_Thûtmosis I. and his army--Hâtshopsîtû and Thûtmosis III._
The account of the first expedition undertaken by Thûtmosis in Asia,
a region at that time new to the Egyptians, would be interesting if
we could lay our hands upon it. We should perhaps find in the midst of
official documents, or among the short phrases of funerary biographies,
some indication of the impression which the country produced upon its
conquerors.
With the exception of a few merchants or adventurers, no one from Thebes
to Memphis had any other idea of Asia than that which could be gathered
from the scattered notices of it in the semi-historical romances of
the preceding age. The actual sight of the country must have been a
revelation; everything appearing new and paradoxical to men of whom
the majority had never left their fatherland, except on some warlike
expedition into Ethiopia or on some rapid raid along the coasts of the
Red Sea. Instead of their own narrow valley, extending between its two
mountain ranges, and fertilised by the periodical overflowing of the
Nile which recurred regularly almost to a day, they had before them
wide irregular plains, owing their fertility not to inundations, but
to occasional rains or the influence of insignificant streams; hills of
varying heights covered with vines and other products of cultivation;
mountains of different altitudes irregularly distributed, clothed with
forests, furrowed with torrents, their summits often crowned with snow
even in the hottest period of summer: and in this region of nature,
where everything was strange to them, they found nations differing
widely from each other in appearance and customs, towns with crenellated
walls perched upon heights difficult of access; and finally, a
civilization far excelling that which they encountered anywhere in
Africa outside their own boundaries. Thûtmosis succeeded in reaching on
his first expedition a limit which none of his successors was able
to surpass, and the road taken by him in this campaign--from Gaza to
Megiddo, from Megiddo to Qodshû, from Qodshû to Carchemish--was that
which was followed henceforward by the Egyptian troops in all their
expeditions to the Euphrates. Of the difficulties which he encountered
on his way we have no information. On arriving at Naharaim, however,
we know that he came into contact with the army of the enemy, which
was under the command of a single general--perhaps the King of Mitanni
himself, or one of the lieutenants of the Cossæan King of Babylon--who
had collected together most of the petty princes of the northern country
to resist the advance of the intruder. The contest was hotly fought out
on both sides, but victory at length remained with the invaders, and
innumerable prisoners fell into their hands. The veteran Âhmosi, son
of Abîna, who was serving in his last campaign, and his cousin, Âhmosi
Pannekhabît, distinguished themselves according to their wont. The
former, having seized upon a chariot, brought it, with the three
soldiers who occupied it, to the Pharaoh, and received once more the
collar of gold; the latter killed twenty-one of the enemy, carrying
off their hands as trophies, captured a chariot, took one prisoner, and
obtained as reward a valuable collection of jewellery, consisting of
collars, bracelets, sculptured lions, choice vases, and costly weapons.
A stele, erected on the banks of the Euphrates not far from the scene of
the battle, marked the spot which the conqueror wished to be recognised
henceforth as the frontier of his empire. He re-entered Thebes with
immense booty, by which gods as well as men profited, for he consecrated
a part of it to the embellishment of the temple of Amon, and the sight
of the spoil undoubtedly removed the lingering prejudices which the
people had cherished against expeditions beyond the isthmus. Thûtmosis
was held up by his subjects to the praise of posterity as having come
into actual contact with that country and its people, which had hitherto
been known to the Egyptians merely through the more or less veracious
tales of exiles and travellers. The aspect of the great river of the
Naharaim, which could be compared with the Nile for the volume of its
waters, excited their admiration. They were, however, puzzled by the
fact that it flowed from north to south, and even were accustomed
to joke at the necessity of reversing the terms employed in Egypt to
express going up or down the river. This first Syrian campaign became
the model for most of those subsequently undertaken by the Pharaohs. It
took the form of a bold advance of troops, directed from Zalû towards
the north-east, in a diagonal line through the country, who routed on
the way any armies which might be opposed to them, carrying by assault
such towns as were easy of capture, while passing by others which seemed
strongly defended--pillaging, burning, and slaying on every side. There
was no suspension of hostilities, no going into winter quarters, but a
triumphant return of the expedition at the end of four or five months,
with the probability of having to begin fresh operations in the
following year should the vanquished break out into revolt.*
* From the account of the campaigns of Amenôthes II., I
thought we might conclude that this Pharaoh wintered in
Syria at least once; but the text does not admit of this
interpretation, and we must, therefore, for the present give
up the idea that the Pharaohs ever spent more than a few
months of the year on hostile territory.
The troops employed in these campaigns were superior to any others
hitherto put into the field. The Egyptian army, inured to war by its
long struggle with the Shepherd-kings, and kept in training since the
reign of Âhmosis by having to repulse the perpetual incursions of the
Ethiopian or Libyan barbarians, had no difficulty, in overcoming the
Syrians; not that the latter were wanting in courage or discipline,
but owing to their limited supply of recruits, and the political
disintegration of the country, they could not readily place under arms
such enormous numbers as those of the Egyptians. Egyptian military
organisation had remained practically unchanged since early times: the
army had always consisted, firstly, of the militia who held fiefs, and
were under the obligation of personal service either to the prince of
the nome or to the sovereign; secondly, of a permanent force, which was
divided into two corps, distributed respectively between the Said and
the Delta. Those companies which were quartered on the frontier, or
about the king either at Thebes or at one of the royal residences, were
bound to hold themselves in readiness to muster for a campaign at any
given moment. The number of natives liable to be levied when occasion
required, by generations, or as we should say by classes, may have
amounted to over a hundred thousand men,* but they were never all
called out, and it does not appear that the army on active service
ever contained more than thirty thousand men at a time, and probably on
ordinary occasions not much more than ten or fifteen thousand.**
* The only numbers which we know are those given by
Herodotus for the Saïte period, which are evidently
exaggerated. Coming down to modern times, we see that
Mehemet-Ali, from 1830 to 1840, had nearly 120,000 men in
Syria, Egypt, and the Sudan; and in 1841, at the time when
the treaties imposed upon him the ill-kept obligation of
reducing his army to 18,000 men, it still contained 81,000.
We shall probably not be far wrong in estimating the total
force which the Pharaohs of the XVIIIth dynasty, lords of
the whole valley of the Nile, and of part of Asia, had at
their disposal at 120,000 or 130,000 men; these, however,
were never all called out at once.
** We have no direct information respecting the armies
acting in Syria; we only know that, at the battle of Qodshû,
Ramses II. had against him 2500 chariots containing three
men each, making 7500 charioteers, besides a troop estimated
at the Ramesseum at 8000 men, at Luxor at 9000, so that the
Syrian army probably contained about 20,000 men. It would
seem that the Egyptian army was less numerous, and I
estimate it with great hesitation at about 15,000 or 18,000
men: it was considered a powerful army, while that of the
Hittites was regarded as an innumerable host. A passage in
the Anastasi Papyrus, No. 1, tells us the composition of a
corps led by Ramses II. against the tribes in the vicinity
of Qocoîr and the Rahanû valley; it consisted of 5000 men,
of whom 620 were Shardana, 1600 Qahak, 70 Mashaûasha, and
880 Negroes.
The infantry was, as we should expect, composed of troops of the line
and light troops. The former wore either short wigs arranged in rows
of curls, or a kind of padded cap by way of a helmet, thick enough to
deaden blows; the breast and shoulders were undefended, but a short
loin-cloth was wrapped round the hips, and the stomach and upper part
of the thighs were protected by a sort of triangular apron, sometimes
scalloped at the sides, and composed of leather thongs attached to a
belt. A buckler of moderate dimensions had been substituted for the
gigantic shield of the earlier Theban period; it was rounded at the
top and often furnished with a solid metal boss, which the experienced
soldiers always endeavoured to present to the enemys lances and
javelins. Their weapons consisted of pikes about five feet long, with
broad bronze or copper points, occasionally of flails, axes, daggers,
short curved swords, and spears; the trumpeters were armed with daggers
only, and the officers did not as a rule encumber themselves with either
buckler or pike, but bore and axe and dagger, an occasionally a bow.
[Illustration: 311.jpg A PLATOON (TROOP) OF EGYPTIAN SPEARMEN AT DEÎR
EL-BAHARÎ]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken by Naville.
The light infantry was composed chiefly of bowmen--_pidâtû_--the
celebrated archers of Egypt, whose long bows and arrows, used with
deadly skill, speedily became renowned throughout the East; the quiver,
of the use of which their ancestors were ignorant, had been borrowed
from the Asiatics, probably from the Hyksôs, and was carried hanging at
the side or slung over the shoulder. Both spearmen and archers were for
the most part pure-bred Egyptians, and were divided into regiments of
unequal strength, each of which usually bore the name of some god--as,
for example, the regiment of Ra or of Phtah, of Arnon or of Sûtkhû*--in
which the feudal contingents, each commanded by its lord or his
lieutenants, fought side by side with the kings soldiers furnished
from the royal domains. The effective force of the army was made up by
auxiliaries taken from the tribes of the Sahara and from the negroes of
the Upper Nile.**
* The army of Ramses II. at the battle of Qodshû comprised
four corps, which bore the names of Amon, Râ, Phtah, and
Sûtkhû. Other lesser corps were named the _Tribe of
Pharaoh,_ the _Tribe of the Beauty of the Solar dish._
These, as far as I can judge, must have been troops raised
on the royal domains by a system of local recruiting, who
were united by certain common privileges and duties which
constituted them an hereditary militia, whence they were
called _tribes_.
** These Ethiopian recruits are occasionally represented in
the Theban tombs of the XVIIIth dynasty, among others in the
tomb of Pahsûkhîr.
These auxiliaries were but sparingly employed in early times, but their
numbers were increased as wars became more frequent and necessitated
more troops to carry them on. The tribes from which they were drawn
supplied the Pharaohs with an inexhaustible reserve; they were
courageous, active, indefatigable, and inured to hardships, and if it
had not been for their turbulent nature, which incited them to continual
internal dissensions, they might readily have shaken off the yoke of
the Egyptians. Incorporated into the Egyptian army, and placed under
the instruction of picked officers, who subjected them to rigorous
discipline, and accustomed them to the evolutions of regular troops,
they were transformed from disorganised hordes into tried and invincible
battalions.*
* The armies of Hâtshopsîtû already included Libyan
auxiliaries, some of which are represented at Deîr el-
Baharî; others of Asiatic origin are found under Amenôthes
IV., but they are not represented on the monuments among the
regular troops until the reign of Ramses II., when the
Shardana appear for the first time among the kings body-
guard.
[Illustration: 313.jpg A PLATOON OF EGYPTIAN ARCHERS AT DEÎR EL-BAHARÎ]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.
The old army, which had conquered Nubia in the days of the Papis and
Usirtasens, had consisted of these three varieties of foot-soldiers
only, but since the invasion of the Shepherds, a new element had been
incorporated into the modern army in the-shape of the chariotry, which
answered to some extent to the cavalry of our day as regards their
tactical employment and efficacy. The horse, when once introduced into
Egypt, soon became fairly adapted to its environment. It retained both
its height and size, keeping the convex forehead--which gave the head a
slightly curved profile--the slender neck, the narrow hind-quarters, the
lean and sinewy legs, and the long flowing tail which had characterised
it in its native country. The climate, however, was enervating, and
constant care had to be taken, by the introduction of new blood from
Syria, to prevent the breed from deteriorating.*
* The numbers of horses brought from Syria either as spoils
of war or as tribute paid by the vanquished are frequently
recorded in the Annals of Thûtmosis III. Besides the usual
species, powerful stallions were imported from Northern
Syria, which were known by the Semitic name of Abîri, the
strong. In the tombs of the XVIIIth dynasty, the arrival of
Syrian horses in Egypt is sometimes represented.
[Illustration: 314.jpg THE EGYPTIAN CHARIOT PRESERVED IN THE FLORENCE
MUSEUM]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken by Petrie.
The Pharaohs kept studs of horses in the principal cities of the Nile
valley, and the great feudal lords, following their example, vied with
each other in the possession of numerous breeding stables. The office of
superintendent to these establishments, which was at the disposal of
the Master of the Horse, became in later times one of the most important
State appointments.*
* In the story of the conquest of Egypt by the Ethiopian
Piônkhi, studs are indicated at Hermopolis, at Athribis, in
the towns to the east and in the centre of the Delta, and at
Sais. Diodorus Siculus relates that, in his time, the
foundations of 100 stables, each capable of containing 200
horses, were still to be seen on the western bank of the
river between Memphis and Thebes.
[Illustration: 315.jpg THE KING CHARGING ON HIS CHARIOT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.
The first chariots introduced into Egypt were, like the horses, of
foreign origin, but when built by Egyptian workmen they soon became more
elegant, if not stronger than their models. Lightness was the quality
chiefly aimed at; and at length the weight was so reduced that it
was possible for a man to carry his chariot on his shoulders without
fatigue. The materials for them were on this account limited to oak or
ash and leather; metal, whether gold or silver, iron or bronze, being
used but sparingly, and then only for purposes of ornamentation. The
wheels usually had six, but sometimes eight spokes, or occasionally only
four. The axle consisted of a single stout pole of acacia. The framework
of the chariot was composed of two pieces of wood mortised together so
as to form a semicircle or half-ellipse, and closed by a straight bar;
to this frame was fixed a floor of sycomore wood or of plaited leather
thongs. The sides of the chariot were formed of upright panels, solid
in front and open at the sides, each provided with a handrail. The pole,
which was of a single piece of wood, was bent into an elbow at about
one-fifth of its length from the end, which was inserted into the centre
of the axletree. On the gigantic T thus formed was fixed the body of the
chariot, the hinder part resting on the axle, and the front attached
to the bent part of the pole, while the whole was firmly bound together
with double leather thongs. A yoke of hornbeam, shaped like a bow, to
which the horses were harnessed, was fastened to the other extremity of
the pole. The Asiatics placed three men in a chariot, but the Egyptians
only two; the warrior--_sinni_--whose business it was to fight, and
the shield-bearer--_qazana_--who protected his companion with a buckler
during the engagement. A complete set of weapons was carried in
the chariot--lances, javelins, and daggers, curved spear, club, and
battle-axe--while two bow-cases as well as two large quivers were hung
at the sides. The chariot itself was very liable to upset, the slightest
cause being sufficient to overturn it. Even when moving at a slow pace,
the least inequality of the ground shook it terribly, and when driven
at full speed it was only by a miracle of skill that the occupants could
maintain their equilibrium. At such times the charioteer would stand
astride of the front panels, keeping his right foot only inside the
vehicle, and planting the other firmly on the pole, so as to lessen
the jolting, and to secure a wider base on which to balance himself.
To carry all this into practice long education was necessary, for which
there were special schools of instruction, and those who were destined
to enter the army were sent to these schools when little more than
children. To each man, as soon as he had thoroughly mastered all the
difficulties of the profession, a regulation chariot and pair of horses
were granted, for which he was responsible to the Pharaoh or to his
generals, and he might then return to his home until the next call to
arms. The warrior took precedence of the shield-bearer, and both were
considered superior to the foot-soldier; the chariotry, in fact, like
the cavalry of the present day, was the aristocratic branch of the army,
in which the royal princes, together with the nobles and their sons,
enlisted. No Egyptian ever willingly trusted himself to the back of a
horse, and it was only in the thick of a battle, when his chariot was
broken, and there seemed no other way of escaping from the mêlée, that a
warrior would venture to mount one of his steeds. There appear, however,
to have been here and there a few horsemen, who acted as couriers or
aides-de-camp; they used neither saddle-cloth nor stirrups, but were
provided with reins with which to guide their animals, and their seat
on horseback was even less secure than the footing of the driver in his
chariot.
[Illustration: 318.jpg AN EGYPTIAN LEARNING TO RIDE, FROM A BAS-RELIEF
IN THE BOLOGNA MUSEUM]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Flinders Petrie.
The infantry was divided into platoons of six to ten men each, commanded
by an officer and marshalled round an ensign, which represented either
a sacred animal, an emblem of the king or of his double, or a divine
figure placed upon the top of a pike; this constituted an object of
worship to the group of soldiers to whom it belonged. We are unable
to ascertain how many of these platoons, either of infantry or of
chariotry, went to form a company or a battalion, or by what ensigns the
different grades were distinguished from each other, or what was their
relative order of rank. Bodies of men, to the number of forty or fifty,
are sometimes represented on the monuments, but this may be merely by
chance, or because the draughtsman did not take the trouble to give the
proper number accurately. The inferior officers were equipped very much
like the soldiers, with the exception of the buckler, which they do not
appear to have carried, and certainly did not when on the march: the
superior officers might be known by their umbrella or flabellum, a
distinction which gave them the right of approaching the kings person.
[Illustration: 319.jpg THE WAR-DANCE OF THE TIMIHU AT DEÎR EL-BAHARÎ]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.
The military exercises to which all these troops were accustomed
probably differed but little from those which were in vogue with the
armies of the Ancient Empire; they consisted in wrestling, boxing,
jumping, running either singly or in line at regular distances from
each other, manual exercises, fencing, and shooting at a target; the
war-dance had ceased to be in use among the Egyptian regiments as a
military exercise, but it was practised by the Ethiopian and Libyan
auxiliaries. At the beginning of each campaign, the men destined to
serve in it were called out by the military scribes, who supplied them
with arms from the royal arsenals. Then followed the distribution of
rations. The soldiers, each carrying a small linen bag, came up in
squads before the commissariat officers, and each received his own
allowance.*
* We see the distribution of arms made by the scribes and
other officials of the royal arsenals represented in the
pictures at Medinet-Abu. The calling out of the classes was
represented in the Egyptian tombs of the XVIIIth dynasty, as
well as the distribution of supplies.
Once in the enemys country the army advanced in close order, the
infantry in columns of four, the officers in rear, and the chariots
either on the right or left flank, or in the intervals between
divisions. Skirmishers thrown out to the front cleared the line of
march, while detached parties, pushing right and left, collected
supplies of cattle, grain, or drinking-water from the fields and
unprotected villages. The main body was followed by the baggage train;
it comprised not only supplies and stores, but cooking-utensils,
coverings, and the entire paraphernalia of the carpenters and
blacksmiths shops necessary for repairing bows, lances, daggers, and
chariot-poles, the whole being piled up in four-wheeled carts drawn by
asses or oxen. The army was accompanied by a swarm of non-combatants,
scribes, soothsayers, priests, heralds, musicians, servants, and
women of loose life, who were a serious cause of embarrassment to the
generals, and a source of perpetual danger to military discipline. At
nightfall they halted in a village, or more frequently bivouacked in an
entrenched camp, marked out to suit the circumstances of the case. This
entrenchment was always rectangular, its length being twice as great as
its width, and was surrounded by a ditch, the earth from which, being
banked up on the inside, formed a rampart from five to six feet in
height; the exterior of this was then entirely faced with shields,
square below, but circular in shape at the top. The entrance to the camp
was by a single gate in one of the longer sides, and a plank served as a
bridge across the trench, close to which two detachments mounted guard,
armed with clubs and naked swords.
[Illustration: 321.jpg A COLUMN OF TROOPS ON THE MARCH, CHARIOTS AND
INFANTRY]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
The royal quarters were situated at one end of the camp. Here, within an
enclosure, rose an immense tent, where the Pharaoh found all the luxury
to which he was accustomed in his palaces, even to a portable chapel,
in which each morning he could pour out water and burn incense to his
father, Amon-Râ of Thebes. The princes of the blood who formed his
escort, his shield-bearers and his generals, were crowded together hard
by, and beyond, in closely packed lines, were the horses and chariots,
the draught bullocks, the workshops and the stores.
[Illustration: 322.jpg AN EGYPTIAN FORTIFIED CAMP, FORCED BY THE ENEMY]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato. It represents
the camp of Ramses II. before Qodshû: the upper angle of the
enclosure and part of the surrounding wall have been
destroyed by the Khâti, whose chariots are pouring in at the
breach. In the centre is the royal tent, surrounded by
scenes of military life. This picture has been sculptured
partly over an earlier one representing one of the episodes
of the battle; the latter had been covered with stucco, on
which the new subject was executed. Part of the stucco has
fallen away, and the king in his chariot, with a few other
figures, has reappeared, to the great detriment of the later
picture.
[Illustration: 322b.jpg TWO COMPANIES ON THE MARCH]
The soldiers, accustomed from childhood to live in the open air,
erected no tents or huts of boughs for themselves in these temporary
encampments, but bivouacked in the open, and the sculptures on the
façades of the Theban pylons give us a minute picture of the way in
which they employed themselves when off duty. Here one man, while
cleaning his armour, superintends the cooking. Another, similarly
engaged, drinks from a skin of wine held up by a slave. A third has
taken his chariot to pieces, and t is replacing some portion the worse
for wear. Some are sharpening their daggers or lances; others mend their
loin-cloths or sandals, or exchange blows with fists and sticks. The
baggage, linen, arms, and provisions are piled in disorder on the
ground; horses, oxen, and asses are eating or chewing the cud at their
ease; while here and there a donkey, relieved of his burden, rolls
himself on the ground and brays with delight.*
* We are speaking of the camp of Thûtmosis III. near Âlûna,
the day before the battle of Megiddo, and the words put into
the mouths of the soldiers to mark their vigilance are the
same as those which we find in the Ramesseum and at Luxor,
written above the guards of the camp where Ramses II. is
reposing.
[Illustration: 325.jpg SCENES FROM MILITARY LIFE IN AN EGYPTIAN CAMP]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.
The success of the Egyptians in battle was due more to the courage and
hardihood of the men than to the strategical skill of their commanders.
We find no trace of manouvres, in the sense in which we understand the
word, either in their histories or on their bas-reliefs, but they joined
battle boldly with the enemy, and the result was decided by a more or
less bloody conflict. The heavy infantry was placed in the centre, the
chariots were massed on the flanks, while light troops thrown out to
the front began the action by letting fly volleys of arrows and stones,
which through the skill of the bowmen and slingers did deadly execution;
then the pikemen laid their spears in rest, and pressing straight
forward, threw their whole weight against the opposing troops. At the
same moment the charioteers set off at a gentle trot, and gradually
quickened their pace till they dashed at full speed upon the foe, amid
the confused rumbling of wheels and the sharp clash of metal.
[Illustration: 327.jpg ENCOUNTER BETWEEN EGYPTIAN AND ASIATIC CHARIOTS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a drawing by Champolion.
The Egyptians, accustomed by long drilling to the performance of such
evolutions, executed these charges as methodically as though they were
still on their parade-ground at Thebes; if the disposition of the ground
were at all favourable, not a single chariot would break the line, and
the columns would sweep across the field without swerving or falling
into disorder. The charioteer had the reins tied round his body, and
could, by throwing his weight either to the right or the left, or by
slackening or increasing the pressure through a backward or forward
motion, turn, pull up, or start his horses by a simple movement of the
loins: he went into battle with bent bow, the string drawn back to
his ear, the arrow levelled ready to let fly, while the shield-bearer,
clinging to the body of the chariot with one hand, held out his buckler
with the other to shelter his comrade. It would seem that the Syrians
were less skilful; their bows did not carry so far as those of their
adversaries, and consequently they came within the enemys range some
moments before it was possible for them to return the volley with
effect. Their horses would be thrown down, their drivers would fall
wounded, and the disabled chariots would check the approach of those
following and overturn them, so that by the time the main body came up
with the enemy the slaughter would have been serious enough to render
victory hopeless. Nevertheless, more than one charge would be necessary
finally to overturn or scatter the Syrian chariots, which, once
accomplished, the Egyptian charioteer would turn against the
foot-soldiers, and, breaking up their ranks, would tread them down under
the feet of his horses.*
* The whole of the above description is based on incidents
from the various pictures of battles which appear on the
monuments of Ramses II.
Nor did the Pharaoh spare himself in the fight; his splendid dress, the
urasus on his forehead, and the nodding plumes of his horses made him
a mark for the blows of the enemy, and he would often find himself in
positions of serious danger. In a few hours, as a rule, the conflict
would come to an end.
[Illustration: 328.jpg Ramses II.]
[Illustration: 328-text.jpg]
Once the enemy showed signs of giving way, the Egyptian chariots dashed
upon them precipitously, and turned the retreat into a rout: the pursuit
was, however, never a long One; some fortress was always to be found
close at hand where the remnant of the defeated host could take refuge.*
The victors, moreover, would be too eager to secure the booty, and to
strip the bodies of the dead, to allow time for following up the foe.
* After the battle of Megiddo, the remnants of the Syrian
army took refuge in the city, where Thûtmosis III. besieged
them; similarly under Ramses II. the Hittite princes took
refuge in Qodshû after their defeat.
The prisoners were driven along in platoons, their arms bound in strange
and contorted attitudes, each under the charge of his captor; then came
the chariots, arms, slaves, and provisions collected on the battle-field
or in the camp, then other trophies of a kind unknown in modern warfare.
When an Egyptian killed or mortally wounded any one, he cut off, not
the head, but the right hand or the phallus, and brought it to the
royal scribes. These made an accurate inventory of everything, and even
Pharaoh did not disdain to be present at the registration. The booty did
not belong to the persons who obtained it, but was thrown into a common
stock which was placed at the disposal of the sovereign: one part he
reserved for the gods, especially for his father Amon of Thebes, who
had given him the victory; another part he kept for himself, and the
remainder was distributed among his army. Each man received a reward
in proportion to his rank and services, such as male or female slaves,
bracelets, necklaces, arms, vases, or a certain measured weight of gold,
known as the gold of bravery. A similar sharing of the spoil took
place after every successful engagement: from Pharaoh to the meanest
camp-follower, every man who had contributed to the success of a
campaign returned home richer than he had set out, and the profits which
he derived from a war were a liberal compensation for the expenses in
which it had involved him.
[Illustration: 330.jpg COUNTING OF THE HANDS]
The results of the first expedition of Thûtmosis I. were of a decisive
character; so much so, indeed, that he never again, it would seem,
found it necessary during the remainder of his life to pass the isthmus.
Northern Syria, it is true, did not remain long under tribute, if
indeed it paid any at all after the departure of the Egyptians, but
the southern part of the country, feeling itself in the grip of the new
master, accepted its defeat: Gaza became the head-quarters of a garrison
which secured the door of Asia for future invasion,* and Pharaoh, freed
from anxiety in this quarter, gave his whole time to the consolidation
of his power in Ethiopia.
* This fact is nowhere explicitly stated on the monuments:
we may infer it, however, from the way in which Thûtmosis
III. tells how he reached Gaza without opposition at the
beginning of his first campaign, and celebrated the
anniversary of his coronation there. On the other hand, we
learn from details in the lists that the mountains and
plains beyond Gaza were in a state of open rebellion.
The river and desert tribes of this region soon forgot the severe lesson
which he had given them: as soon as the last Egyptian soldier had left
their territory they rebelled once more, and began a fresh series of
inroads which had to be repressed anew year after year. Thûtmosis I. had
several times to drive them back in the years II. and III., but was able
to make short work of their rebellions. An inscription at Tombos on the
Nile, in the very midst of the disturbed districts, told them in brave
words what he was, and what he had done since he had come to the throne.
Wherever he had gone, weapon in hand, seeking a warrior, he had found
none to withstand him; he had penetrated to valleys which were unknown
to his ancestors, the inhabitants of which had never beheld the wearers
of the double diadem. All this would have produced but little effect
had he not backed up his words by deeds, and taken decisive measures
to restrain the insolence of the barbarians. Tombos lies opposite to
Hannek, at the entrance to that series of rapids known as the Third
Cataract. The course of the Nile is here barred by a formidable dyke
of granite, through which it has hollowed out six winding channels of
varying widths, dotted here and there with huge polished boulders and
verdant islets. When the inundation is at its height, the rocks are
covered and the rapids disappear, with the exception of the lowest,
which is named Lokoli, where faint eddies mark the place of the more
dangerous reefs; and were it not that the fall here is rather more
pronounced and the current somewhat stronger, few would suspect the
existence of a cataract at the spot. As the waters go down, however, the
channels gradually reappear. When the river is at its lowest, the three
westernmost channels dry up almost completely, leaving nothing but a
series of shallow pools; those on the east still maintain their flow,
but only one of them, that between the islands of Tombos and Abadîn,
remains navigable. Here Thûtmosis built, under invocation of the gods of
Heliopolis, one of those brickwork citadels, with its rectangular keep,
which set at nought all the efforts and all the military science of the
Ethiopians: attached to it was a harbour, where each vessel on its way
downstream put in for the purpose of hiring a pilot.*
The monarchs of the XIIth and XIIIth dynasties had raised fortifications
at the approaches to Wady Haifa, and their engineers skilfully chose the
sites so as completely to protect from the ravages of the Nubian pirates
that part of the Nile which lay between Wady Haifa and Philse.*
* The foundation of this fortress is indicated in an
emphatic manner in the Tombos inscription: The masters of
the Great Castle (the gods of Heliopolis) have made a
fortress for the soldiers of the king, which the nine
peoples of Nubia combined could not carry by storm, for,
like a young panther before a bull which lowers its head,
the souls of his Majesty have blinded them with
fear. Quarries of considerable size, where Cailliaud
imagined he could distinguish an overturned colossus, show
the importance which the establishment had attained in
ancient times; the ruins of the town cover a fairly large
area near the modern village of Kerman.
Henceforward the garrison at Tombos was able to defend the mighty curve
described by the river through the desert of Mahas, together with the
island of Argo, and the confines of Dongola. The distance between Thebes
and this southern frontier was a long one, and communication was slow
during the winter months, when the subsidence of the waters had rendered
the task of navigation difficult for the Egyptian ships. The king
was obliged, besides, to concentrate his attention mainly on Asiatic
affairs, and was no longer able to watch the movements of the African
races with the same vigilance as his predecessors had exercised before
Egyptian armies had made their way as far as the banks of the Euphrates.
Thutmosis placed the control of the countries south of Assuan in the
hands of a viceroy, who, invested with the august title of Royal Son of
Kûsh, must have been regarded as having the blood of Râ himself running
in his veins.*
* The meaning of this title was at first misunderstood.
Champollion and Rosellini took it literally, and thought it
referred to Ethiopian princes, who were vassals or enemies
of Egypt. Birch persists in regarding them as Ethiopians
driven out by their subjects, restored by the Pharaohs as
viceroys, while admitting that they may have belonged to the
solar family.
Sura, the first of these viceroys whose name has reached us, was in
office at the beginning of the campaign of the year III.* He belonged,
it would seem, to a Theban family, and for several centuries afterwards
his successors are mentioned among the nobles who were in the habit
of attending the court. Their powers were considerable: they commanded
armies, built or restored temples, administered justice, and received
the homage of loyal sheikhs or the submission of rebellious ones.** The
period for which they were appointed was not fixed by law, and they held
office simply at the kings pleasure. During the XIXth dynasty it was
usual to confer this office, the highest in the state, on a son of the
sovereign, preferably the heir-apparent. Occasionally his appointment
was purely formal, and he continued in attendance on his father, while
a trusty substitute ruled in his place: often, however, he took the
government on himself, and in the regions of the Upper Nile served an
apprenticeship to the art of ruling.
* He is mentioned in the Sehêl inscriptions as the royal
son Sura. Nahi, who had been regarded as the first holder of
the office, and who was still in office under Thutmosis
III., had been appointed by Thutmosis I., but after Sura.
** Under Thutmosis III., the viceroy Nahi restored the
temple at Semneh; under Tutankhamon, the viceroy Hui
received tribute from the Ethiopian princes, and presented
them to the sovereign.
[Illustration: 336.jpg A CITY OF MODERN NUBIA--THE ANCIENT DONGOLA]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken by Insinger.
This district was in a perpetual state of war--a war without danger, but
full of trickery and surprises: here he prepared himself for the larger
arena of the Syrian campaigns, learning the arts of generalship more
perfectly than was possible in the manouvres of the parade-ground.
Moreover, the appointment was dictated by religious as well as by
political considerations. The presumptive heir to the throne was to his
father what Horus had been to Osiris--his lawful successor, or, if need
be, his avenger, should some act of treason impose on him the duty of
vengeance: and was it not in Ethiopia that Horus had gained his first
victories over Typhon? To begin like Horus, and flesh his maiden steel
on the descendants of the accomplices of Sit, was, in the case of the
future sovereign, equivalent to affirming from the outset the reality of
his divine extraction.*
* In the _Orbiney Papyrus_ the title of Prince of Kûsh was
assigned to the heir-presumptive to the throne.
As at the commencement of the Theban dynasties, it was the river valley
only in these regions of the Upper Nile which belonged to the Pharaohs.
From this time onward it gave support to an Egyptian population as far
as the juncture of the two Niles: it was a second Egypt, but a poorer
one, whose cities presented the same impoverished appearance as that
which we find to-day in the towns of Nubia. The tribes scattered right
and left in the desert, or distributed beyond the confluence of the two
Niles among the plains of Sennar, were descended from the old indigenous
races, and paid valuable tribute every year in precious metals, ivory,
timber, or the natural products of their districts, under penalty of
armed invasion.*
* The tribute of the Ganbâtiû, or people of the south, and
that of Kûsh and of the Ûaûaîû, is mentioned repeatedly
in the _Annales de Thûtmosis III._ for the year XXXI.,
for the year XXXIII., and for the year XXXIV. The
regularity with which this item recurs, unaccompanied by
any mention of war, following after each Syrian campaign,
shows that it was an habitual operation which was
registered as an understood thing. True, the inscription
does not give the item for every year, but then it only
dealt with Ethiopian affairs in so far as they were
subsidiary to events in Asia; the payment was none the
less an annual one, the amount varying in accordance with
local agreement.
Among these races were still to be found descendants of the Mazaiû and
Ûaûaîû, who in days gone by had opposed the advance of the victorious
Egyptians: the name of the Uaûaîû was, indeed, used as a generic term to
distinguish all those tribes which frequented the mountains between the
Nile and the Red Sea,* but the wave of conquest had passed far beyond
the boundaries reached in early campaigns, and had brought the Egyptians
into contact with nations with whom they had been in only indirect
commercial relations in former times.
* The Annals of Thûtmosis III. mention the tribute of Pûanît
for the peoples of the coast, the tribute of Uaûaît for the
peoples of the mountain between the Nile and the sea, the
tribute of Kûsh for the peoples of the south, or Ganbâtiû.
[Illustration: 338.jpg ARRIVAL OF AN ETHIOPIAN QUEEN BRINGING TRIBUTE TO
THE VICEROY OF KÛSII]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger.
Some of these were light-coloured men of a type similar to that of the
modern Abyssinians or Gallas: they had the same haughty and imperious
carriage, the same well-developed and powerful frames, and the same love
of fighting. Most of the remaining tribes were of black blood, and such
of them as we see depicted on the monuments resemble closely the negroes
inhabiting Central Africa at the present day.
[Illustration: 339.jpg TYPICAL GALLA WOMAN]
They have the same elongated skull, the low prominent forehead, hollow
temples, short flattened nose, thick lips, broad shoulders, and salient
breast, the latter contrasting sharply with the undeveloped appearance
of the lower part of the body, which terminates in thin legs almost
devoid of calves. Egyptian civilization had already penetrated among
these tribes, and, as far as dress and demeanour were concerned, their
chiefs differed in no way from the great lords who formed the escort
of the Pharaoh. We see these provincial dignitaries represented in the
white robe and petticoat of starched, pleated, and gauffered linen;
an innate taste for bright colours, even in those early times, being
betrayed by the red or yellow scarf in which they wrapped themselves,
passing it over one shoulder and round the waist, whence the ends
depended and formed a kind of apron. A panthers skin covered the back,
and one or two ostrich-feathers waved from the top of the head or
were fastened on one side to the fillet confining the hair, which was
arranged in short curls and locks, stiffened with gum and matted with
grease, so as to form a sort of cap or grotesque aureole round the
skull. The men delighted to load themselves with rings, bracelets,
earrings, and necklaces, while from their arms, necks, and belts hung
long strings of glass beads, which jingled with every movement of the
wearer. They seem to have frequently chosen a woman as their ruler, and
her dress appears to have closely resembled that of the Egyptian
ladies. She appeared before her subjects in a chariot drawn by oxen,
and protected from the sun by an umbrella edged with fringe. The common
people went about nearly naked, having merely a loin-cloth of some woven
stuff or an animals skin thrown round their hips. Their heads were
either shaven, or adorned with tufts of hair stiffened with gum. The
children of both sexes wore no clothes until the age of puberty; the
women wrapped themselves in a rude garment or in a covering of linen,
and carried their children on the hip or in a basket of esparto grass on
the back, supported by a leather band which passed across the forehead.
One characteristic of all these tribes was their love of singing and
dancing, and their use of the drum and cymbals; they were active and
industrious, and carefully cultivated the rich soil of the plain,
devoting themselves to the raising of cattle, particularly of oxen,
whose horns they were accustomed to train fantastically into the shapes
of lyres, bows, and spirals, with bifurcations at the ends, or with
small human figures as terminations. As in the case of other negro
tribes, they plied the blacksmiths and also the goldsmiths trade,
working up both gold and silver into rings, chains, and quaintly shaped
vases, some specimens of their art being little else than toys, similar
in design to those which delighted the Byzantine Caesars of later date.
[Illustration: 341.jpg GOLD EPERGNE REPRESENTING SCENES FROM ETHIOPIAN
LIFE]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting on the tomb of Hûi.
A wall-painting remains of a gold epergne, which represents men and
monkeys engaged in gathering the fruit of a group of dôm-palms. Two
individuals lead each a tame giraffe by the halter, others kneeling on
the rim raise their hands to implore mercy from an unseen enemy, while
negro prisoners, grovelling on their stomachs, painfully attempt
to raise their head and shoulders from the ground. This, doubtless,
represents a scene from the everyday life of the people of the Upper
Nile, and gives a faithful picture of what took place among many of its
tribes during a rapid inroad of some viceroy of Kush or a raid by his
lieutenants.
The resources which Thûtmosis I. was able to draw regularly from these
southern regions, in addition to the wealth collected during his Syrian
campaign, enabled him to give a great impulse to building work. The
tutelary deity of his capital--Amon-Râ--who had ensured him the victory
in all his battles, had a prior claim on the bulk of the spoil; he
received it as a matter of course, and his temple at Thebes was thereby
considerably enlarged; we are not, however, able to estimate exactly
what proportion fell to other cities, such as Kummeh, Elephantine,*
Abydos,** and Memphis, where a few scattered blocks of stone still bear
the name of the king. Troubles broke out in Lower Egypt, but they were
speedily subdued by Thûtmosis, and he was able to end his days in the
enjoyment of a profound peace, undisturbed by any care save that of
ensuring a regular succession to his throne, and of restraining the
ambitions of those who looked to become possessed of his heritage.***
* Wiedemann found his name there cut in a block of brown
freestone.
** A stele at Abydos speaks of the building operations
carried on by Thûtmosis I. in that town.
*** The expressions from which we gather that his reign was
disturbed by outbreaks of internal rebellion seem to refer
to a period subsequent to the Syrian expedition, and prior
to his alliance with the Princess Hâtshopsîtû.
His position was, indeed, a curious one; although _de facto_ absolute in
power, his children by Queen Ahmasi took precedence of him, for by her
mothers descent she had a better right to the crown than her husband,
and legally the king should have retired in favour of hie sons as soon
as they were old enough to reign. The eldest of them, Uazmosû, died
early.* The second, Amenmosu, lived at least to attain adolescence; he
was allowed to share the crown with his father from the fourth year of
the latters reign, and he also held a military command in the Delta,**
but before long he also died, and Thûtmosis I. was left with only one
son--a Thûtmosis like himself--to succeed him. The mother of this prince
was a certain Mûtnofrit,*** half-sister to the king on his fathers
side, who enjoyed such a high rank in the royal family that her husband
allowed her to be portrayed in royal dress; her pedigree on the mothers
side, however, was not so distinguished, and precluded her son from
being recognised as heir-apparent, hence the occupation of the seat of
Horus reverted once more to a woman, Hâtshopsîtû, the eldest daughter
of Âhmasi.
* Uazmosû is represented on the tomb of Pahiri at El-Kab,
where Mr. Griffith imagines he can trace two distinct
Uazmosû; for the present, I am of opinion that there was but
one, the son of Thûtmosis I. His funerary chapel was
discovered at Thebes; it is in a very bad state of
preservation.
** Amenmosû is represented at El-Kab, by the side of his
brother Uazmosû. Also on a fragment where we find him, in
the fourth year of his fathers reign, honoured with a
cartouche at Memphis, and consequently associated with his
father in the royal power.
*** Mûtnofrit was supposed by Mariette to have been a
daughter of Thûtmosis IL; the statue reproduced on p. 345
has shown us that she was wife of Thûtmosis I. and mother of
Thûtmosis II.
Hâtshopsîtû herself was not, however, of purely divine descent. Her
maternal ancestor, Sonisonbû, had not been a scion of the royal house,
and this flaw in her pedigree threatened to mar, in her case, the
sanctity of the solar blood. According to Egyptian belief, this defect
of birth could only be remedied by a miracle,* and the ancestral god,
becoming incarnate in the earthly father at the moment of conception,
had to condescend to infuse fresh virtue into his race in this manner.
* A similar instance of divine substitution is known to us in the case
of two other sovereigns, viz. Amenôthes III., whose father, Titmosis
IV., was born under conditions analogous to those attending the birth of
Thûtmosis I.; and Ptolemy Caesarion, whose father, Julius Cæsar, was not
of Egyptian blood.
[Illustration: 344.jpg PORTRAIT OF THE QUEEN ÂHMASI]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Naville.
The inscriptions with which Hâtshopsîtû decorated her chapel relate how,
on that fateful night, Amon descended upon Ahmasi in a flood of perfume
and light. The queen received him favourably, and the divine spouse on
leaving her announced to her the approaching birth of a daughter, in
whom his valour and strength should be manifested once more here below.
The sequel of the story is displayed in a series of pictures before our
eyes.
[Illustration: 345.jpg QUEEN MÛTNOFRÎT IN THE GÎZEH MUSEUM]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
The protecting divinities who preside over the birth of children conduct
the queen to her couch, and the sorrowful resignation depicted on her
face, together with the languid grace of her whole figure, display in
this portrait of her a finished work of art. The child enters the world
amid shouts of joy, and the propitious genii who nourish both her and
her double constitute themselves her nurses. At the appointed time,
her earthly father summons the great nobles to a solemn festival, and
presents to them his daughter, who is to reign with him over Egypt and
the world.*
* The association of Hâtshopsîtû with her father on the
throne, has now been placed beyond doubt by the inscriptions
discovered and commented on by Naville in 1895.
[Illustration: 346.jpg QUEEN HÂTSHOPSÎTÛ IN MALE COSTUME]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Naville.
From henceforth Hâtshopsîtû adopts every possible device to conceal her
real sex. She changes the termination of her name, and calls herself
Hâtshopsîû, the chief of the nobles, in lieu of Hâtshopsîtû, the chief
of the favourites. She becomes the King Mâkerî, and on the occasion
of all public ceremonies she appears in male costume. We see her
represented on the Theban monuments with uncovered shoulders, devoid of
breasts, wearing the short loin-cloth and the keffieh, while the diadem
rests on her closely cut hair, and the false beard depends from her
chin.
[Illustration: 347.jpg BUST OF QUEEN HÂTSHOPSÎTÛ]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by M. de Mertens.
This was the head of one of the sphinxes which formed an
avenue at Deîr el-Baharî; it was brought over by Lepsius and
is now in the Berlin Museum. The fragment has undergone
extensive restoration, but this has been done with the help
of fragments of other statues, in which the details here
lost were in a good state of preservation.
She retained, however, the feminine pronoun in speaking of herself, and
also an epithet, inserted in her cartouche, which declared her to be the
betrothed of Amon--khnûmît Amaûnû.*
* We know how greatly puzzled the early Egyptologists were
by this manner of depicting the queen, and how Champollion,
in striving to explain the monuments of the period, was
driven to suggest the existence of a regent, Amenenthes, the
male counterpart and husband of Hâtshopsîtû, whose name he
read Amense. This hypothesis, adopted by Rosellini, with
some slight modifications, was rejected by Birch. This
latter writer pointed out the identity of the two personages
separated by Champollion, and proved them to be one and the
same queen, the Amenses of Manetho; he called her Amûn-nûm-
hc, but he made her out to be a sister of Amenôthes I.,
associated on the throne with her brothers Thûtmosis I. and
Thûtmosis IL, and regent at the beginning of the reign of
Thûtmosis III. Hineks tried to show that she was the
daughter of Thûtmosis I., the wife of Thûtmosis II. and the
sister of Thûtmosis III.; it is only quite recently that her
true descent and place in the family tree has been
recognised. She was, not the sister, but the aunt of
Thûtmosis III. The queen, called by Birch Amûn-nûm-het, the
latter part of her name being dropped and the royal prenomen
being joined to her own name, was subsequently styled Ha-asû
or Hatasû, and this form is still adopted by some writers;
the true reading is Hâtshopsîtû or Hâtshopsîtû, then
Hâtshopsîû, or Hâtshepsîû, as Naville has pointed out.
Her father united her while still young to her brother Thûtmosis, who
appears to have been her junior, and this fact doubtless explains the
very subordinate part which he plays beside the queen. When Thûtmosis
I. died, Egyptian etiquette demanded that a man should be at the head of
affairs, and this youth succeeded his father in office: but Hâtshopsîtû,
while relinquishing the semblance of power and the externals of pomp to
her husband,* kept the direction of the state entirely in her own hands.
The portraits of her which have been preserved represent her as having
refined features, with a proud and energetic expression. The oval of
the face is elongated, the cheeks a little hollow, and the eyes deep set
under the arch of the brow, while the lips are thin and tightly closed.
* It is evident, from the expressions employed by Thûtmosis
I. in associating his daughter with himself on the throne,
that she was unmarried at the time, and Naville thinks that
she married her brother Thûtmosis II. after the death of her
father. It appears to me more probable that Thûtmosis I.
married her to her brother after she had been raised to the
throne, with a view to avoiding complications which might
have arisen in the royal family after his own death. The
inscription at Shutt-er-Ragel, which has furnished Mariette
with the hypothesis that Thûtmosis I. and Thûtmosis IL
reigned simultaneously, proves that the person mentioned in
it, a certain Penaîti, flourished under both these Pharaohs,
but by no means shows that these two reigned together; he
exercised the functions which he held by their authority
during their successive reigns.
[Illustration: 348.jpg PAINTING ON THE TOMB OF THE KINGS]
She governed with so firm a hand that neither Egypt nor its foreign
vassals dared to make any serious attempt to withdraw themselves from
her authority. One raid, in which several prisoners were taken, punished
a rising of the Shaûsû in Central Syria, while the usual expeditions
maintained order among the peoples of Ethiopia, and quenched any attempt
which they might make to revolt. When in the second year of his reign
the news was brought to Thutmosis II. that the inhabitants of the Upper
Nile had ceased to observe the conditions which his father had imposed
upon them, he became furious as a panther, and assembling his troops
set out for war without further delay. The presence of the king with the
army filled the rebels with dismay, and a campaign of a few weeks put an
end to their attempt at rebelling.
The earlier kings of the XVIIIth dynasty had chosen for their last
resting-place a spot on the left bank of the Nile at Thebes, where the
cultivated land joined the desert, close to the pyramids built by their
predecessors. Probably, after the burial of Amenôthes, the space was
fully occupied, for Thutmosis I. had to seek his burying-ground some way
up the ravine, the mouth of which was blocked by their monuments. The
Libyan chain here forms a kind of amphitheatre of vertical cliffs, which
descend to within some ninety feet of the valley, where a sloping mass
of detritus connects them by a gentle declivity with the plain.
[Illustration: 350.jpg THE AMPHITHEATRE AT DEÎR EL-BAHARÎ, AS IT
APPEARED BEPOEE NAVILLes EXCAVATIONS]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
The great lords and the queens in the times of the Antufs and the
Usirtasens had taken possession of this spot, but their chapels were by
this period in ruins, and their tombs almost all lay buried under the
waves of sand which the wind from the desert drives perpetually over
the summit of the cliffs. This site was seized on by the architects
of Thûtmosis, who laid there the foundations of a building which was
destined to be unique in the world. Its ground plan consisted of an
avenue of sphinxes, starting from the plain and running between the
tombs till it reached a large courtyard, terminated on the west by a
colonnade, which was supported by a double row of pillars.
[Illustration: 351.jpg THE NORTHERN COLLONADE]
Drawn by Bouclier, from a photograph supplied by Naville.
Above and beyond this was the vast middle platform,* connected with the
upper court by the central causeway which ran through it from end to
end; this middle platform, like that below it, was terminated on the
west by a double colonnade, through which access was gained to two
chapels hollowed out of the mountain-side, while on the north it was
bordered with excellent effect by a line of proto-Dorio columns ranged
against the face of the cliff.
* The English nomenclature employed in describing this
temple is that used in the _Guide to Deir el-Bahari_,
published by the _Egypt Exploration Fund_.--Tr.
This northern colonnade was never completed, but the existing part is of
as exquisite proportions as anything that Greek art has ever produced.
At length we reach the upper platform, a nearly square courtyard,
cutting on one side into the mountain slope, the opposite side being
enclosed by a wall pierced by a single door, while to right and left ran
two lines of buildings destined for purposes connected with the daily
worship of the temple. The sanctuary was cut out of the solid rock,
but the walls were faced with white limestone; some of the chambers
are vaulted, and all of them decorated with bas-reliefs of exquisite
workmanship, perhaps the finest examples of this period. Thûtmosis I.
scarcely did more than lay the foundations of this magnificent building,
but his mummy was buried in it with great pomp, to remain there until a
period of disturbance and general insecurity obliged those in charge of
the necropolis to remove the body, together with those of his family, to
some securer hiding-place.* The king was already advanced in age at the
time of his death, being over fifty years old, to judge by the incisor
teeth, which are worn and corroded by the impurities of which the
Egyptian bread was full.
* Both E. de Rougé and Mariette were opposed to the view
that the temple was founded by Thûtmosis I., and Naville
agrees with them. Judging from the many new texts discovered
by Naville, I am inclined to think that Thûtmosis I. began
the structure, but from plans, it would appear, which had
not been so fully developed as they afterwards became. Prom
indications to be found here and there in the inscriptions
of the Ramesside period, I am not, moreover, inclined to
regard Deîr el-Bâhâri as the funerary chapel of tombs which
were situated in some unknown place elsewhere, but I believe
that it included the burial-places of Thûtmosis I.,
Thûtmosis II., Queen Hâtshopsîtû, and of numerous
representatives of their family; indeed, it is probable that
Thûtmosis III. and his children found here also their last
resting-place.
[Illustration: 353.jpg HEAD OF THE MUMMY OF THÛTMOSIS I.]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
The body, though small and emaciated, shows evidence of unusual muscular
strength; the head is bald, the features are refined, and the mouth
still bears an expression characteristic of shrewdness and cunning.*
* The coffin of Thûtmosis I. was usurped by the priest-king
Pinozmû I., son of Piônkhi, and the mummy was lost. I fancy
I have discovered it in mummy No. 5283, of which the head
presents a striking resemblance to those of Thûtmosis II.
and III.
Thûtmosis II. carried on the works begun by his father, but did not long
survive him.* The mask on his coffin represents him with a smiling and
amiable countenance, and with the fine pathetic eyes which show his
descent from the Pharaohs of the XIIth dynasty.
* The latest year up to the present known of this king is
the IInd, found upon the Aswan stele. Erman, followed by Ed.
Meyer, thinks that Hâtshop-sîtû could not have been free
from complicity in the premature death of Thûtmosis II.; but
I am inclined to believe, from the marks of disease found on
the skin of his mummy, that the queen was innocent of the
crime here ascribed to her.
[Illustration: 354.jpg HEAD OF THE MUMMY OF THÛTMOSIS II.]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph in the possession of
Emil Brugsch Bey.
His statues bear the same expression, which indeed is that of the mummy
itself. He resembles Thûtmosis I., but his features are not so marked,
and are characterised by greater gentleness. He had scarcely reached the
age of thirty when he fell a victim to a disease of which the process of
embalming could not remove the traces. The skin is scabrous in patches,
and covered with scars, while the upper part of the skull is bald; the
body is thin and somewhat shrunken, and appears to have lacked vigour
and muscular power. By his marriage with his sister, Thûtmosis left
daughters only,* but he had one son, also a Thûtmosis, by a woman of
low birth, perhaps merely a slave, whose name was Isis.** Hâtshopsîtû
proclaimed this child her successor, for his youth and humble parentage
could not excite her jealousy. She betrothed him to her one surviving
daughter, Hâtshopsîtû II., and having thus settled the succession in the
male line, she continued to rule alone in the name of her nephew who was
still a minor, as she had done formerly in the case of her half-brother.
* Two daughters of Queen Hâtshopsîtû I. are known, of whom
one, Nofîrûrî, died young, and Hâtshopsîtû II. Marîtrî, who
was married to her half-brother on her fathers side,
Thûtmosis III., who was thus her cousin as well. Amenôthes
II. was offspring of this marriage.
** The name of the mother of Thûtmosis III. was revealed to
us on the wrappings found with the mummy of this king in the
hiding-place of Deîr el-Baharî; the absence of princely
titles, while it shows the humble extraction of the lady
Isis, explains at the same time the somewhat obscure
relations between Hâtshopsîtû and her nephew.
Her reign was a prosperous one, but whether the flourishing condition
of things was owing to the ability of her political administration or
to her fortunate choice of ministers, we are unable to tell. She pressed
forward the work of building with great activity, under the direction
of her architect Sanmût, not only at Deîr el-Baharî, but at Karnak, and
indeed everywhere in Thebes. The plans of the building had been arranged
under Thûtmosis I., and their execution had been carried out so quickly,
that in many cases the queen had merely to see to the sculptural
ornamentation on the all but completed walls.
This work, however, afforded her sufficient excuse, according to
Egyptian custom, to attribute the whole structure to herself, and the
opinion she had of her own powers is exhibited with great naiveness in
her inscriptions. She loves to pose as premeditating her actions long
beforehand, and as never venturing on the smallest undertaking without
reference to her divine father.
[Illustration: 356.jpg The Coffin Of Thûtmosis I.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph in the possession
of Emil Brugsch-Bey.
This is what I teach to mortals who shall live in centuries to come, and
whose hearts shall inquire concerning the monument which I have raised
to my father, speaking and exclaiming as they contemplate it: as for me,
when I sat in the palace and thought upon him who created me, my heart
prompted me to raise to him two obelisks of electrum, whose apices
should pierce the firmaments, before the noble gateway which is between
the two great pylons of the King Thûtmosis I. And my heart led me to
address these words to those who shall see my monuments in after-years
and who shall speak of my great deeds: Beware of saying, I know not,
I know not why it was resolved to carve this mountain wholly of gold!
These two obelisks, My Majesty has made them of electrum for my father
Anion, that my name may remain and live on in this temple for ever and
ever; for this single block of granite has been cut, without let or
obstacle, at the desire of My Majesty, between the first of the second
month of Pirîfc of the Vth year, and the 30th of the fourth month of
Shomû of the VIth year, which makes seven months from the day when they
began to, quarry it. One of these two monoliths is still standing among
the ruins of Karnak, and the grace of its outline, the finish of its
hieroglyphics, and the beauty of the figures which cover it, amply
justify the pride which the queen and her brother felt in contemplating
it.
[Illustration: 356b Avenue Of Rams And Pylon At Karnak]
[Illustration: 356b-text]
[Illustration: 357.jpg THE STATUE OF SANMÛT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by M. de Mortens:
the original is in the Berlin Museum, whither Lepsius
brought it. Sanmût is squatting and holding between his
arras and knees the young king Thût-mosis III,, whose head
with the youthful side lock appears from under his chin.
The tops of the pyramids were gilt, so that they could be seen from
both banks of the river, and their brilliancy lit up the two lands of
Egypt: needless to say these metal apices have long disappeared.
[Illustration: 338.jpg Page Image]
Drawn by Fauoher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.
Later on, in the the queens reign, Amon enjoined a work which was more
difficult to carry out. On a day when Hâtshopsîtû had gone to the temple
to offer prayers, her supplications arose up before the throne of the
Lord of Karnak, and a command was heard in the sanctuary, a behest of
the god himself, that the ways which lead to Pûanît should be explored,
and that the roads to the Ladders of Incense should be trodden. *
* The word Ladders is the translation of the Egyptian word
Khâtiû, employed in the text to designate the country laid
out in terraces where the incense trees grew; cf. with a
different meaning, the ladders of the eastern
Mediterranean.
Gums required for the temple service had hitherto reached the Theban
priests solely by means of foreign intermediaries; so that in the slow
transport across Africa they lost much of their freshness, besides being
defiled by passing through impure hands. In addition to these drawbacks,
the merchants confounded under the one term Anîti substances which
differed considerably both in value and character, several of them,
indeed, scarcely coming under the category of perfumes, and hence being
unacceptable to the gods. One kind, however, found favour with them
above all others, being that which still abounds in Somali-land at the
present day--a gum secreted by the incense sycomore.*
* From the form of the trees depicted on the monument, it is
certain that the Egyptians went to Pûanît in search of the
_Boswellia Thurifera_ Cart.; but they brought back with them
other products also, which they confounded together under
the name incense.
It was accounted a pious work to send and obtain it direct from the
locality in which it grew, and if possible to procure the plants
themselves for acclimatisation in the Nile valley. But the relations
maintained in former times with the people of these aromatic regions
had been suspended for centuries. None now climbed the Ladders of
Incense, none of the Egyptians; they knew of them from hearsay, from
the stories of people of ancient times, for these products were brought
to the kings of the Delta, thy fathers, to one or other of them, from
the times of thy ancestors the kings of the Said who lived of yore. All
that could be recalled of this country was summed up in the facts, that
it lay to the south or to the extreme east, that from thence many of the
gods had come into Egypt, while from out of it the sun rose anew every
morning. Amon, in his omniscience, took upon himself to describe it and
give an exact account of its position. The Ladders of Incense is a
secret province of Tonûtir, it is in truth a place of delight. I created
it, and I thereto lead Thy Majesty, together with Mût, Hâthor, Uîrît,
the Lady of Pûanît, Uîrît-hikaû, the magician and regent of the gods,
that the aromatic gum may be gathered at will, that the vessels may be
laden joyfully with living incense trees and with all the products of
this earth. Hâtshopsîtû chose out five well-built galleys, and
manned them with picked crews. She caused them to be laden with such
merchandise as would be most attractive to the barbarians, and placing
the vessels under the command of a royal envoy, she sent them forth on
the Bed Sea in quest of the incense.
We are not acquainted with the name of the port from which the fleet set
sail, nor do we know the number of weeks it took to reach the land of
Pûanît, neither is there any record of the incidents which befell it
by the way. It sailed past the places frequented by the mariners of
the XIIth dynasty--Suakîn, Massowah, and the islands of the Ked Sea;
it touched at the country of the Ilîm which lay to the west of the Bab
el-Mandeb, went safely through the Straits, and landed at last in the
Land of Perfumes on the Somali coast.* There, between the bay of Zeîlah
and Bas Hafun, stretched the Barbaric region, frequented in later times
by the merchants of Myos Hormos and of Berenice.
* That part of Pûanît where the Egyptians landed was at
first located in Arabia by Brugsch, then transferred to
Somali-land by Mariette, whose opinion was accepted by most
Egyptologists. Dumichen, basing his hypothesis on a passage
where Pûanît is mentioned as being on both sides of the
sea, desired to apply the name to the Arabian as well as to
the African coast, to Yemen and Hadhramaut as well as to
Somali-land; this suggestion was adopted by Lieblein, and
subsequently by Ed. Meyer, who believed that its inhabitants
were the ancestors of the Sabseans. Since then Krall has
endeavoured to shorten the distance between this country and
Egypt, and he places the Pûanît of Hâtshopsîtû between
Suakin and Massowah. This was, indeed, the part of the
country known under the XIIth dynasty at the time when it
was believed that the Nile emptied itself thereabouts into
the Red Sea, in the vicinity of the Island of the Serpent
King, but I hold, with Mariette, that the Pûanît where the
Egyptians of Hâtshopsîtûs time landed is the present
Somali-land--a view which is also shared by Navillo, but
which Brugsch, in the latter years of his life, abandoned.
[Illustration: 361.jpg AN INHABITANT OF THE LAND OF PÛANÎT]
Drawn by Fauchon-Gudin, from a photograph by Gayet.
The first stations which the latter encountered beyond Cape
Direh--Avails, Malao, Mundos, and Mosylon--were merely open roadsteads
offering no secure shelter; but beyond Mosylon, the classical navigators
reported the existence of several wadys, the last of which, the Elephant
River, lying between Bas el-Eîl and Cape Guardafui, appears to have been
large enough not only to afford anchorage to several vessels of light
draught, but to permit of their performing easily any evolutions
required. During the Roman period, it was there, and there only, that
the best kind of incense could be obtained, and it was probably at this
point also that the Egyptians of Hâtshopsîtûs time landed. The Egyptian
vessels sailed up the river till they reached a place beyond the
influence of the tide, and then dropped anchor in front of a village
scattered along a bank fringed with sycomores and palms.*
* I have shown, from a careful examination of the bas-
reliefs, that the Egyptians must have landed, not on the
coast itself, as was at first believed, but in the estuary
of a river, and this observation has been accepted as
decisive by most Egyptologists; besides this, newly
discovered fragments show the presence of a hippopotamus.
Since then I have sought to identify the landing-place of
the Egyptians with the most important of the creeks
mentioned by the Græco-Roman merchants as accessible for
their vessels, viz. that which they called the Elephant
River, near to the present Ras el-Fîl.
The huts of the inhabitants were of circular shape, each being
surmounted with a conical roof; some of them were made of closely
plaited osiers, and there was no opening in any of them save the door.
They were built upon piles, as a protection from the rise of the
river and from wild animals, and access to them was gained by means of
moveable ladders. Oxen chewing the cud rested beneath them. The natives
belonged to a light-coloured race, and the portraits we possess of them
resemble the Egyptian type in every particular. They were tall and thin,
and of a colour which varied between brick-red and the darkest brown.
Their beards were pointed, and the hair was cut short in some instances,
while in others it was arranged in close rows of curls or in small
plaits. The costume of the men consisted of a loin-cloth only, while the
dress of the women was a yellow garment without sleeves, drawn in at the
waist and falling halfway below the knee.
The royal envoy landed under an escort of eight soldiers and an officer,
but, to prove his pacific intentions, he spread out upon a low table a
variety of presents, consisting of five bracelets two gold necklaces, a
dagger with strap and sheath complete, a battle-axe, and eleven strings
of glass beads.
[Illustration: 303.jpg A VILLAGE ON THE BANK OF THE RIVER, WITH LADDERS
OF INCENSE]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.
The inhabitants, dazzled by the display of so many valuable objects, ran
to meet the new-comers, headed by their sheikh, and expressed a natural
astonishment at the sight of the strangers. How is it, they exclaimed,
that you have reached this country hitherto unknown to men? Have you
come down by way of the sky, or have you sailed on the waters of the
Tonûtir Sea? You have followed the path of the sun, for as for the king
of the land of Egypt, it is not possible to elude him, and we live, yea,
we ourselves, by the breath which he gives us. The name of their chief
was Parihû, who was distinguished from his subjects by the boomerang
which he carried, and also by his dagger and necklace of beads: his
right leg, moreover, appears to have been covered with a kind of
sheath composed of rings of some yellow metal, probably gold.* He was
accompanied by his wife Ati, riding on an ass, from which she alighted
in order to gain a closer view of the strangers. She was endowed with
a type of beauty much admired by the people of Central Africa, being so
inordinately fat that the shape of her body was scarcely recognisable
under the rolls of flesh which hung down from it. Her daughter, who
appeared to be still young, gave promise of one day rivalling, if not
exceeding, her mother in size.**
* Mariette compares this kind of armour to the dangabor of
the Congo tribes, but the dangabor is worn on the arm.
Livingstone saw a woman, the sister of Sebituaneh, the
highest lady of the Sesketeh, who wore on each leg eighteen
rings of solid brass as thick as the finger, and three rings
of copper above the knee. The weight of these shining rings
impeded her walking, and produced sores on her ankles; but
it was the fashion, and the inconvenience became nothing. As
to the pain, it was relieved by a bit of rag applied to the
lower rings.
** These are two instances of abnormal fat production--the
earliest with which we are acquainted.
After an exchange of compliments, the more serious business of the
expedition was introduced. The Egyptians pitched a tent, in which they
placed the objects of barter with which they were provided, and to
prevent these from being too great a temptation to the natives, they
surrounded the tent with a line of troops.
[Illustration: 365.jpg PRINCE PARIHÛ AND THE PRINCESS OF PUANÎT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
The main conditions of the exchange were arranged at a banquet, in
which they spread before the barbarians a sumptuous display of Egyptian
delicacies, consisting of bread, beer, wine, meat, and carefully
prepared and flavoured vegetables. Payment for every object was to be
made at the actual moment of purchase. For several days there was a
constant stream of people, and asses groaned beneath their burdens. The
Egyptian purchases comprised the most varied objects: ivory tusks, gold,
ebony, cassia, myrrh, cynocephali and green monkeys, greyhounds, leopard
skins, large oxen, slaves, and last, but not least, thirty-one incense
trees, with their roots surrounded by a ball of earth and placed in
large baskets. The lading of the ships was a long and tedious affair.
All available space being at length exhausted, and as much cargo placed
on board as was compatible with the navigation of the vessel, the
squadron set sail and with all speed took its way northwards.
[Illustration: 366.jpg THE EMBARKATION OF THE INCENSE SYCOMORES ON
BOARD THE EGYPTIAN FLEET]
Drawn by Bouclier, from a photograph by Beato.
The Egyptians touched at several places on the coast on their return
journey, making friendly alliances with the inhabitants; the Him added
a quota to their freight, for which room was with difficulty found on
board,--it consisted not only of the inevitable gold, ivory, and skins,
but also of live leopards and a giraffe, together with plants and fruits
unknown on the banks of the Nile.*
* Lieblein thought that their country was explored, not by
the sailors who voyaged to Pûanît, but by a different body
who proceeded by land, and this view was accepted by Ed.
Meyer. The completed text proves that there was but a single
expedition, and that the explorers of Pûanît visited the
Ilîm also. The giraffe which they gave does not appear in
the cargo of the vessels at Pûanît; the visit must,
therefore, have been paid on the return voyage, and the
giraffe was probably represented on the destroyed part of
the walls where Naville found the image of this animal
wandering at liberty among the woods.
The fleet at length made its reappearance in Egyptian ports, having
on board the chiefs of several tribes on whose coasts the sailors had
landed, and bringing back so much that the like had never been brought
of the products of Pûanît to other kings, by the supreme favour of
the venerable god, Amon Râ, lord of Karnak. The chiefs mentioned were
probably young men of superior family, who had been confided to the
officer in command of the squadron by local sheikhs, as pledges to the
Pharaoh of good will or as commercial hostages. National vanity, no
doubt, prompted the Egyptians to regard them as vassals coming to do
homage, and their gifts as tributes denoting subjection. The Queen
inaugurated a solemn festival in honour of the explorers. The Theban
militia was ordered out to meet them, the royal flotilla escorting them
as far as the temple landing-place, where a procession was formed to
carry the spoil to the feet of the god. The good Theban folk, assembled
to witness their arrival, beheld the march past of the native hostages,
the incense sycomores, the precious gum itself, the wild animals,
the giraffe, and the oxen, whose numbers were doubtless increased a
hundredfold in the accounts given to posterity with the usual official
exaggeration. The trees were planted at Deîr el-Baharî, where a sacred
garden was prepared for them, square trenches being cut in the rock and
filled with earth, in which the sycomore, by frequent watering, came to
flourish well.*
* Naville found these trenches still filled with vegetable
mould, and in several of them roots, which gave every
indication of the purpose to which the trenches were
applied. A scene represents seven of the incense sycomores
still growing in their pots, and offered by the queen to the
Majesty of this god Amonrâ of Karnak.
The great heaps of fresh resin were next the objects of special
attention. Hâtshopsîtû gave a bushel made of electrum to gauge the mass
of gum, it being the first time that they had the joy of measuring the
perfumes for Amon, lord of Karnak, master of heaven, and of presenting
to him the wonderful products of Pûanît. Thot, the lord of Hermo-polis,
noted the quantities in writing; Safkhîtâbûi verified the list. Her
Majesty herself prepared from it, with her own hands, a perfumed unguent
for her limbs; she gave forth the smell of the divine dew, her perfume
reached even to Pûanît, her skin became like wrought gold,* and her
countenance shone like the stars in the great festival hall, in the
sight of the whole earth.
* In order to understand the full force of the imagery here
employed, one must remember that the Egyptian artists
painted the flesh of women as light yellow.
Hâtshopsîtû commanded the history of the expedition to be carved on the
wall of the colonnades which lay on the west side of the middle platform
of her funerary chapel: we there see the little fleet with sails
spread, winging its way to the unknown country, its safe arrival at its
destination, the meeting with the natives, the animated palavering, the
consent to exchange freely accorded; and thanks to the minuteness
with which the smallest details have been portrayed, we can as it were
witness, as if on the spot, all the phases of life on board ship, not
only on Egyptian vessels, but, as we may infer, those of other
Oriental nations generally. For we may be tolerably sure that when the
Phoenicians ventured into the distant parts of the Mediterranean, it was
after a similar fashion that they managed and armed their vessels.
[Illustration: 369.jpg SOME OF THE INCENSE TREES BROUGHT FROM PÛANÎT TO
DEÎR EL-BAIIAKÎ]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.
Although the natural features of the Asiatic or Greek coast on which
they effected a landing differed widely from those of Pûanît, the
Phoenician navigators were themselves provided with similar objects of
exchange, and in their commercial dealings with the natives the methods
of procedure of the European traders were doubtless similar to those of
the Egyptians with the barbarians of the Red Sea.
Hâtshopsîtû reigned for at least eight years after this memorable
expedition, and traces of her further activity are to be observed in
every part of the Nile valley. She even turned her attention to the
Delta, and began the task of reorganising this part of her kingdom,
which had been much neglected by her predecessors. The wars between the
Theban princes and the lords of Avaris had lasted over a century, and
during that time no one had had either sufficient initiative or leisure
to superintend the public works, which were more needed here than in any
other part of Egypt. The canals were silted up with mud, the marshes and
the desert had encroached on the cultivated lands, the towns had become
impoverished, and there were some provinces whose population consisted
solely of shepherds and bandits. Hâtshopsîtû desired to remedy these
evils, if only for the purpose of providing a practicable road for her
armies marching to Zalû _en route_ for Syria.*
* This follows from the great inscription at Stabl-Antar,
which is commonly interpreted as proving that the Shepherd-
kings still held sway in Egypt in the reign of Thûtmosis
III., and that they were driven out by him and his aunt. It
seems to me that the queen is simply boasting that she had
repaired the monuments which had been injured by the
Shepherds during the time they sojourned in Egypt, in the
land of Avaris. Up to the present time no trace of these
restorations has been found on the sites. The expedition to
Pûanît being mentioned in lines 13, 14, they must be of
later date than the year IX. of Hâtshopsîtû and Thûtmosis
III.
She also turned her attention to the mines of Sinai, which had not been
worked by the Egyptian kings since the end of the XIIth dynasty. In the
year XVI. an officer of the queens household was despatched to the
Wady Magharah, the site of the ancient works, with orders to inspect the
valleys, examine the veins, and restore there the temple of the goddess
Hâthor; having accomplished his mission, he returned, bringing with
him a consignment of those blue and green stones which were so highly
esteemed by the Egyptians.
Meanwhile, Thûtmosis III. was approaching manhood, and his aunt, the
queen, instead of abdicating in his favour, associated him with herself
more frequently in the external acts of government.*
* The account of the youth of Thûtmosis III., such as
Brugsch made it out to be from an inscription of this king,
the exile of the royal child at Bûto, his long sojourn in
the marshes, his triumphal return, must all be rejected.
Brugsch accepted as actual history a poetical passage where
the king identifies himself with Horus son of Isis, and
goes so far as to attribute to himself the adventures of the
god.
She was forced to yield him precedence in those religious ceremonies
which could be performed by a man only, such as the dedication of one of
the city gates of Ombos, and the foundation and marking out of a temple
at Medinet-Habû; but for the most part she obliged him to remain in
the background and take a secondary place beside her. We are unable to
determine the precise moment when this dual sovereignty came to an end.
It was still existent in the XVIth year of the reign, but it had ceased
before the XXIInd year. Death alone could take the sceptre from the
hands that held it, and Thûtmosis had to curb his impatience for many
a long day before becoming the real master of Egypt. He was about
twenty-five years of age when this event took place, and he immediately
revenged himself for the long repression he had undergone, by
endeavouring to destroy the very remembrance of her whom he regarded as
a usurper. Every portrait of her that he could deface without exposing
himself to being accused of sacrilege was cut away, and he substituted
for her name either that of Thûtmosis I. or of Thûtmosis II.
[Illustration: 372.jpg THUTMOSIS III., FROM HIS STATUE IN THE TURIN
MUSEUM]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Petrie.
A complete political change was effected both at home and abroad from
the first day of his accession to power. Hâtshopsîtû had been averse to
war. During the whole of her reign there had not been a single campaign
undertaken beyond the isthmus of Suez, and by the end of her life she had
lost nearly all that her father had gained in Syria; the people of Kharu
had shaken off the yoke,* probably at the instigation of the king of the
Amorites,** and nothing remained to Egypt of the Asiatic province but
Gaza, Sharûhana,*** and the neighbouring villages. The young king set
out with his army in the latter days of the year XXII. He reached Gaza
on the 3rd of the month of Pakhons, in time to keep the anniversary
of his coronation in that town, and to inaugurate the 24th year of his
reign by festivals in honour of his father Amon.**** They lasted the
usual length of time, and all the departments of State took part in
them, but it was not a propitious moment for lengthy ceremonies.
* E. de Rougé thought that he had discovered, in a slightly
damaged inscription bearing upon the Pûanît expedition, the
mention of a tribute paid by the Lotanû. There is nothing in
the passage cited but the mention of the usual annual dues
paid by the chiefs of Pûanît and of the Ilîm.
** This is at least what may be inferred from the account of
the campaign, where the Prince of Qodshû, a town of the
Amaûru (Amorites), figures at the head of the coalition
formed against Thûtmosis III.
*** This is the conclusion to be adopted from the beginning
of the inscription of Thûtmosis III.: Now, during the
duration of these same years, the country of the Lotanû was
in discord until other times succeeded them, when the people
who were in the town of Sharûhana, from the town of Yûrza,
to the most distant regions of the earth, succeeded in
making a revolt against his Majesty.
**** The account of this campaign has been preserved to us
on a wall adjoining the granite sanctuary at Karnak.
The king left Gaza the following day, the 5th of Pakhons; he marched
but slowly at first, following the usual caravan route, and despatching
troops right and left to levy contributions on the cities of the
Plain--Migdol, Yapu (Jaffa), Lotanû, Ono--and those within reach on the
mountain spurs, or situated within the easily accessible wadys, such as
Sauka (Socho), Hadid, and Harîlu. On the 16th day he had not proceeded
further than Yahmu, where he received information which caused him to
push quickly forward. The lord of Qodshû had formed an alliance with the
Syrian princes on the borders of Naharaim, and had extorted from them
promises of help; he had already gone so far as to summon contingents
from the Upper Orontes, the Litany, and the Upper Jordan, and was
concentrating them at Megiddo, where he proposed to stop the way of the
invading army. Thûtmosis called together his principal officers, and
having imparted the news to them, took counsel with them as to a plan
of attack. Three alternative routes were open to him. The most direct
approached the enemys position on the front, crossing Mount Carmel by
the saddle now known as the Umm el-Fahm; but the great drawback attached
to this route was its being so restricted that the troops would be
forced to advance in too thin a file; and the head of the column would
reach the plain and come into actual conflict with the enemy while the
rear-guard would only be entering the defiles in the neighbourhood
of Aluna. The second route bore a little to the east, crossing the
mountains beyond Dutîna and reaching the plain near Taânach; but it
offered the same disadvantages as the other. The third road ran north
of _Zafîti_, to meet the great highway which cuts the hill-district of
Nablûs, skirting the foot of Tabor near Jenîn, a little to the north of
Megiddo. It was not so direct as the other two, but it was easier for
troops, and the kings generals advised that it should be followed. The
king was so incensed that he was tempted to attribute their prudence to
cowardice. By my life! by the love that Râ hath for me, by the favour
that I enjoy from my master Amon, by the perpetual youth of my nostril
in life and power, My Majesty will go by the way of Aluna, and let him
that will go by the roads of which ye have spoken, and let him that will
follow My Majesty. What will be said among the vile enemies detested of
Râ: Doth not His Majesty go by another way? For fear of us he gives
us a wide berth, they will cry. The kings counsellors did not insist
further. May thy father Amon of Thebes protect thee! they exclaimed;
as for us, we will follow Thy Majesty whithersoever thou goest, as it
befitteth a servant to follow his master. The word of command was given
to the men; Thûtmosis himself led the vanguard, and the whole army,
horsemen and foot-soldiers, followed in single file, wending their way
through the thickets which covered the southern slopes of Mount Carmel.*
* The position of the towns mentioned and of the three roads
has been discussed by E. de Rougé, also by P. de Saulcy, who
fixed the position of Yahmu at El-Kheimeh, and showed that
the Egyptian army must have passed through the defiles of
Umm el-Rahm. Conder disagreed with this opinion in certain
respects, and identified Aluna, Aruna, at first with
Arrabeh, and afterwards with Arraneh; he thought that
Thûtmosis came out upon Megiddo from the south-east, and he
placed Megiddo at Mejeddah, near Beisan, while Tomkins
placed Aruna in the Wady el-Arriân. W. Max Millier seems to
place Yahinu too much to the north, in the neighbourhood of
Jett.
They pitched their camp on the evening of the 19th near Aluna, and on
the morning of the 20th they entered the wild defiles through which it
was necessary to pass in order to reach the enemy. The king had taken
precautionary measures against any possible attempt of the natives to
cut the main column during this crossing of the mountains. His position
might at any moment have become a critical one, had the allies taken
advantage of it and attacked each battalion as it issued on to the plain
before it could re-form. But the Prince of Qodshû, either from ignorance
of his adversarys movements, or confident of victory in the open,
declined to take the initiative. Towards one oclock in the afternoon,
the Egyptians found themselves once more united on the further side of
the range, close to a torrent called the Qina, a little to the south of
Megiddo. When the camp was pitched, Thûtmosis announced his intention of
engaging the enemy on the morrow. A council of war was held to decide
on the position that each corps should occupy, after which the officers
returned to their men to see that a liberal supply of rations was served
out, and to organise an efficient system of patrols. They passed round
the camp to the cry: Keep a good heart: courage! Watch well, watch
well! Keep alive in the camp! The king refused to retire to rest until
he had been assured that the country was quiet, and also the host, both
to south and north. By dawn the next day the whole army was in motion.
It was formed into a single line, the right wing protected by the
torrent, the left extended into the plain, stretching beyond Megiddo
towards the north-west. Thûtmosis and his guards occupied the centre,
standing armed in his chariot of electrum like unto Horus brandishing
his pike, and like Montû the Theban god. The Syrians, who had not
expected such an early attack, were seized with panic, and fled in the
direction of the town, leaving their horses and chariots on the field;
but the citizens, fearing lest in the confusion the Egyptians should
effect an entrance with the fugitives, had closed their gates and
refused to open them. Some of the townspeople, however, let down ropes
to the leaders of the allied party, and drew them up to the top of the
ramparts: and would to heaven that the soldiers of His Majesty had not
so far forgotten themselves as to gather up the spoil left by the vile
enemy! They would then have entered Megiddo forthwith; for while the men
of the garrison were drawing up the Lord of Qodshû and their own prince,
the fear of His Majesty was upon their limbs, and their hands failed
them by reason of the carnage which the royal urous carried into
their ranks. The victorious soldiery were dispersed over the fields,
gathering together the gilded and silvered chariots of the Syrian
chiefs, collecting the scattered weapons and the hands of the slain, and
securing the prisoners; then rallying about the king, they greeted him
with acclamations and filed past to deliver up the spoil. He reproached
them for having allowed themselves to be drawn away from the heat of
pursuit. Had you carried Megiddo, it would have been a favour granted
to me by Râ my father this day; for all the kings of the country being
shut up within it, it would have been as the taking of a thousand towns
to have seized Megiddo. The Egyptians had made little progress in the
art of besieging a stronghold since the times of the XIIth dynasty. When
scaling failed, they had no other resource than a blockade, and even the
most stubborn of the Pharaohs would naturally shrink from the tedium of
such an undertaking. Thûtmosis, however, was not inclined to lose the
opportunity of closing the campaign by a decisive blow, and began the
investment of the town according to the prescribed modes.
[Illustration: 378.jpg AN EGYPTIAN ENCAMPMENT BEFORE A BESIEGED TOWN]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato.
His men were placed under canvas, and working under the protection of
immense shields, supported on posts, they made a ditch around the walls,
strengthening it with a palisade. The king constructed also on the east
side a fort which he called Manakhpirrî-holds-the-Asiatics. Famine
soon told on the demoralised citizens, and their surrender brought about
the submission of the entire country. Most of the countries situated
between the Jordan and the sea--Shunem, Cana, Kinnereth, Hazor, Bedippa,
Laish, Merom, and Acre--besides the cities of the Haurân--Hamath,
Magato, Ashtarôth, Ono-repha, and even Damascus itself--recognised the
suzerainty of Egypt, and their lords came in to the camp to do homage.*
* The names of these towns are inscribed on the lists of
Karnak published by Mariette.
The Syrian losses did not amount to more than 83 killed and 400
prisoners, showing how easily they had been routed; but they had
abandoned considerable supplies, all of which had fallen into the hands
of the victors. Some 724 chariots, 2041 mares, 200 suits of armour, 602
bows, the tent of the Prince of Qodshû with its poles of cypress inlaid
with gold, besides oxen, cows, goats, and more than 20,000 sheep, were
among the spoil. Before quitting the plain of Bsdraelon, the king caused
an official survey of it to be made, and had the harvest reaped. It
yielded 208,000 bushels of wheat, not taking into account what had been
looted or damaged by the marauding soldiery. The return homewards of the
Egyptians must have resembled the exodus of some emigrating tribe rather
than the progress of a regular army
Thûtmosis caused a long list of the vanquished to be engraved on the
walls of the temple which he was building at Karnak, thus affording the
good people of Thebes an opportunity for the first time of reading
on the monuments the titles of the kings Syrian subjects written in
hieroglyphics. One hundred and nineteen names follow each other in
unbroken succession, some of them representing mere villages, while
others denoted powerful nations; the catalogue, however, was not to end
even here. Having once set out on a career of conquest, the Pharaoh had
no inclination to lay aside his arms. From the XXIIth year of his reign
to that of his death, we have a record of twelve military expeditions,
all of which he led in person. Southern Syria was conquered at the
outset--the whole of Kharû as far as the Lake of Grennesareth, and the
Amorite power was broken at one blow.
[Illustration: 380.jpg SOME OF THE PLANTS AND ANIMALS BROUGHT BACK FROM
PUANÎT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.
The three succeeding campaigns consolidated the rule of Egypt in the
country of the Negeb, which lay to the south-west of the Dead Sea, in
Phoenicia, which prudently resigned itself to its fate, and in that part
of Lotanii occupying the northern part of the basin of the Orontes.**
* We know of these three campaigns from the indirect
testimony of the Annals, which end in the year XXIX. with
the mention of the fifth campaign. The only dated one is
referred to the year XXV., and we know of that of the Negeb
only by the _Inscription of Amenemhabî_, 11. 3-5: the
campaign began in the Negeb of Judah, but the king carried
it to Naharaim the same year.
None of these expeditions appear to have been marked by any successes
comparable to the victory at Megiddo, for the coalition of the Syrian
chiefs did not survive the blow which they then sustained; but Qodshû
long remained the centre of resistance, and the successive defeats which
its inhabitants suffered never disarmed for more than a short interval
the hatred which they felt for the Egyptian.
[Illustration: 381.jpg PART OF THE TRIUMPHAL LISTS OF THUTMOSIS III.]
On One Of The Pylons Of The Temple At Karnak. Drawn by
Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
During these years of glorious activity considerable tribute poured in
to both Memphis and Thebes; not only ingots of gold and silver, bars and
blocks of copper and lead, blocks of lapis-lazuli and valuable vases,
but horses, oxen, sheep, goats, and useful animals of every kind, in
addition to all of which we find, as in Hâtshopsîtûs reign, the mention
of rare plants and shrubs brought back from countries traversed by the
armies in their various expeditions. The Theban priests and _savants_
exhibited much interest in such curiosities, and their royal pupil gave
orders to his generals to collect for their benefit all that appeared
either rare or novel. They endeavoured to acclimatise the species or
the varieties likely to be useful, and in order to preserve a record of
these experiments, they caused a representation of the strange plants or
animals to be drawn on the walls of one of the chapels which they were
then building to one of their gods. These pictures may still be seen
there in interminable lines, portraying the specimens brought from
the Upper Lotanû in the XXVth year of Thûtmosis, and we are able to
distinguish, side by side with many plants peculiar to the regions of
the Euphrates, others having their habitat in the mountains and valleys
of tropical Africa.
This return to an aggressive policy on the part of the Egyptians, after
the weakness they had exhibited during the later period of Hâtshopsîtûs
regency, seriously disconcerted the Asiatic sovereigns. They had vainly
flattered themselves that the invasion of Thûtmosis I. was merely the
caprice of an adventurous prince, and they hoped that when his love of
enterprise had expended itself, Egypt would permanently withdraw within
her traditional boundaries, and that the relations of Elam with Babylon,
Carchemish with Qodshû, and the barbarians of the Persian Gulf with the
inhabitants of the Iranian table-land would resume their former course.
This vain delusion was dispelled by the advent of a new Thûtmosis, who
showed clearly by his actions that he intended to establish and maintain
the sovereignty of Egypt over the western dependencies, at least, of
the ancient Chaldæan empire, that is to say, over the countries which
bordered the middle course of the Euphrates and the coasts of the
Mediterranean. The audacity of his marches, the valour of his men, the
facility with which in a few hours he had crushed the assembled forces
of half Syria, left no room to doubt that he was possessed of personal
qualities and material resources sufficient to carry out projects of
the most ambitious character. Babylon, enfeebled by the perpetual
dissensions of its Cossæan princes, was no longer in a position to
contest with him the little authority she still retained over the
peoples of Naharaim or of Coele-Syria; protected by the distance which
separated her from the Nile valley, she preserved a sullen neutrality,
while Assyria hastened to form a peaceful alliance with the invading
power. Again and again its kings sent to Thûtmosis presents in
proportion to their resources, and the Pharaoh naturally treated their
advances as undeniable proofs of their voluntary vassalage. Each time
that he received from them a gift of metal or lapis-lazuli, he proudly
recorded their tribute in the annals of his reign; and if, in exchange,
he sent them some Egyptian product, it was in smaller quantities, as
might be expected from a lord to his vassal.*
* The tribute of Assûr is mentioned in this way under the
years XXIII. and XXIV. The presents sent by the Pharaoh in
return are not mentioned in any Egyptian text, but there is
frequent reference to them in the Tel el-Amarna tablets. It
may be mentioned here that the name of Nineveh does not
occur on the Egyptian monuments, but only that of the town
Nîi, in which Champollion wrongly recognised the later
capital of Assyria.
Sometimes there would accompany the convoy, surrounded by an escort of
slaves and women, some princess, whom the king would place in his harem
or graciously pass on to one of his children; but when, on the other
hand, an even distant relative of the Pharaoh was asked in marriage for
some king on the banks of the Tigris or Euphrates, the request was met
with a disdainful negative: the daughters of the Sun were of too noble
a race to stoop to such alliances, and they would count it a humiliation
to be sent in marriage to a foreign court.
[Illustration: 384.jpg SOME OF THE OBJECTS CARRIED IN TRIBUTE TO THE
SYRIANS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Champollion.
Free transit on the main road which ran diagonally through Kharû was
ensured by fortresses constructed at strategic points,* and from this
time forward Thûtmosis was able to bring the whole force of his army
to bear upon both Coele-Syria and Naharaim.** He encamped, in the year
XXVII., on the table-land separating the Afrîn and the Orontes from the
Euphrates, and from that centre devastated the district of Ûânît,***
which lay to the west of Aleppo; then crossing the water of Naharaim
in the neighbourhood of Carchemish, he penetrated into the heart of
Mitanni.
* The castle, for instance, near Megiddo, previously
referred to, which, after having contributed to the siege of
the town, probably served to keep it in subjection.
** The accounts of the campaigns of Thûtmosis III. have been
preserved in the Annals in a very mutilated condition, the
fragments of which were discovered at different times. They
are nothing but extracts from an official account, made for
Amon and his priests.
*** The province of the Tree Ûanû; cf. with this designation
the epithet Shad Erini, mountain of the cedar tree,
which the Assyrians bestowed on the Amanus.
The following year he reappeared in the same region. Tunipa, which had
made an obstinate resistance, was taken, together with its king, and 329
of his nobles were forced to yield themselves prisoners. Thûtmosis with
a joyous heart was carrying them away captive, when it occurred to him
that the district of Zahi, which lay away for the most part from the
great military highroads, was a tempting prey teeming with spoil. The
barns were stored with wheat and barley, the cellars were filled with
wine, the harvest was not yet gathered in, and the trees bent under the
weight of their fruit. Having pillaged Senzaûrû on the Orontes,* he
made his way to the westwards through the ravine formed by the Ishahr
el-Kebîr, and descended suddenly on the territory of Arvad. The towns
once more escaped pillage, but Thutmosis destroyed the harvests,
plundered the orchards, carried off the cattle, and pitilessly wasted
the whole of the maritime plain.
* Senzaûrû was thought by Ebers to be the double Tyre.
Brugsch considered it to be Tyre itself. It is, I believe,
the Sizara of classical writers, the Shaizar of the Arabs,
and is mentioned in one of the Tel el-Amarna tablets in
connection with Nîi.
There was such abundance within the camp that the men were continually
getting drunk, and spent their time in anointing themselves with oil,
which they could do only in Egypt at the most solemn festivals. They
returned to Syria in the year XXX., and their good fortune again
favoured them. The stubborn Qodshû was harshly dealt with; Simyra and
Arvad, which hitherto had held their own, now opened their gates to him;
the lords of Upper Lotanû poured in their contributions without delay,
and gave up their sons and brothers as hostages. In the year XXXI., the
city of Anamut in Tikhisa, on the shores of Lake Msrana, yielded in its
turn;* on the 3rd of Pakhons, the anniversary of his coronation, the
Lotanû renewed their homage to him in person.
* The site of the Tikhisa country is imperfectly defined.
Nisrana was seemingly applied to the marshy lake into which
the Koweik flows, and it is perhaps to be found in the name
Kin-nesrîn. In this case Tikhisa would be the country near
the lake; the district of the Grseco-Roruan Chalkis is
situated on the right of the military road.
The return of the expedition was a sort of triumphal procession. At
every halting-place the troops found quarters and provisions prepared
for them, bread and cakes, perfumes, oil, wine, and honey being provided
in such quantities that they were obliged on their departure to leave
the greater part behind them. The scribes took advantage of this
peaceful state of affairs to draw up minute accounts of the products of
Lotanû--corn, barley, millet, fruits, and various kinds of oil--prompted
doubtless by the desire to arrive at a fairly just apportionment of
the tribute. Indeed, the results of the expedition were considered so
satisfactory that they were recorded on a special monument dedicated in
the palace at Thebes. The names of the towns and peoples might change
with every war, but the spoils suffered no diminution. In the year
XXXIII., the kingdoms situated to the west of the Euphrates were so
far pacified that Thutmosis was able without risk to carry his arms to
Mesopotamia. He entered the country by the fords of Carchemish, near to
the spot where his grandfather, Thutmosis I., had erected his stele half
a century previously. He placed another beside this, and a third to the
eastward to mark the point to which he had extended the frontier of his
empire.. The Mitanni, who exercised a sort of hegemony over the whole of
Naharaim, were this time the objects of his attack. Thirty-two of their
towns fell one after another, their kings were taken captive and the
walls of their cities were razed, without any serious resistance. The
battalions of the enemy were dispersed at the first shock, and Pharaoh
pursued them for the space of a mile, without one of them daring to
look behind him, for they thought only of escape, and fled before him
like a flock of goats. Thutmosis pushed forward as far certainly as the
Balikh, and perhaps on to the Khabur or even to the Hermus; and as he
approached the frontier, the king of Singar, a vassal of Assyria, sent
him presents of lapis-lazuli.
When this prince had retired, another chief, the lord of the Great
Kkati, whose territory had not even been threatened by the invaders,
deemed it prudent to follow the example of the petty princes of the
plain of the Euphrates, and despatched envoys to the Pharaoh bearing
presents of no great value, but testifying to his desire to live on good
terms with Egypt. Still further on, the inhabitants of Nîi begged the
kings acceptance of a troop of slaves and two hundred and sixty mares;
he remained among them long enough to erect a stele commemorating his
triumph, and to indulge in one of those extensive hunts which were the
delight of Oriental monarchs. The country abounded in elephants. The
soldiers were employed as beaters, and the king and his court succeeded
in killing one hundred and twenty head of big game, whose tusks were
added to the spoils. These numbers indicate how the extinction of such
animals in these parts was brought about. Beyond these regions, again,
the sheikhs of the Lamnaniû came to meet the Pharaoh. They were a poor
people, and had but little to offer, but among their gifts were some
birds of a species unknown to the Egyptians, and two geese, with which,
however, His Majesty deigned to be satisfied.*
* The campaign of the year XXXI. It is mentioned in the
_Annals of Thulmosis III._, 11. 17-27; the reference to the
elephant-hunt occurs only in the _Inscription of
Amenemhabi_, 11. 22, 23; an allusion to the defeat of the
kings of Mitanni is found in a mutilated inscription from
the tomb of Manakhpirrîsonbû. It was probably on his return
from this campaign that Thûtmosis caused the great list to
be engraved which, while it includes a certain number of
names assigned to places beyond the Euphrates, ought
necessarily to contain the cities of the Mitanni.
END OF VOL. IV.