings, the accession

of the first of these princes would practically coincide

with the reign of Akhthoës. The name of Khîti, borne by two

members of this little local dynasty, may have been given in

memory of the Pharaoh Khiti Miribrî; there was also a second

Khîti among the Heracleopolitan sovereigns, and one of the

Khîtis of Siut may have been his contemporary. The family

claimed a long descent, and said of itself that it was “an

ancient litter”; but the higher rank and power of “prince”

--hiqû--it owed to Khîti I. [Miribri?--Ed.] or some other

king of the Heracleo-politian line.

[Illustration: 309.jpg MAP, PLAIN OF THEBES]

From this time downwards, the title of “ruler”--_hiqû_--which the

Pharaohs themselves sometimes condescended to take, was hereditary in

the family, who grew in favour from year to year. Khiti I., the fourth

of this line of princes, was brought up in the palace of Heracleopolis,

and had learned to swim with the royal children. On his return home

he remained the personal friend of the king, and governed his domains

wisely, clearing the canals, fostering agriculture, and lightening the

taxes without neglecting the army. His heavy infantry, recruited from

among the flower of the people of the north, and his light infantry,

drawn from the pick of the people of the south, were counted by

thousands. He resisted the Theban pretensions with all his might, and

his son Tefabi followed in his footsteps. “The first time,” said he,

“that my foot-soldiers fought against the nomes of the south which were

gathered together from Elephantine in the south to Gau on the north,

I conquered those nomes, I drove them towards the southern frontier, I

overran the left bank of the Nile in all directions. When I came to a

town I threw down its walls, I seized its chief, I imprisoned him at the

port (landing-place) until he paid me ransom. As soon as I had finished

with the left bank, and there were no longer found any who dared resist,

I passed to the right bank; like a swift hare I set full sail for

another chief.... I sailed by the north wind as by the east, by the

south as by the west, and him whose ship I boarded I vanquished utterly;

he was cast into the water, his boats fled to shore, his soldiers were

as bulls on whom falleth the lion; I compassed his city from end to end,

I seized his goods, I cast them into the fire.” Thanks to his energy and

courage, he “extinguished the rebellion by the counsel and according to

the tactics of the jackal Uapûaîtû, god of Siût.”

[Illustration: 310.jpg MAP, THE PRINCIPALITY OF SIÛT]

[Illustration: 311.jpg THE HEAVY INFANTRY OF THE PRINCES OF SIÛT, ARMED

WITH LANCE AND BUCKLER]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger, taken in

1882. The scene forms part of the decoration of one of the

walls of the tomb of Khîti III.

From that time “no district of the desert was safe from his terrors,”

and he “carried flame at his pleasure among the nomes of the south.”

Even while bringing desolation to his foes, he sought to repair the ills

which the invasion had brought upon his own subjects. He administered

such strict justice that evil-doers disappeared as though by magic.

“When night came, he who slept on the roads blessed me, because he was

as safe as in his own house; for the fear which was shed abroad by my

soldiers protected him; and the cattle in the fields were as safe there

as in the stable; the thief had become an abomination to the god, and he

no longer oppressed the serf, so that the latter ceased to complain, and

paid the exact dues of his land for love of me.” In the time of Khîti

II., the son of Tefabi, the Heracleopolitans were still masters of

Northern Egypt, but their authority was even then menaced by the

turbulence of their own vassals, and Heracleopolis itself drove out the

Pharaoh Mirikarî, who was obliged to take refuge in Siût with that Kkîti

whom he called his father. Khîti gathered together such an extensive

fleet that it encumbered the Nile from Shashhotpû to Gebel-Abufodah,

from one end of the principality of the Terebinth to the other. Vainly

did the rebels unite with the Thebans; Khîti “sowed terror over the

world, and himself alone chastised the nomes of the south.” While he was

descending the river to restore the king to his capital, “the sky grew

serene, and the whole country rallied to him; the commanders of the

south and the archons of Heracleopolis, their legs tremble beneath them

when the royal urous, ruler of the world, comes to suppress crime; the

earth trembles, the South takes ship and flies, all men flee in dismay,

the towns surrender, for fear takes hold on their members.” Mirikarî’s

return was a triumphal progress: “when he came to Heracleopolis the

people ran forth to meet him, rejoicing in their lord; women and men

together, old men as well as children.” But fortune soon changed. Beaten

again and again, the Thebans still returned to the attack; at length

they triumphed, after a struggle of nearly two hundred years, and

brought the two rival divisions of Egypt under their rule.

[Illustration: 313.jpg PALETTE INSCRIBED WITH THE NAME OF MIRIKARÎ]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original, now in the Museum

of the Louvre. The palette is of wood, and bears the name of

a contemporary personage; the outlines of the hieroglyphs

are inlaid with silver wire. It was probably found in the

necropolis of Meîr, a little to the north of Siût. The

sepulchral pyramid of the Pharaoh Mirikarî is mentioned on a

coffin in the Berlin Museum.

The few glimpses to be obtained of the early history of the first

Theban dynasty give the impression of an energetic and intelligent race.

Confined to the most thinly populated, that is, the least fertile part

of the valley, and engaged on the north in a ceaseless warfare which

exhausted their resources, they still found time for building both at

Thebes and in the most distant parts of their dominions. If their power

made but little progress southwards, at least it did not recede, and

that part of Nubia lying between Aswan and the neighbourhood of Korosko

remained in their possession. The tribes of the desert, the Amamiû, the

Mâzaiû, and the Uaûaiû often disturbed the husbandmen by their sudden

raids; yet, having pillaged a district, they did not take possession of

it as conquerors, but hastily returned to their mountains. The Theban

princes kept them in check by repeated counter-raids, and renewed the

old treaties with them. The inhabitants of the Great Oasis in the west,

and the migratory peoples of the Land of the Gods, recognized the Theban

suzerainty on the traditional terms.

[Illustration: 314.jpg THE BRICK PYRAMID OF ANTÛFÂA, AT THEBES]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Prisse d’Avennes.

This pyramid is now completely destroyed.

As in the times of Uni, the barbarians made up the complement of the

army with soldiers who were more inured to hardships and more accustomed

to the use of arms than the ordinary fellahîn; and several obscure

Pharaohs--such as Monthotpû I. and Antûf III.--owed their boasted

victories over Libyans and Asiatics* to the energy of their mercenaries.

* The cartouches of Antûfâa, inscribed on the rocks of

Elephantine, are the record of a visit which this prince

paid to Syenê, probably on his return from some raid; many

similar inscriptions of Pharaohs of the XIIth dynasty were

inscribed in analogous circumstances. Nûbkhopirrî Antûf

boasted of having worsted the Amû and the negroes. On one of

the rocks of the island of Konosso, Monthotpû Nibhotpûrî

sculptured a scene of offerings in which the gods are

represented as granting him victory over all peoples. Among

the ruins of the temple which he built at Gebelên, is a

scene in which he is presenting files of prisoners from

different countries to the Theban gods.

But the kings of the XIth dynasty were careful not to wander too far

from the valley of the Nile. Egypt presented a sufficiently wide field

for their activity, and they exerted themselves to the utmost to remedy

the evils from which the country had suffered for hundreds of years.

They repaired the forts, restored or enlarged the temples, and evidences

of their building are found at Koptos, Gebelên, El-Kab, and Abydos.

Thebes itself has been too often overthrown since that time for any

traces of the work of the XIth dynasty kings in the temple of Amon to

be distinguishable; but her necropolis is still full of their “eternal

homes,” stretching in lines across the plain, opposite Karnak, at

Drah abû’l-Neggah, and on the northern slopes of the valley of

Deir-el-Baharî. Some were excavated in the mountain-side, and presented

a square façade of dressed stone, surmounted by a pointed roof in the

shape of a pyramid. Others were true pyramids, sometimes having a pair

of obelisks in front of them, as well as a temple. None of them

attained to the dimensions of the Memphite tombs; for, with only its own

resources at command, the kingdom of the south could not build monuments

to compete with those whose construction had taxed the united efforts of

all Egypt, but it used a crude black brick, made without grit or straw,

where the Egyptians of the north had preferred more costly stone. These

inexpensive pyramids were built on a rectangular base not more than six

and a half feet high; and the whole erection, which was simply faced

with whitewashed stucco, never exceeded thirty-three feet in height. The

sepulchral chamber was generally in the centre; in shape it resembled an

oven, its roof being “vaulted” by the overlapping of the courses.

Often also it was constructed partly in the base, and partly in the

foundations below the base, the empty space above it being intended

merely to lighten the weight of the masonry. There was not always an

external chapel attached to these tombs, but a stele placed on the

substructure, or fixed in one of the outer faces, marked the spot to

which offerings were to be brought for the dead; sometimes, however,

there was the addition of a square vestibule in front of the tomb,

and here, on prescribed days, the memorial ceremonies took place.

The statues of the double were rude and clumsy, the coffins heavy and

massive, and the figures with which they were decorated inelegant and

out of proportion, while the stelæ are very rudely cut. From the time

of the VIth dynasty the lords of the Saïd had been reduced to employing

workmen from Memphis to adorn their monuments; but the rivalry between

the Thebans and the Heracleopolitans, which set the two divisions of

Egypt against each other in constant hostility, obliged the Antufs to

entrust the execution of their orders to the local schools of sculptors

and painters. It is difficult to realize the degree of rudeness to

which the unskilled workmen who made certain of the Akhmîtn and Gebelên

sarcophagi must have sunk; and even at Thebes itself, or at Abydos, the

execution of both bas-reliefs and hieroglyphs shows minute carefulness

rather than any real skill or artistic feeling. Failing to attain to

the beautiful, the Egyptians endeavoured to produce the sumptuous.

Expeditions to the Wady Ham marnât to fetch blocks of granite for

sarcophagi become more and more frequent, and wells were sunk from point

to point along the road leading from Koptos to the mountains. Sometimes

these expeditions were made the occasion for pushing on as far as the

port of Saû and embarking on the Eed Sea. A hastily constructed boat

cruised along by the shore, and gum, incense, gold, and the precious

stones of the country were brought from the land of the Troglodytes. On

the return of the convoy with its block of stone, and various packages

of merchandise, there was no lack of scribes to recount the dangers of

the campaign in exaggerated language, or to congratulate the reigning

Pharaoh on having sown abroad the fame and terror of his name in the

countries of the gods, and as far as the land of Pûanît.

The final overthrow of the Heracleopolitan dynasty, and the union of the

two kingdoms under the rule of the Theban house, are supposed to have

been the work of that Monthotpû whose throne-name was Nibkhrôûrî;

his, at any rate, was the name which the Egyptians of Kamesside times

inscribed in the royal lists as that of the founder and most illustrious

representative of the XIth dynasty. The monuments commemorate his

victories over the Uaûaiû and the barbarous inhabitants of Nubia. Even

after he had conquered the Delta he still continued to reside in Thebes;

there he built his pyramid, and there divine honours were paid him from

the day after his decease. A scene carved on the rocks north of Silsileh

represents him as standing before his son Antûf; he is of gigantic

stature, and one of his wives stands behind him.*

* Brugsch makes him out to be a descendant of Amenemhâît,

the prince of Thebes who lived under Monthotpu Nibtûirî, and

who went to bring the stone for that Pharaoh’s sarcophagus

from the Wady Hammamât. He had previously supposed him to be

this prince himself. Either of these hypotheses becomes

probable, according as Nibtûirî is supposed to have lived

before or after Nibkhrôûrî.

[Illustration: 318.jpg THE PHARAOH MONTHOTPU RECEIVING THE HOMAGE OF HIS

SUCCESSOR--ANTUE--IN THE SHAT ER-RIGELEH.]

Drawn by Boudier, from a sketch by Petrie, _Ten Years’

Digging in Egypt_, p. 74, No. 2.

Three or four kings followed him in rapid succession; the least

insignificant among them appearing to have been a Monthotpii Nibtouiri.

Nothing but the prenomen--Sonkherî--is known of the last of these latter

princes, who was also the only one of them ever entered on the official

lists. In their hands the sovereignty remained unchanged from what it

had been almost uninterruptedly since the end of the VIth dynasty. They

solemnly proclaimed their supremacy, and their names were inscribed at

the head of public documents; but their power scarcely extended beyond

the limits of their family domain, and the feudal chiefs never concerned

themselves about the sovereign except when he evinced the power or will

to oppose them, allowing him the mere semblance of supremacy over the

greater part of Europe. Such a state of affairs could only be reformed

by revolution. Amenemhâît I., the leader of the new dynasty, was of the

Theban race; whether he had any claim to the throne, or by what means he

had secured the stability of his rule, we do not know. Whether he had

usurped the crown or whether he had inherited it legitimately, he showed

himself worthy of the rank to which fortune had raised him, and the

nobility saw in him a new incarnation of that type of kingship long

known to them by tradition only, namely, that of a Pharaoh convinced of

his own divinity and determined to assert it. He inspected the valley

from one end to another, principality by principality, nome by nome,

“crushing crime, and arising like Tûmû himself; restoring that which he

found in ruins, settling the bounds of the towns, and establishing for

each its frontiers.” The civil wars had disorganized everything; no one

knew what ground belonged to the different nomes, what taxes were due

from them, nor how questions of irrigation could be equitably

decided. Amenemhâît set up again the boundary stelae, and restored its

dependencies to each nome: “He divided the waters among them according

to that which was in the cadastral surveys of former times.” Hostile

nobles, or those whose allegiance was doubtful, lost the whole or part

of their fiefs; those who had welcomed the new order of things received

accessions of territory as the reward of their zeal and devotion.

Depositions and substitutions of princes had begun already in the time

of the XIth dynasty. Antûf V., for instance, finding the lord of Koptos

too lukewarm, had had him removed and promptly replaced. The fief of

Siût accrued to a branch of the family which was less warlike, and above

all less devoted to the old dynasty than that of Khîti had been. Part of

the nome of the Gazelle was added to the dominions of Nûhri, prince of

the Hare nome; the eastern part of the same nome, with Monaît-Khûfûi

as capital, was granted to his father-in-law, Khnûmhotpû I. Expeditions

against the Ûaûaiû, the Mâzaiû, and the nomads of Libya and Arabia

delivered the fellahîn from their ruinous raids and ensured to the

Egyptians safety from foreign attack. Amenemhâît had, moreover, the wit

to recognize that Thebes was not the most suitable place of residence

for the lord of all Egypt; it lay too far to the south, was thinly

populated, ill-built, without monuments, without prestige, and almost

without history. He gave it into the hands of one of his relations to

govern in his name, and proceeded to establish himself in the heart of

the country, in imitation of the glorious Pharaohs from whom he claimed

to be descended. But the ancient royal cities of Kheops and his children

had ceased to exist; Memphis, like Thebes, was now a provincial town,

and its associations were with the VIth and VIIIth dynasties only.

Amenemhâît took up his abode a little to the south of Dahshur, in the

palace of Titoûi, which he enlarged and made the seat of his government.

Conscious of being in the hands of a strong ruler, Egypt breathed freely

after centuries of distress, and her sovereign might in all sincerity

congratulate himself on having restored peace to his country. “I caused

the mourner to mourn no longer, and his lamentation was no longer

heard,--perpetual fighting was no longer witnessed,--while before my

coming they fought together as bulls unmindful of yesterday,--and no

man’s welfare was assured, whether he was ignorant or learned.”--“I

tilled the land as far as Elephantine,--I spread joy throughout the

country, unto the marshes of the Delta.--At my prayer the Nile granted

the inundation to the fields:--no man was an hungered under me, no

man was athirst under me,--for everywhere men acted according to my

commands, and all that I said was a fresh cause of love.”

In the court of Amenemhâît, as about all Oriental sovereigns, there were

doubtless men whose vanity or interests suffered by this revival of

the royal authority; men who had found it to their profit to intervene

between Pharaoh and his subjects, and who were thwarted in their

intrigues or exactions by the presence of a prince determined on keeping

the government in his own hands.

These men devised plots against the new king, and he escaped with

difficulty from their conspiracies. “It was after the evening meal, as

night came on,--I gave myself up to pleasure for a time,--then I

lay down upon the soft coverlets in my palace, I abandoned myself to

repose,--and my heart began to be overtaken by slumber; when, lo! they

gathered together in arms to revolt against me,--and I became weak as

a serpent of the field.--Then I aroused myself to fight with my own

hands,--and I found that I had but to strike the unresisting.--When

I took a foe, weapon in hand, I make the wretch to turn and

flee;--strength forsook him, even in the night; there were none

who contended, and nothing vexatious was effected against me.” The

conspirators were disconcerted by the promptness with which Amenemhâît

had attacked them, and apparently the rebellion was suppressed on the

same night in which it broke out. But the king was growing old, his son

Usirtasen was very young, and the nobles were bestirring themselves in

prospect of a succession which they supposed to be at hand. The best

means of putting a stop to their evil devices and of ensuring the future

of the dynasty was for the king to appoint the heir-presumptive, and at

once associate him with himself in the exercise of his sovereignty. In

the XXth year of his reign, Amenemhâît solemnly conferred the titles and

prerogatives of royalty upon his son Usirtasen: “I raised thee from the

rank of a subject,--I granted thee the free use of thy arm that thou

mightest be feared.--As for me, I apparelled myself in the fine

stuffs of my palace until I appeared to the eye as the flowers of my

garden,--and I perfumed myself with essences as freely as I pour forth

the water from my cisterns.” Usirtasen naturally assumed the active

duties of royalty as his share. “He is a hero who wrought with the

sword, a mighty man of valour without peer: he beholds the barbarians,

he rushes forward and falls upon their predatory hordes. He is the

hurler of javelins who makes feeble the hands of the foe; those whom

he strikes never more lift the lance. Terrible is he, shattering skulls

with the blows of his war-mace, and none resisted him in his time. He is

a swift runner who smites the fugitive with the sword, but none who run

after him can overtake him. He is a heart alert for battle in his time.

He is a lion who strikes with his claws, nor ever lets go his weapon.

He is a heart girded in armour at the sight of the hosts, and who leaves

nothing standing behind him. He is a valiant man rushing forward when

he beholds the fight. He is a soldier rejoicing to fall upon the

barbarians: he seizes his buckler, he leaps forward and kills without

a second blow. None may escape his arrow; before he bends his bow the

barbarians flee from his arms like dogs, for the great goddess has

charged him to fight against all who know not her name, and whom

he strikes he spares not; he leaves nothing alive.” The old Pharaoh

“remained in the palace,” waiting until his son returned to announce

the success of his enterprises, and contributing by his counsel to the

prosperity of their common empire. Such was the reputation for wisdom

which he thus acquired, that a writer who was almost his contemporary

composed a treatise in his name, and in it the king was supposed to

address posthumous instructions to his son on the art of governing. He

appeared to his son in a dream, and thus admonished him: “Hearken unto

my words!--Thou art king over the two worlds, prince over the three

regions. Act still better than did thy predecessors.--Let there be

harmony between thy subjects and thee,--lest they give themselves up to

fear; keep not thyself apart in the midst of them; make not thy brother

solely from the rich and noble, fill not thy heart with them alone;

yet neither do thou admit to thy intimacy chance-comers whose place is

unknown.” The king confirmed his counsels by examples taken from his

own life, and from these we have learned some facts in his history. The

little work was widely disseminated and soon became a classic; in the

time of the XIXth dynasty it was still copied in schools and studied

by young scribes as an exercise in style. Usirfcasen’s share in the

sovereignty had so accustomed the Egyptians to consider this prince

as the king _de facto_, that they had gradually come to write his name

alone upon the monuments. When Amenemhâît died, after a reign of thirty

years, Ûsirtasen was engaged in a war against the Libyans. Dreading an

outbreak of popular feeling, or perhaps an attempted usurpation by

one of the princes of the blood, the high officers of the crown kept

Amenemhâît’s death secret, and despatched a messenger to the camp to

recall the young king. He left his tent by night, unknown to the troops,

returned to the capital before anything had transpired among the

people, and thus the transition from the founder to his immediate

successor--always a delicate crisis for a new dynasty--seemed to

come about quite naturally. The precedent of co-regnancy having been

established, it was scrupulously followed by most of the succeeding

sovereigns. In the XIIIth year of his sovereignty, and after having

reigned alone for thirty-two years, Ûsirtasen I. shared his throne with

Amenemhâît II.; and thirty-two years later Amenemhâît II. acted in a

similar way with regard to Ûsirtasen II. Amenemhâît III. and Amenemhâît

IV. were long co-regnant. The only princes of this house in whose cases

any evidence of co-regnancy is lacking are Ûsirtasen III., and the queen

Sovknofriûrî, with whom the dynasty died out.

[Illustration: 325.jpg AN ASIATIC CHIEF IS PRESENTED TO KHNÛMHOTPÛ BY

NOFIRHOPTU, AND BY KHITI, THE SUPERINTENDENT OF THE HUNTSMEN]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a chromolithograph in Lepsius,

_Denhm._, ii. 133.

It lasted two hundred and thirteen years, one month, and twenty-seven

days,* and its history can be ascertained with greater certainty and

completeness than that of any-other dynasty which ruled over Egypt.

*This is its total duration, as given in the Turin papyrus.

Several Egyptologists have thought that Manetho had, in his

estimate, counted the years of each sovereign as

consecutive, and have hence proposed to conclude that the

dynasty only lasted 168 years (Brugscii), or 160 (Lieblein),

or 194 (Ed. Meyer). It is simpler to admit that the compiler

of the papyrus was not in error; we do not know the length

of the reigns of Ûsirtasen II., Ûsirtasen III., and

Amenemhâît III., and their unknown years may be considered

as completing the tale of the two hundred and thirteen

years.

We are doubtless far from having any adequate idea of its great

achievements, for the biographies of its eight sovereigns, and the

details of their interminable wars are very imperfectly known to us. The

development of its foreign and domestic policy we can, however, follow

without a break.

[Illustration: 326.jpg SOME OF THE BAND OF ASIATICS, WITH THEIR BEASTS,

BROUGHT FROM KHNÛMHOTPÛ]

Asia had as little attraction for these kings as for their Memphite

predecessors; they seem to have always had a certain dread of its

warlike races, and to have merely contented themselves with repelling

their attacks. Amenemhâît I. had completed the line of fortresses across

the isthmus, and these were carefully maintained by his successors. The

Pharaohs were not ambitious of holding direct sway over the tribes of

the desert, and scrupulously avoided interfering with their affairs

as long as the “Lords of the Sands” agreed to respect the Egyptian

frontier. Commercial relations were none the less frequent and certain

on this account.

[Illustration: 327.jpg THE WOMEN PASSING BY IN PROCESSION, IN CHARGE OF

A WARRIOR AND OF A MAN PLAYING UPON THE LYRE]

Dwellers by the streams of the Delta were accustomed to see the

continuous arrival in their towns of isolated individuals or of whole

bands driven from their homes by want or revolution, and begging for

refuge under the shadow of Pharaoh’s throne, and of caravans offering

the rarest products of the north and of the east for sale. A celebrated

scene in one of the tombs of Beni-Hasan illustrates what usually took

place. We do not know what drove the thirty-seven Asiatics, men, women,

and children, to cross the Red Sea and the Arabian desert and hills in

the VIth year of Usirtasen II.;* they had, however, suddenly appeared in

the Gazelle nome, and were there received by Khîti, the superintendent

of the huntsmen, who, as his duty was, brought them before the prince

Khnûmhotpû.

* This bas-relief was first noticed and described by

Champollion, who took the immigrants for Greeks of the

archaic period. Others have wished to consider it as

representing Abraham, the sons of Jacob, or at least a band

of Jews entering into Egypt, and on the strength of this

hypothesis it has often been reproduced.

The foreigners presented the prince with green eye-paint, antimony

powder, and two live ibexes, to conciliate his favour; while he, to

preserve the memory of their visit, had them represented in painting

upon the walls of his tomb. The Asiatics carry bows and arrows,

javelins, axes, and clubs, like the Egyptians, and wear long garments or

close-fitting loin-cloths girded on the thigh. One of them plays, as he

goes, on an instrument whose appearance recalls that of the old Greek

lyre. The shape of their arms, the magnificence and good taste of the

fringed and patterned stuffs with which they are clothed, the elegance

of most of the objects which they have brought with them, testify to a

high standard of civilisation, equal at least to that of Egypt. Asia had

for some time provided the Pharaohs with slaves, certain perfumes, cedar

wood and cedar essences, enamelled vases, precious stones, lapis-lazuli,

and the dyed and embroidered woollen fabrics of which Chaldæa kept the

monopoly until the time of the Komans. Merchants of the Delta braved

the perils of wild beasts and of robbers lurking in every valley, while

transporting beyond the isthmus products of Egyptian manufacture, such

as fine linens, chased or _cloisonné_ jewellery, glazed pottery, and

glass paste or metal amulets. Adventurous spirits who found life dull

on the banks of the Nile, men who had committed crimes, or who believed

themselves suspected by their lords on political grounds, conspirators,

deserters, and exiles were well received by the Asiatic tribes, and

sometimes gained the favour of the sheikhs. In the time of the XIIth

dynasty, Southern Syria, the country of the “Lords of the Sands,” and

the kingdom of Kadûma were full of Egyptians whose eventful careers

supplied the scribes and storytellers with the themes of many romances.

Sinûhît, the hero of one of these stories, was a son of Amenemhâît I.,

and had the misfortune involuntarily to overhear a state secret. He

happened to be near the royal tent when news of his father’s sudden

death was brought to Usirtasen. Fearing summary execution, he fled

across the Delta north of Memphis, avoided the frontier-posts, and

struck into the desert. “I pursued my way by night; at dawn I had

reached Pûteni, and set out for the lake of Kîmoîrî. Then thirst fell

upon me, and the death-rattle was in my throat, my throat cleaved

together, and I said, ‘It is the taste of death!’ when suddenly I lifted

up my heart and gathered my strength together: I heard the lowing of the

herds. I perceived some Asiatics; their chief, who had been in Egypt,

knew me; he gave me water, and caused milk to be boiled for me, and

I went with him and joined his tribe.” But still Sinûhît did not feel

himself in safety, and fled into Kadûma, to a prince who had provided an

asylum for other Egyptian exiles, and where he “could hear men speak the

language of Egypt.” Here he soon gained honours and fortune. “The chief

preferred me before his children, giving me his eldest daughter in

marriage, and he granted me that I should choose for myself the best of

his land near the frontier of a neighbouring country. It is an excellent

land, Aîa is its name. Figs are there and grapes; wine is more plentiful

than water; honey abounds in it; numerous are its olives and all the

produce of its trees; there are corn and flour without end, and cattle

of all kinds. Great, indeed, was that which was bestowed upon me when

the prince came to invest me, installing me as prince of a tribe in the

best of his land. I had daily rations of bread and wine, day by day;

cooked meat and roasted fowl, besides the mountain game which I took, or

which was placed before me in addition to that which was brought me by

my hunting dogs. Much butter was made for me, and milk prepared in every

kind of way. There I passed many years, and the children which were born

to me became strong men, each ruling his own tribe. When a messenger was

going to the interior or returning from it, he turned aside from his way

to come to me, for I did kindness to all: I gave water to the thirsty,

I set again upon his way the traveller who had been stopped on it, I

chastised the brigand. The Pitaîtiû, who went on distant campaigns to

fight and repel the princes of foreign lands, I commanded them and

they marched forth; for the prince of Tonû made me the general of his

soldiers for long years. When I went forth to war, all countries towards

which I set out trembled in their pastures by their wells. I seized

their cattle, I took away their vassals and carried off their slaves, I

slew the inhabitants, the land was at the mercy of my sword, of my bow,

of my marches, of my well-conceived plans glorious to the heart of my

prince. Thus, when he knew my valour, he loved me, making me chief among

his children when he saw the strength of my arms.

“A valiant man of Tonu came to defy me in my tent; he was a hero beside

whom there was none other, for he had overthrown all his adversaries. He

said: ‘Let Sinûhît fight with me, for he has not yet conquered me!’ and

he thought to seize my cattle and therewith to enrich his tribe. The

prince talked of the matter with me. I said: ‘I know him not. Verily,

I am not his brother. I keep myself far from his dwelling; have I ever

opened his door, or crossed his enclosures? Doubtless he is some jealous

fellow envious at seeing me, and who believes himself fated to rob me

of my cats, my goats, my kine, and to fall on my bulls, my rams, and my

oxen, to take them.... If he has indeed the courage to fight, let him

declare the intention of his heart! Shall the god forget him whom he has

heretofore favoured? This man who has challenged me to fight is as one

of those who lie upon the funeral couch. I bent my bow, I took out my

arrows, I loosened my poignard, I furbished my arms. At dawn all the

land of Tonu ran forth; its tribes were gathered together, and all the

foreign lands which were its dependencies, for they were impatient to

see this duel. Each heart was on live coals because of me; men and women

cried ‘Ah!’ for every heart was disquieted for my sake, and they said:

‘Is there, indeed, any valiant man who will stand up against him? Lo!

the enemy has buckler, battle-axe, and an armful of javelins.’ When he

had come forth and I appeared, I turned aside his shafts from me. When

not one of them touched me, he fell upon me, and then I drew my bow

against him. When my arrow pierced his neck, he cried out and fell to

the earth upon his nose; I snatched his lance from him, I shouted my cry

of victory upon his back. While the country people rejoiced, I made

his vassals whom he had oppressed to give thanks to Montu. This prince,

Ammiânshi, bestowed upon me all the possessions of the vanquished, and

I took away his goods, I carried off his cattle. All that he had desired

to do unto me that did I unto him; I took possession of all that was in

his tent, I despoiled his dwelling; therewith was the abundance of my

treasure and the number of my cattle increased.” In later times, in

Arab romances such as that of Antar or that of Abû-Zeît, we find the

incidents and customs described in this Egyptian tale; there we have

the exile arriving at the court of a great sheikh whose daughter he

ultimately marries, the challenge, the fight, and the raids of one

people against another. Even in our own day things go on in much the

same way. Seen from afar, these adventures have an air of poetry and of

grandeur which fascinates the reader, and in imagination transports him

into a world more heroic and more noble than our own. He who cares to

preserve this impression would do well not to look too closely at the

men and manners of the desert. Certainly the hero is brave, but he

is still more brutal and treacherous; fighting is one object of his

existence, but pillage is a far more important one. How, indeed, should

it be otherwise? the soil is poor, life hard and precarious, and from

remotest antiquity the conditions of that life have remained unchanged;

apart from firearms and Islam, the Bedouin of to-day are the same as the

Bedouin of the days of Sinûhît.

There are no known documents from which we can derive any certain

information as to what became of the mining colonies in Sinai after the

reign of Papi II. Unless entirely abandoned, they must have lingered

on in comparative idleness; for the last of the Memphites, the

Heracleopohtans, and the early Thebans were compelled to neglect them,

nor was their active life resumed until the accession of the XIIth

dynasty. The veins in the Wady Maghara were much exhausted, but a series

of fortunate explorations revealed the existence of untouched deposits

in the Sarbût-el-Khâdîm, north of the original workings. From the time

of Amenemhâît II. these new veins were worked, and absorbed attention

during several generations. Expeditions to the mines were sent out every

three or four years, sometimes annually, under the command of such

high functionaries as “Acquaintances of the King,” “Chief Lectors,”

and Captains of the Archers. As each mine was rapidly worked out, the

delegates of the Pharaohs were obliged to find new veins in order

to meet industrial demands. The task was often arduous, and the

commissioners generally took care to inform posterity very fully as to

the anxieties which they had felt, the pains which they had taken, and

the quantities of turquoise or of oxide of copper which they had brought

into Egypt. Thus the Captain Haroëris tells us that, on arriving at

Sarbût in the month Pha-menoth of an unknown year of Amenemhâît III.,

he made a bad beginning in his work of exploration. Wearied of fruitless

efforts, the workmen were quite ready to desert him if he had not put a

good face on the business and stoutly promised them the support of the

local Hâthor.

[Illustration: 334.jpg PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF SARBUT EL KHADIM]

And, as a matter of fact, fortune did change. When he began to despair,

“the desert burned like summer, the mountain was on fire, and the vein

exhausted; one morning the overseer who was there questioned the miners,

the skilled workers who were used to the mine, and they said: ‘There is

turquoise for eternity in the mountain.’ At that very moment the vein

appeared.” And, indeed, the wealth of the deposit which he found so

completely indemnified Haroëris for his first disappointments, that in

the month Pachons, three months after the opening of these workings, he

had finished his task and prepared to leave the country, carrying his

spoils with him. From time to time Pharaoh sent convoys of cattle and

provisions--corn, sixteen oxen, thirty geese, fresh vegetables, live

poultry--to his vassals at the mines.

[Illustration: 335.jpg THE RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF HATHOR]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph in the _Ordnance Survey,

Photo-graphs_, vol. iii. pl. 8.

The mining population increased so fast that two chapels were built,

dedicated to Hâthor, and served by volunteer priests. One of these

chapels, presumably the oldest, consists of a single rock-cut chamber,

upheld by one large square pillar, walls and pillar having been covered

with finely sculptured scenes and inscriptions which are now almost

effaced. The second chapel included a beautifully proportioned

rectangular court, once entered by a portico supported on pillars with

Hâthor-head capitals, and beyond the court a narrow building divided

into many small irregular chambers. The edifice was altered and rebuilt,

and half destroyed; it is now nothing by a confused heap of ruins, of

which the original plan cannot be traced. Votive stehe of all shapes and

sizes, in granite, sandstone, or limestone, were erected here and there

at random in the two chambers and in the courts between the columns, and

flush with the walls. Some are still _in situ_, others lie scattered in

the midst of the ruins. Towards the middle of the reign of Amenemhâît

III., the industrial demand for turquoise and for copper ore became so

great that the mines of Sarbût-el-Khâdîm could no longer meet it, and

those in the Wady Maghara were re-opened. The workings of both sets of

mines were carried on with unabated vigour under Amenemhâîfc IV., and

were still in full activity when the XIIIth dynasty succeeded the XIIth

on the Egyptian throne. Tranquillity prevailed in the recesses of the

mountains of Sinai as well as in the valley of the Nile, and a small

garrison sufficed to keep watch over the Bedouin of the neighbourhood.

Sometimes the latter ventured to attack the miners, and then fled in

haste, carrying off their meagre booty; but they were vigorously pursued

under the command of one of the officers on the spot, and generally

caught and compelled to disgorge their plunder before they had reached

the shelter of their “douars.” The old Memphite kings prided themselves

on these armed pursuits as though they were real victories, and had them

recorded in triumphal bas-reliefs; but under the XIIth dynasty they were

treated as unimportant frontier incidents, almost beneath the notice

of the Pharaoh, and the glory of them--such as it was--he left to his

captains then in command of those districts.

Egypt had always kept up extensive commercial relations with certain

northern countries lying beyond the Mediterranean. The reputation for

wealth enjoyed by the Delta sometimes attracted bands of the Haiû-nîbû

to come prowling in piratical excursions along its shores; but their

expeditions seldom turned out successfully, and even if the adventurers

escaped summary execution, they generally ended their days as slaves in

the Fayûm, or in some village of the Said. At first their descendants

preserved the customs, religion, manners, and industries of their

distant home, and went on making rough pottery for daily use, which was

decorated in a style recalling that of vases found in the most ancient

tombs of the Ægean archipelago; but they were gradually assimilated

to their surroundings, and their grandchildren became fellahîn like the

rest, brought up from infancy in the customs and language of Egypt.

The relations with the tribes of the Libyan desert, the Tihûnû and the

Timihû, were almost invariably peaceful; although occasional raids of

one of their bands into Egyptian territory would provoke counter raids

into the valleys in which they took refuge with their flocks and herds.

Thus, in addition to the captive Haiû-nîbû, another heterogeneous

element, soon to be lost in the mass of the Egyptian population, was

supplied by detachments of Berber women and children.

[Illustration: 338.jpg MAP]

The relations Egypt with her northern neighbours during the hundred

years of the XIIth dynasty were chiefly commercial, but occasionally

this peaceful intercourse was broken by sudden incursions or piratical

expeditions which called for active measures of repression, and were

the occasion of certain romantic episodes. The foreign policy of the

Pharaohs in this connexion was to remain strictly on the defensive.

Ethiopia attracted all their attention, and demanded all their strength.

The same instinct which had impelled their predecessors to pass

successively beyond Gebel-Silsileh and Elephantine now drove the XIIth

dynasty beyond the second cataract, and even further. The nature of the

valley compelled them to this course. From the Tacazze, or rather from

the confluence of the two Niles down to the sea, the whole valley forms

as it were a Greater Egypt; for although separated by the cataracts

into different divisions, it is everywhere subject to the same physical

conditions. In the course of centuries it has more than once been

forcibly dismembered by the chances of war, but its various parts have

always tended to reunite, and have coalesced at the first opportunity.

The Amami, the Irittt, and the Sitiu, all those nations which wandered

west of the river, and whom the Pharaohs of the VIth and subsequently of

the XIth dynasty either enlisted into their service or else conquered,

do not seem to have given much trouble to the successors of Amenemhâît

I. The Ûaûaiû and the Mâzaiû were more turbulent, and it was necessary

to subdue them in order to assure the tranquillity of the colonists

scattered along the banks of the river from Philo to Korosko. They were

worsted by Amenemhâît I. in several encounters.

Ûsirtasen I. made repeated campaigns against them, the earlier ones

being undertaken in his father’s lifetime. Afterwards he pressed on, and

straightway “raised his frontiers” at the rapids of Wady Haifa; and the

country was henceforth the undisputed property of his successors. It was

divided into nomes like Egypt itself; the Egyptian language succeeded in

driving out the native dialects, and the local deities, including Didûn,

the principal god, were associated or assimilated with the gods of

Egypt. Khnûmû was the favourite deity of the northern nomes, doubtless

because the first colonists were natives of Elephantine, and subjects

of its princes. In the southern nomes, which had been annexed under the

Theban kings and were peopled with Theban immigrants, the worship of

Khnûmû was carried on side by side with the worship of Amon, or Amon-Ra,

god of Thebes. In accordance with local affinities, now no longer

intelligible, the other gods also were assigned smaller areas in the new

territory--Thot at Pselcis and Pnûbsît, where a gigantic nabk tree was

worshipped, Râ near Derr, and Horus at Miama and Baûka. The Pharaohs

who had civilized the country here received divine honours while still

alive. Ûsirtasen III. was placed in triads along with Didûn, Amon, and

Khnûmû; temples were raised to him at Semneh, Shotaûi, and Doshkeh;

and the anniversary of a decisive victory which he had gained over the

barbarians was still celebrated on the 21st of Pachons, a thousand years

afterwards, under Thutmosis III. The feudal system spread over the land

lying between the two cataracts, where hereditary barons held their

courts, trained their armies, built their castles, and excavated their

superbly decorated tombs in the mountain-sides. The only difference

between Nubian Egypt and Egypt proper lay in the greater heat and

smaller wealth of the former, where the narrower, less fertile, and

less well-watered land supported a smaller population and yielded less

abundant revenues.

The Pharaoh kept the charge of the more important strategical points

in his own hands. Strongholds placed at bends of the river and at

the mouths of ravines leading into the desert, secured freedom of

navigation, and kept off the pillaging nomads. The fortress of Derr

[Kubbân?--Ed.], which was often rebuilt, dates in part at least from

the early days of the conquest of Nubia. Its rectangular boundary--a

dry brick wall--is only broken by easily filled up gaps, and with some

repairs it would still resist an Ababdeh attack.*

* The most ancient bricks in the fortifications of Derr,

easily distinguishable from those belonging to the later

restorations, are identical in shape and size with those of

the walls at Syene and El-Kab; and the wall at El-Kab was

certainly built not later than the XIIth dynasty.

The most considerable Nubian works of the XIIth dynasty were in the

three places from which the country can even now be most effectively

commanded, namely, at the two cataracts, and in the districts extending

from Derr to Dakkeh. Elephantine already possessed an entrenched camp

which commanded the rapids and the land route from Syene to Philo.

Usirtasen III. restored its great wall; he also cleared and widened

the passage to Sériel, as did Papi I. to such good effect that easy and

rapid communication between Thebes and the new towns was at all times

practicable. Some little distance from Phihe he established a station

for boats, and an emporium which he called Hirû Khâkerî--“the Ways of

Khâkerî”--after his own throne name--Khâkerî.*

* The widening of the passage was effected in the VIIIth

year of his reign, the same year in which he established the

Egyptian frontier at Semneh. The other constructions are

mentioned, but not very clearly, in a stele of the same year

which came from Elephantine, and is now in the British

Museum. The votive tablet, engraved in honour of Anûkît at

Sehêl, in which the king boasts of having made for the

goddess “the excellent channel [called] ‘the Ways of

Khâkeûrî,’” probably refers to this widening and deepening

of the passage in the VIIIth year.

Its exact site is unknown, but it appears to have completed on the

south side the system of walls and redoubts which protected the cataract

provinces against either surprise or regular attacks of the barbarians.

Although of no appreciable use for the purposes of general security, the

fortifications of Middle Nubia were of great importance in the eyes of

the Pharaohs. They commanded the desert roads leading to the Eed Sea,

and to Berber and Gebel Barkel on the Upper Nile. The most important

fort occupied the site of the present village of Kuban, opposite Dakkeh,

and commanded the entrance to the Wady Olaki, which leads to the richest

gold deposits known to Ancient Egypt. The valleys which furrow the

mountains of Etbai, the Wady Shauanîb, the Waddy Umm Teyur, Gebel Iswud,

Gebel Umm Kabriteh, all have gold deposits of their own. The gold is

found in nuggets and in pockets in white quartz, mixed with iron oxides

and titanium, for which the ancients had no use. The method of mining

practised from immemorial antiquity by the Uaûaiû of the neighbourhood

was of the simplest, and traces of the workings may be seen all over the

sides of the ravines. Tunnels followed the direction of the lodes to a

depth of fifty-five to sixty-five yards; the masses of quartz procured

from them were broken up in granite mortars, pounded small and

afterwards reduced to a powder in querns, similar to those used for

crushing grain; the residue was sifted on stone tables, and the finely

ground parts afterwards washed in bowls of sycamore wood, until the gold

dust had settled to the bottom.*

* The gold-mines and the method of working them under the

Ptolemies have been described by Agatharchides; the

processes employed were very ancient, and had hardly changed

since the time of the first Pharaohs, as is shown by a

comparison of the mining tools found in these districts with

those which have been collected at Sinai, in the turquoise-

mines of the Ancient Empire.

This was the Nubian gold which was brought into Egypt by nomad tribes,

and for which the Egyptians themselves, from the time of the XIIth

dynasty onwards, went to seek in the land which produced it. They made

no attempt to establish permanent colonies for working the mines, as at

Sinai; but a detachment of troops was despatched nearly every year to

the spot to receive the amount of precious metal collected since their

previous visit. The king Usirtasen would send at one time the prince of

the nome of the Gazelle on such an expedition, with a contingent of

four hundred men belonging to his fief; at another time, it would be

the faithful Sihâthor who would triumphantly scour the country, obliging

young and old to work with redoubled efforts for his master Amenemhâît

II. On his return the envoy would boast of having brought back more gold

than any of his predecessors, and of having crossed the desert without

losing either a soldier or a baggage animal, not even a donkey.

[Illustration: 314.jpg ONE OF TUE FAÇADES OF THE FORTRESS OF KUBBAN]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger, taken in

1881.

Sometimes a son of the reigning Pharaoh, even the heir-presumptive,

would condescend to accompany the caravan. Amenemhâît III. repaired or

rebuilt the fortress of Kubbân, the starting-place of the little army,

and the spot to which it returned. It is a square enclosure measuring

328 feet on each side; the ramparts of crude brick are sloped slightly

inwards, and are strengthened at intervals by bastions projecting from

the external face of the wall. The river protected one side; the other

three were defended by ditches communicating with the Nile. There were

four entrances, one in the centre of each façade: that on the east,

which faced the desert, and was exposed to the severest attacks, was

flanked by a tower.

The cataract of Wady Haifa offered a natural barrier to invasion from

the south. Even without fortification, the chain of granite rocks which

crosses the valley at this spot would have been a sufficient obstacle to

prevent any fleet which might attempt the passage from gaining access to

northern Nubia.

[Illustration: 345.jpg THE SECOND CATARACT BETWEEN HAMKEH AND WADY

HALFA]

The Nile here has not the wild and imposing aspect which it assumes

lower down, between Aswan and Philae. It is bordered by low and receding

hills, devoid of any definite outline. Masses of bare black rock, here

and there covered by scanty herbage, block the course of the river in

some places in such profusion, that its entire bed seems to be taken

up by them. For a distance of seventeen miles the main body of water

is broken up into an infinitude of small channels in its width of

two miles; several of the streams thus formed present, apparently, a

tempting course to the navigator, so calm and safe do they appear, but

they conceal ledges of hidden reefs, and are unexpectedly forced into

narrow passages obstructed by granite boulders. The strongest built and

best piloted boat must be dashed to pieces in such circumstances, and

no effort or skilfulness on the part of the crew would save the vessel

should the owner venture to attempt the descent. The only channel at

all available for transit runs from the village of Aesha on the Arabian

side, winds capriciously from one bank to another, and emerges into calm

water a little above Nakhiet Wady Haifa. During certain days in August

and September the natives trust themselves to this stream, but only with

boats lightly laden; even then their escape is problematical, for they

are in hourly danger of foundering. As soon as the inundation begins to

fall, the passage becomes more difficult: by the middle of October it

is given up, and communication by water between Egypt and the countries

above Wady Haifa is suspended until the return of the inundation. By

degrees, as the level of the water becomes lower, remains of wrecks

jammed between the rocks, or embedded in sandbanks, emerge into view,

as if to warn sailors and discourage them from an undertaking so fraught

with perils. Usirtasen I. realized the importance of the position, and

fortified its approaches.

[Illustration: 346.jpg THE SECOND CATARACT AT LOW NILE]

He selected the little Nubian town of Bohani, which lay exactly opposite

to the present village of Wady Haifa, and transformed it into a strong

frontier fortress. Besides the usual citadel, he built there a temple

dedicated to the Theban god Amon and to the local Horus; he then set

up a stele commemorating his victories over the peoples beyond the

cataract.

[Illustration: 349.jpg THE TRIUMPHAL STELE OF USIRTASEN I.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph of the original in

the museum at Florence.

Ten of their principal chiefs had passed before Amon as prisoners, their

arms tied behind their backs, and had been sacrificed at the foot of

the altar by the sovereign himself: he represented them on the stele by

enclosing their names in battlemented cartouches, each surmounted by

the bust of a man bound by a long cord which is held by the conqueror.

Nearly a century later Ûsirtasen III. enlarged the fortress, and finding

doubtless that it was not sufficiently strong to protect the passage of

the cataract, he stationed outposts at various points, at Matûga, Fakus,

and Kassa. They served as mooring-places where the vessels which went

up and down stream with merchandise might be made fast to the bank at

sunset. The bands of Bedouin, lurking in the neighbourhood, would

have rejoiced to surprise them, and by their depredations to stop the

commerce between the Said and the Upper Nile, during the few weeks in

which it could be carried on with a minimum of danger. A narrow gorge

crossed by a bed of granite, through which the Nile passes at Semneh,

afforded another most favourable site for the completion of this

system of defence. On cliffs rising sheer above the current, the

king constructed two fortresses, one on each bank of the river, which

completely commanded the approaches by land and water. On the right bank

at Kummeh, where the position was naturally a strong one, the engineers

described an irregular square, measuring about two hundred feet each

side; two projecting bastions flanked the entrance, the one to the

north covering the approaching pathways, the southern one commanding

the river-bank. A road with a ditch runs at about thirteen feet from the

walls round the building, closely following its contour, except at the

north-west and south-east angles, where there are two projections which

formed bastions. The town on the other bank, Samninû-Kharp-Khâkerî,

occupied a less favourable position: its eastern flank was protected by

a zone of rocks and by the river, but the three other sides were of easy

approach. They were provided with ramparts which rose to the height

of eighty-two feet above the plain, and were strengthened at unequal

distances by enormous buttresses. These resembled towers without

parapets, overlooking every part of the encircling road, and from them

the defenders could take the attacking sappers in flank.

[Illustration: 351.jpg THE RAPIDS OF THE NILE AT SEMNEH, AND THE TWO

FORTRESSES BUILT BY USIRTASEN III]

Map drawn up by Thuillier from the somewhat obsolete survey

of Cailliaud

The intervals between them had been so calculated as to enable the

archers to sweep the intervening space with their arrows. The main

building is of crude brick, with beams laid horizontally between; the

base of the external rampart is nearly vertical, while the upper part

forms an angle of some seventy degrees with the horizon, making the

scaling of it, if not impossible, at least very difficult. Each of the

enclosing walls of the two fortresses surrounded a town complete in

itself, with temples dedicated to their founders and to the Nubian

deities, as well as numerous habitations, now in ruins. The sudden

widening of the river immediately to the south of the rapids made a

kind of natural roadstead, where the Egyptian squadron could lie without

danger on the eve of a campaign against Ethiopia; the galiots of the

negroes there awaited permission to sail below the rapids, and to

enter Egypt with their cargoes. At once a military station and a river

custom-house, Semneh was the necessary bulwark of the new Egypt, and

Usirtasen III. emphatically proclaimed the fact, in two decrees, which

he set up there for the edification of posterity. “Here is,” so runs the

first, “the southern boundary fixed in the year VIII. under his Holiness

of Khâkerî, Usirtasen, who gives life always and for ever, in order that

none of the black peoples may cross it from above, except only for the

transport of animals, oxen, goats, and sheep belonging to them.” The

edict of the year XVI. reiterates the prohibition of the year VIII.,

and adds that “His Majesty caused his own statue to be erected at the

landmarks which he himself had set up.” The beds of the first and second

cataracts were then less worn away than they are now; they are therefore

more efficacious in keeping back the water and forcing it to rise to a

higher level above. The cataracts acted as indicators of the inundation,

and if their daily rise and fall were studied, it was possible to

announce to the dwellers on the banks lower down the river the progress

and probable results of the flood.

[Illustration: 353.jpg THE CHANNEL OF THE NILE BETWEEN THE TWO

FORTRESSES OF SEMNEH AND KUMMEH]

Reproduction by Faucher-Gudin of a sketch published by

Cailliaud, _Voyage à Méroe, Atlas_, vol. ii. pl. xxx.

As long as the dominion of the Pharaohs reached no further than Philæ,

observations of the Nile were always taken at the first cataract; and

it was from Elephantine that Egypt received the news of the first

appearance and progress of the inundation. Amenemhâît III. set up a

new nilometer at the new frontier, and gave orders to his officers to

observe the course of the flood. They obeyed him scrupulously, and every

time that the inundation appeared to them to differ from the average

of ordinary years, they marked its height on the rocks of Semneh and

Kummeh, engraving side by side with the figure the name of the king and

the date of the year. The custom was continued there under the XIIIth

dynasty; afterwards, when the frontier was pushed further south, the

nilometer accompanied it.

The country beyond Semneh was virgin territory, almost untouched and

quite uninjured by previous wars. Its name now appears for the first

time upon the monuments, in the form of Kaûshû--the humbled Kûsh. It

comprised the districts situated to the south within the immense loop

described by the river between Dongola and Khartoum, those vast plains

intersected by the windings of the White and Blue Niles, known as the

regions of Kordofan and Darfur; it was bounded by the mountains of

Abyssinia, the marshes of Lake Nû, and all those semi-fabulous countries

to which were relegated the “Isles of the Manes” and the “Lands of

Spirits.” It was separated from the Red Sea by the land of Pûanît; and

to the west, between it and the confines of the world, lay the Timihû.

Scores of tribes, white, copper-coloured, and black, bearing strange

names, wrangled over the possession of this vaguely defined territory;

some of them were still savage or emerging from barbarism, while others

had attained to a pitch of material civilization almost comparable with

that of Egypt. The same diversity of types, the same instability and the

same want of intelligence which characterized the tribes of those days,

still distinguish the medley of peoples who now frequent the upper

valley of the Nile. They led the same sort of animal life, guided by

impulse, and disturbed, owing to the caprices of their petty chiefs, by

bloody wars which often issued in slavery or in emigration to distant

regions.

[Illustration: 355.jpg KÛSHITE PRISONERS BROUGHT TO EGYPT]

Drawn by Faucher-Guclin, from the water-colour drawing by

Mr. Blackden.