CHAPTER I._Buried Cities and Bible Countries

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BURIED CITIES AND BIBLE COUNTRIES.

[Illustration:

_Frontispiece._

RUINS OF A GALILEAN SYNAGOGUE (KEFR BIRIM).

(_By favour of the Palestine Exploration Fund._)]

BURIED CITIES AND BIBLE COUNTRIES

GEORGE ST CLAIR, F.G.S.

Member of the Society of Biblical Archæology;

Member of the Anthropological Institute, and Ten Years Lecturer

for the Palestine Exploration Fund.

Second Edition

London

Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Ltd.

Imported by

Thomas Whittaker

2 & 3 Bible House

New York

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

PREFACE 9

I. EGYPT AND THE BIBLE--

1. The Rosetta Stone. Decipherment of the Egyptian

Hieroglyphs 11

2. Kings and Dynasties of Egypt 16

3. The Finding of the Mummies 19

4. Egyptians in Palestine before the Exodus. Wars with

the Hittites 27

5. Semites in Egypt before the Oppression. The

_Tell-el-Amarna_ Tablets 40

6. Israel in Egypt 47

7. Buried Cities 54

8. Biblical Sites in Egypt 57

9. The Route of the Exodus 76

10. The Wilderness Wanderings 81

II. PALESTINE EXPLORATION--

1. Palestine generally 86

2. Physical Features of Palestine 88

3. The Dead Sea 99

4. The Cities of the Plain 104

5. “Lot’s Wife” 112

6. The Natural History of Palestine, as dependent on its

Physical Geography 114

7. The Topographical Survey of Western Palestine 121

8. Israel’s Wars and Worship considered in connection with

the Physical Features of the Country--The Conquest and

Wars 125

9. The Sacred Sites 161

10. The Method of the Survey, and Incidents of the Work 171

11. The East of Jordan 183

III. JERUSALEM-- 203

1. The City as it is 204

2. The Sieges of the City and Fortunes of its Walls 220

3. Excavations in Jerusalem 227

4. Jerusalem as it Was: The Hills and Valleys 249

5. Jerusalem as it Was: The Walls and Gates of the City 259

6. Incidents of the History better realized now 277

7. Sieges of the City understood through improved

Knowledge of the Topography 293

IV. GOSPEL HISTORY IN THE LIGHT OF PALESTINE EXPLORATION--

1. Christ in the Provinces 300

2. Christ in the Capital 325

V. MESOPOTAMIA AND THE BIBLE--

1. Assyria 340

2. Babylonia 357

3. How the Writings were Read 370

THE VANDALISM OF ORIENTALS 375

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

Ruins of Synagogue _Frontispiece._

Mummies of Seti I. and Rameses II. 25

Hittite Portraits 32

Hittite Inscription 37

Map of Nile Delta and Sinai Desert _To face_ 57

Meridional Section through Palestine 90

Geological Sketch-Map 95

Generalised Geological Section 97

Map of Palestine _To face_ 125

Site of Gath 154

Plan of Jerusalem 205

Plan of Noble Sanctuary _To face_ 212

Robinson’s Arch--the Spring Stone 228

Robinson’s Arch--Section 230

Wilson’s Arch 232

South Wall of Noble Sanctuary 234

Deep Shaft at south-east Angle 235

Ancient Pottery--Jar Handles 236

Ancient Pottery--Vase 236

Masons’ Marks 237

East Wall of Noble Sanctuary 239

Plan of Siloam Tunnel 242

Shafts at Virgin’s Fountain 245

Rock-Site of Jerusalem 251

Schick’s Line of Second Wall 263

Nehemiah’s South Wall (St Clair) 268

Outline Plan of Jerusalem 334

Map of Mesopotamia _To face_ 340

Assyrian Winged Bull 347

Black Obelisk 348

Sennacherib before Lachish 350

Behistun Rock Inscription 371

PREFACE.

This book contains a description of some of the most important

modern discoveries bearing upon the Bible, the selection being made

to meet the wants of those who have no time to follow the course of

exploration, and no taste for technical details. The preparation of

such a volume has often been urged upon me by those who have listened

to my lectures on Palestine Exploration.

In such a work accuracy is of more value than originality; and

therefore I have not hesitated to gather information from the best

sources, and to use it freely. The authorities and sources will be

found in a list at the end of each chapter; and thus, while due

acknowledgment is made, the reader will know where to go to for further

information.

In one chapter, indeed--that relating to the topography of Jerusalem

in Scripture times--I do venture to state my own views, and give my

own map of localities; but it is only because my special study of the

subject seems to justify my confidence, and compels me to differ from

other writers.

I desire to express my special obligation to the Committee of the

Palestine Exploration Fund for allowing the use of their plates for the

illustrations of this volume; to Herr Schick of Jerusalem, for leave

to use his plan of the Second Wall, to Wilfrid H. Hudleston, M.A.,

F.R.S., for the geological sketch-map and section, and to W. Harry

Rylands, F.S.A., Secretary to the Society of Biblical Archæology, for

the special favour of an original drawing from one of the Hamath stones.

GEORGE ST CLAIR.

[Illustration:

To face p. 72

SKETCH MAP

shewing position of Land and Sea during the PLUVIAL period.

_By permission of the Committee of the Palestine Exploration

Fund._ Edwr^d Weller lith.

_London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co._]

BURIED CITIES AND BIBLE COUNTRIES.

CHAPTER I.

EGYPT AND THE BIBLE.

I. _The Rosetta Stone: Decipherment of the Egyptian Hieroglyphs._

To all who are interested in the ancient history of mankind, the

decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs is a fact of the highest

importance. As early as the fourth dynasty, and probably as early

as the first, the Egyptians possessed the art of writing; but for

thousands of years before the present century the hieroglyphs had

become a dead language, which nobody could read. Temples and tombs in

the valley of the Nile contained records which might be of surpassing

interest; but the clue to them was lost, and the riddle remained

unguessed. At length a discovery was made which began to open the

way, and has proved to be one of the most remarkable events in the

intellectual history of Europe.

In the year 1799, when Napoleon’s army was in Egypt, a French artillery

officer, by name Boussard, while engaged in certain works on the

redoubt of St Julian, at Rosetta, discovered a large slab of black

granite, bearing a triple inscription. The first or upper part was in

hieroglyphs, the middle one was in the enchorial or popular character,

and the lower one in Greek. The hieroglyphic text was partly broken

away and lost, but the other two were nearly complete. The Greek text

showed that the monument was designed by the priests of Memphis, in

honour of the Pharaohs, and particularly of Ptolemy Epiphanes, who was

reigning at the time when the decree was made (198 B.C.). The

monument stood originally in the temple of Tum, the god of the setting

sun; and there were to be copies of it in other places.

Among other things, the priests say of Ptolemy that “he was pious

towards the gods, he ameliorated the life of man, he was full of

generous piety, he showed forth with all his might his sentiments of

humanity.” He lightened taxation, so that the people might have plenty;

he released prisoners and the defendants in law suits; he ordered

that the revenues of the temples, whether in provisions or money,

should remain what they had been. As to the priests, he commanded

that they should pay no new promotion fees, that those who had been

obliged to make an annual voyage to Alexandria should be free from

the obligation; and that what had been neglected in temple services

should be re-established. Naturally the priests were grateful, and they

ordered this testimonial of recognition to be engraved upon stone, in

the sacred characters of Egypt, in the vernacular, and in Greek.

All this was speedily made out from the Greek text, and it was thus

clear that the other two forms of the inscription must be of the same

purport. Here then at last was a key to the long-lost language of the

hieroglyphs. The value of the monument was at once perceived, and after

having been copied it was set apart and packed up. The victory of the

English at Alexandria, and the surrender of the city in 1801, placed

the Rosetta Stone in the hands of Mr W. R. Hamilton, the British

Commissioner, one of the most distinguished and zealous scholars of the

day. The treasure was despatched to England, and has found a fitting

resting-place in the British Museum.

This seemingly insignificant stone (says Baron Bunsen) shares, with

the great and splendid work, “La Description de l’Egypte,” the honour

of being the only result of vital importance to universal history,

accruing from a vast expedition, a brilliant conquest, and a bloody

combat for the possession of Egypt. The men of science and letters who

accompanied Napoleon’s army in Egypt, employed themselves actively

in collecting the precious materials for that great work on the

antiquities, the topography, natural history, &c., of that wonderful

country. When the work appeared, the monuments that it contained, and

the learned commentaries by which they were accompanied, aroused the

general attention of the European public to Egyptian research, which

had been previously all but abandoned. This collection comprised

not only the most important monuments of Egypt, but also the great

funereal papyrus, and other Egyptian records of the highest value.

But the monuments were mute, the hieroglyphics could not be read, and

the riddle of the sphinx still remained unsolved. Attempts had been

made, but without much success, and it was the Rosetta Stone which,

in reality, unloosed the tongue of both monuments and records, and

rendered them accessible to historical investigation. This stone was

the mighty agency which, by the light it shed on the mysteries of the

Egyptian language and writing, was to enable science to penetrate

through the darkness of thousands of years, extend the limits of

history, and even open up a possibility of unfolding the primeval

secrets of the human race.

As engraved copies of the Rosetta Stone became common in

Europe--for which object the English scholars had provided without

delay--confidence was entertained that the hieroglyphs would be

deciphered. One of the earliest workers was Dr Thomas Young.

However (says Mariette), we must not imagine that the deciphering of

hieroglyphs by means of the Rosetta Stone was accomplished at the first

trial, and without groping in the dark. On the contrary, the savants

tried for twenty years without much success. At last Champollion

appeared. Prior to him people thought each of the letters that compose

hieroglyphic writing was a _symbol_; that is, that in every single

one of these letters a complete _idea_ was expressed. The merit of

Champollion consisted in proving that Egyptian writing contains signs

which express _sounds_; in other words, that it is _alphabetic_. He

noticed that wherever in the Greek text the proper name _Ptolemy_ is

met with, there may be found, at a corresponding place of the Egyptian

text, a certain number of signs enclosed within an elliptic ring.

From this he concluded (1) that the names of kings were indicated,

in the hieroglyphic system, in a sort of escutcheon, which he styled

a _cartouche_; (2) that the signs contained in the cartouche must be

letter for letter the name of Ptolemy (Ptolemaios).

Even supposing the vowels omitted, Champollion was already in

possession of five letters--P.T.L.M.S. Again, Champollion knew,

according to a second Greek inscription, engraved on an obelisk of

Philae, that on this obelisk a hieroglyphic cartouche is visible which

must be that of Cleopatra. If his first reading was correct, the P,

the L, and the T of Ptolemy must be found again in the second proper

name; while, at the same time, this second proper name would furnish K

and R. Although very imperfect as yet, the alphabet thus revealed to

Champollion, when applied to other cartouches, put him in possession of

nearly all the other consonants.

Thenceforth he had no need to hesitate concerning the _pronunciation_

of signs; for, from the day this proof was furnished, he could certify

that he possessed the Egyptian alphabet. But now remained the language;

for pronouncing words is nothing, if we know not what they mean. Here

Champollion’s genius could soar. He perceived that his alphabet,

drawn from proper names and applied to words of the language, simply

furnished _Coptic_. Now Coptic, in its turn, is a language which,

without being so well explored as Greek, had for a long time been

not less accessible. (It was a spoken language until the sixteenth

century, and three spoken dialects remained, sufficiently resembling

the old Egyptian to enable all the grammatical forms and structure to

be examined.) Therefore the veil was completely removed. The Egyptian

language was only Coptic written in hieroglyphs; or, to speak more

correctly, Coptic is only the language of the ancient Pharaohs,

written in Greek letters. The rest may be inferred. From sign to sign

Champollion really proceeded from the known to the unknown, and soon

the illustrious father of Egyptology could lay the foundations of this

beautiful science, which has for its object the interpretation of the

hieroglyphs.

Further, as remarked by Dr Birch, Egyptologists have patiently traced

word after word, through several thousands of texts and inscriptions,

until they have found its correct meaning. It was ascertained at

length that almost every word consists of two portions--hieroglyphs to

represent the sound, followed by hieroglyphs expressing its general or

specific meaning. Provided with these materials the enquiry advanced.

The result is that we are gradually recovering a knowledge of the

history of Egypt and the religion of its people, from a time long

anterior to the birth of Moses down to the latest period of the empire.

The hieroglyphs reveal a rich literature, including not only the annals

of the empire, but books on ethics, romances, works on mathematics,

medicine, morals, legal and other reports; while the great religious

work is the Book of the Dead.

[_Authorities and Sources_:--“Egypt’s Place in Universal

History.” By Christian C. J. Bunsen. “The Monuments of Upper

Egypt.” By Auguste Mariette-Bey. “The Monumental History of

Egypt.” Rede Lecture. By S. Birch, LL.D.]

2. _Kings and Dynasties of Egypt._

It will be useful to give here a table of Egyptian Dynasties, so that

when we come to speak of Israel in Egypt the reader may have some

idea of the long antecedent history of the Empire, and the political

circumstances of the time. Unfortunately we must be content at present

with approximate dates, for the records of the Egyptians are not dated,

and the chronology is but very imperfectly known.

_Table of the Egyptian Dynasties._[1]

+---------------------+-------------+-------------+---------+---------+

| | | Name. |to |to |

+---------------------+-------------+-------------+---------+---------+

| THE OLD EMPIRE. |

| |

| | | Assouan | 3703 | 4450 |

| | | Medineh | 3358 | 4000 |

| | | Medineh | 3249 | 3700 |

| |

| THE MIDDLE EMPIRE. |

| |

| |

| THE SHEPHERD KINGS. |

| |

| XV. Hyksos |Tanis (Zoan) | San | 2214 | 2325 |

| XVI. {Hyksos |Tanis | San | ... | 2050 |

| {Diospolitan |Thebes | Luxor, &c. | ... | ... |

| XVII. {Hyksos |Tanis | San | ... | 1800 |

| {Diospolitan |Thebes | Luxor, &c. | ... | ... |

| |

| THE NEW EMPIRE. |

| |

| XXI. Tanite |Tanis | San | 1100 | 1100 |

| XXIII. Tanite |Tanis | San | 766 | 810 |

| XXVII. Persian |Persepolis | ... | 527 | 525 |

| | | Român | 399 | 408 |

+---------------------+-------------+-------------+---------+---------+

In the time of Moses the Egyptian power had already passed its zenith

and begun to decay. There had been an Old Empire, with the City of

_This_ for its first capital and Menes as its first king. Dynasty had

succeeded dynasty, during perhaps two thousand years, and the capital

had been changed several times, when the Middle Empire came in, and the

kings ruled from Thebes and afterwards from Xois. There had now been

fourteen dynasties altogether; and the power of the kingdom was so

far weakened that it was unable to keep out the invader. The Shepherd

Kings, coming from Midian, or perhaps from Mesopotamia, established

themselves in the Delta, and held possession for several centuries.

Their conquest, however, did not extend to Upper Egypt, and so the

native dynasties reigned contemporaneously, enthroned at Thebes, while

the Hyksos kings were seated at Zoan.

It was probably towards the close of the Hyksos period that Joseph was

made governor of Egypt, under the latest of the Shepherd Kings. The

seventeenth dynasty saw the last of these foreigners, and after their

expulsion the New Empire began, near the end of the eighteenth century

before Christ. The eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties included several

monarchs of great renown; and as the Israelitish sojourn falls chiefly

within this period, it will be useful to give here a chronological list.

_Monarchs of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties, with approximate

dates, according to Brugsch._

Eighteenth Dynasty. B. C.

Aahmes, Amosis; its founder 1700

Amenhotep I. (Amenophis) 1666

Thothmes I. (Thotmosis) 1633

Thothmes II. and his sister-wife Hatshepsu 1600

Thothmes III.

Amenhotep II., Son of Thothmes III. 1566

Thothmes IV. 1533

Amenhotep III., Son of Queen Mutemna 1500

Amenhotep IV., afterwards called Khuenaten 1466

Nineteenth Dynasty.

Rameses I. 1400

Seti I. (Sethos) Menephtah 1366

Rameses II. (Sesostris) Miamun 1333

Menephtah II. (Menepthes) 1300

Seti II. Menephtah III., son of Menephtah II. 1266

Setnakht-Merer-Miamun II. 1233

Rameses II. was the Pharaoh of the Oppression; and the Israelites left

Egypt in the reign of his successor, Menephtah.

3. _The Finding of the Mummies._

In 1878 the Khedive Said Pasha authorised Professor Maspero to found

a Museum at Boulak (a suburb of Cairo), for the reception of all the

antiquities found in the country and calculated to throw light on

Egyptian history. Under the successive direction of Professor Maspero

and Professor Grébaut the collection has become one of the most

valuable and most instructive in the world.

In 1881 the museum was enriched by the most important archæological

discovery of modern times. On the 5th of July of that year a cave in

the plain of Deir el-Bahari, near Thebes, was explored, and its rich

contents were bodily removed to Boulak. They consisted of mummies of

kings, queens, and princesses, and other persons of distinction, with

numerous articles of clothing, papyri, vases, &c. Hieratic inscriptions

on the coffins of several of the kings gave the date of the transfer

of the bodies from their original sepulchres in the valley of Bab el

Malook, near Luxor, to this pit or tomb, and also of the periodical

inspection to which the depôt was subjected. The cave is proved to be

the tomb of the Priest-Kings of Amen, the usurpers of the throne of the

Ramessides, from Her-Hor to Pinotem III.

The reason for bringing so many kings of different dynasties into this

tomb is not accurately known; but the following circumstances afford

ground for reasonable conjecture.

“After Rameses II., the last great warrior of Egypt, had laid aside

his javelin and bow, in the fourteenth century before Christ, luxury

and indolence were followed by their usual concomitants, poverty and

discontent. The artizans and labourers, instead of joining in one

common effort to improve the condition of the country, had recourse

to violence and robbery. The pillage of the tombs for the sake of

their precious contents became a common practice, and in the reign

of Rameses IX., of the twentieth dynasty, about the eleventh century

before the birth of Christ, an inquiry was instituted to ascertain the

extent of the depredations. The robbers were arrested and arraigned,

and several of them were condemned to die by their own hands--a common

mode of punishment in ancient Egypt. It was discovered likewise that

the tombs of the Pharaohs, which had hitherto been respected, were,

like the rest, subjected to danger.”

The preservers, however, were at work as well as the robbers; the

priests of the Egyptian Church appear to have shielded the remains of

many of the great kings, by hiding them so effectually that they were

never found again until the third quarter of the present century.

“It was an extraordinary discovery, not only for Egyptian archæology,

but likewise for Egyptian history, and the fortunate discoverer was

Professor Maspero, chief conservator of the Egyptian Museum at Boulak.

The discovery came about in the following manner. For some years past,

so far back as the time of Mariette, it had been observed that objects

of value and interest, tablets, papyri, &c., had found their way into

the museums of Europe, and some into private hands. There exists a law

in Egypt, that tombs and cemeteries are not to be explored except by

direct permission of the Khedive, and all traffic in objects of archaic

interest is strictly forbidden. Nevertheless a kind of contraband

was in existence, the actual source of which was unknown. Another

observation had also been made, namely, that the large majority of the

objects were of about the same period, and seemed to have a common

origin. When His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, was in Egypt,

he was presented by a certain Mustapha Aga of Thebes, with a valuable

papyrus, which the Prince has very generously deposited in the British

Museum. It was subsequently ascertained that the document in question

is only half a papyrus (this curious discovery is due to the acute

research of Miss Amelia B. Edwards, one of the Honorary Secretaries of

the Egypt Exploration Fund), the other, the hinder half, being in the

possession of the Museum of the Louvre at Paris. The Prince of Wales’

papyrus was written for a queen, Notem Maut, related to the great

priest-king of the twenty-first dynasty, Her-Hor--possibly his wife,

but more probably his mother. Another, and a remarkably fine papyrus,

was bought by Colonel Campbell in 1876, for the large sum of £400. The

latter had evidently been obtained from the mummy of the High Priest

Pinotem, descendant of Her-Hor. The coincidence was striking, and led

Professor Maspero to the conclusion that a tomb of the priest-kings

was in the possession of the Arabs of the district of Thebes, a class

of persons who live in the tombs, and gain a living out of the produce

of their search. Suspicion quickly pointed to the parties implicated.

The chief, Ahmed Ab-der-Rassoul, one of five brothers engaged in the

traffic of antikas (antiques), was arrested, and shortly afterwards

another of the brothers made a confession and conducted the authorities

to the hiding-place in which all these treasures were concealed.

“Near the site of an old temple, known as Deir el-Bahari, at the foot

of a rugged mass of precipitous rock, so hidden from view that it might

be passed by a hundred times without being seen, was a perpendicular

shaft, 35 feet deep, and 6 feet in diameter. At the bottom of the

shaft, in its western corner, was an opening a little more than 2 feet

high and 5 feet wide, the entrance of a narrow passage tunnelled in

the rock. This passage or tunnel led due west for 25 feet, and then

turned abruptly to the north for 200 feet, ending in an oblong chamber

260 feet long, the entire length of the tunnel being nearly 500 feet.

Throughout the whole of this extensive area the floor was encumbered

with coffins and funereal gear, packed together so closely that for

some distance it was necessary to crawl upon hands and feet to make

any progress. The collection within this strange hiding-place consisted

of sarcophagi, coffins, mummies, funereal furniture, and funereal

ornaments, the gathered fragments of four or five dynasties, more

particularly the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twenty-first,

comprehending a period of more than five hundred years, and ranging

between the eighteenth and twelfth centuries before Christ....

“It was a hot forty-eight hours’ work, under the burning sun of Egypt,

to bring all those objects to the surface, and a toilsome labour,

enlisting the services of three hundred Arabs, to convey them to Luxor,

and subsequently to pile them on the deck of the Museum steamer which

had journeyed up the river to receive them. The passage down the river

partook of the character of a funeral ovation: women with dishevelled

hair ran along the banks uttering shrieks and funereal chants, others

threw dust upon their heads, men discharged guns, and the funeral of a

defunct monarch of to-day could not have excited more apparent emotion.”

The coffins and mummies included the following:--

RASKENEN, king of Upper Egypt, a descendant of the old Theban

royal race, but at this time tributary to the Hyksos or Shepherd kings.

According to the Sallier papyrus in the British Museum, he quarrelled

with the Hyksos monarch Apopi, in reference to the cession of an

important well. This brought about the overthrow and expulsion of the

Hyksos, who had ruled the country for five centuries. According to the

same authority, Joseph arrived in Egypt during the reign of the Pharaoh

Nub (B.C. 1730), and rose to honour under Apopi.

AAHMES I., founder of the eighteenth dynasty.

AMENHOTEP I. (_Amenophis_), coffin and mummy.

THOTHMES I.--The coffin was occupied by the mummy of a priest-king,

Pinotem, of the twenty-first dynasty. The mummy of Thothmes was not

found.

The first known representation of a horse occurs on a monument of this

reign; and it is supposed that the horse was introduced into Egypt from

Asia about this time.

THOTHMES II.--The coffin and mummy were both found. Thothmes

II. reigned but a short time.

THOTHMES III., one of the most famous of Egyptian kings. He

continued his predecessors’ offensive movements against the Hyksos

and their allies, and extended his conquests as far as the Tigris.

In his reign Egypt was at the pinnacle of its greatness. The walls

of his magnificent temple at Karnak are covered with inscriptions

recounting his triumphs, and giving a list of the countries and peoples

conquered by him. A stela of black granite found at Karnac, and now in

the Egyptian National Museum, contains a poem in celebration of the

victories of this king. The coffin and mummy found were broken.

HATSHEPSU, the great woman-king, sister and wife of Thothmes

II. Becoming regent for her younger brother, Thothmes III., she assumed

a king’s dress and masculine style. Neither the coffin nor the mummy

were found. But it was the practice of the Egyptians in embalming to

take out the intestines and preserve them separately; and the liver of

Hatshepsu was discovered enclosed in a cabinet of wood, inlaid with

ivory, which was marked with her name.

RAMESES I., founder of the nineteenth dynasty, was found

placed in a coffin of the fashion of the twenty-first dynasty, from

which the name of the original owner had been carefully scraped off.

SETI I., his successor (coffin and mummy). The superb alabaster

sarcophagus of this monarch was already in the Soane Museum, in

Lincoln’s Inn Fields. When Belzoni discovered it in 1817, in the

original sepulchre in the valley of the kings at Thebes, he was

astonished to find the mummy and coffin gone. When the mummy of this

Pharaoh was unrolled it was found that the body was long, fleshless,

of a yellow-black colour, and had the arms crossed upon the breast.

The head was covered with a mask of fine linen, blackened with bitumen,

which it was necessary to remove with scissors. This operation brought

to view the most beautiful mummy-head ever seen in the museum. The

sculptors of Thebes and Abydos did not flatter this Pharaoh when they

gave him that delicate, sweet, smiling profile which is known to

travellers. After a lapse of thirty-two centuries the mummy retains

the same expression which characterised the features of the living

man. Seti I. must have died at an advanced age. The head is shaven,

the eyebrows are white, the condition of the body points to more

than three-score years of life; thus confirming the opinion of the

learned, who have attributed a long reign to this king. Seti I. built

the Hall of Columns in the Great Temple of Ammon, at Karnac. There

exist numerous remains also at Koorneh, Abydos, and elsewhere, of the

extensive and magnificent buildings which he erected with the aid of

the conquered Semites, among whom the Israelites must probably be

included. During his reign a great canal, the first of its kind, was

completed, connecting the Nile with the Red Sea.

[Illustration: SETI I.]

RAMESES II., the renowned soldier, son of Seti I., known to

the Greeks as Sesostris. The oppression of the Israelites, probably

begun by Seti I., was continued under Rameses II. In the sixth year

of his reign, however, Moses was born. The mummy of Rameses II. was

found deposited in a coffin of the twenty-first dynasty, like that of

Rameses I. This gave rise to doubts as to which particular Rameses

was enclosed, but on unwrapping the mummy an inscription was found,

explaining that the original coffin had been accidentally broken, and

leaving no doubt that this was Rameses II. Most striking, when compared

with the mummy of Seti I., is the astonishing resemblance between

father and son. The nose, mouth, chin, all the features are the same,

but in the father they are more refined than in the son. Rameses II.

was over six feet in height, and we see by the breadth of his chest

and the squareness of his shoulders that he must have been a man of

great bodily strength. Professor Maspero, in his official report,

describes the body as that of a vigorous and robust old man, with white

and well-preserved teeth, white hair and eyebrows, long and slender

hands and feet, stained with henna, and ears pierced for the reception

of ear-rings. Rameses II. reigned sixty-six years, and was nearly a

hundred years old at the time of his death. He exhibited great zeal as

a builder, and was a patron of science and art. It was he who built the

Ramesseum at Thebes, and presented it with a library. He also built the

Pylons and Hall of Columns of the Temple of Luxor, and a score of minor

temples in Egypt and Nubia, and made the marvellous rock-cut temples at

Abousimbel.

[Illustration: RAMESES II.]

Rameses II. was succeeded by his thirteenth son, Meneptah II., who

continued the oppression of the Israelites, and pursued them when they

were escaping.

Besides all these monarchs, there were found in the strange repository

at Deir el-Bahari, coffins and mummies of Rameses III. (of the

twentieth dynasty), the last of the great warrior kings of Egypt,

Pinotem I., and Pinotem II., priest-kings of the twenty-first dynasty,

and several queens, princes, and notabilities of the same periods. An

affecting story, which brings home to us very vividly the universal

kinship of humanity, is revealed by the contents of the coffin of

Makara, wife of King Pinotem, of the priest-king dynasty. A little

coiled-up bundle lay at the feet of the Queen, her infant daughter,

in giving birth to whom she gave likewise her life. Thus, and so

touchingly, are we led to participate in the affliction of the sick

chamber of three thousand years ago. Already had the still-born babe of

a queen received a name, Mautemhat, the firstling of the goddess Maut,

wife of Amen; and not a name alone, for she is born to a title strange

to our ears, namely, “principal royal spouse.”

[_Sources and Authorities_:--The _Times_ newspaper, 4th

August 1881. The _Times_ newspaper, 25th June 1886. “Egyptian

Mummies,” lecture by Sir Erasmus Wilson; Kegan Paul, Trench &

Co., 1883.]

4. _Egyptians in Palestine before the Exodus._

When the tribes of Israel were preparing to pass over Jordan, they were

told that they were going to possess nations greater and mightier than

themselves, a people great and tall, whose cities were fenced up to

heaven (Deut. ix. 1; i. 28). Of these early inhabitants of Palestine,

the spies had reported that Amalek dwelt in the land of the South; the

Hittite, the Jebusite, and the Amorite dwelt in the mountains, and

the Canaanite dwelt by the sea and along by the side of Jordan (Num.

xiii. 29). We have indeed an enumeration of seven nations dwelling in

Palestine at this time, and a testimony to their might:--“The Hittite,

the Girgashite, the Amorite, and the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the

Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than

thou.” (Deut. vii. 1). In these passages it is plainly implied that the

peoples who occupied Palestine before the Israelitish invasion were in

an advanced state of civilisation. Until lately we have known little

or nothing about them, beyond the information which these Scripture

passages afforded; but now at last the veil is beginning to lift.

_The Hittites._

As there were seven “nations” in Canaan, and the land itself is no

larger than Wales, it was long supposed that each of the “nations”

was but a small tribe, and was too insignificant to make any figure

in history. But we have lately learned that if this was the rule,

the Hittites were an exception to it. They were a great people, or

perhaps a great confederacy or empire, spread over a vast region in

northern Syria and some of the adjacent countries. Their dominion

extended more or less over Asia Minor, and the influence of their art

and culture reached even into Greece. Their capital was Carchemish,

on the Euphrates, the site of which city was discovered a few years

ago by Mr Skene, English Consul at Aleppo, and again, two years later,

by Mr George Smith, as he was returning from Assyria. The place is

now called Jerablus. Another centre of Hittite power was Kadesh, on

the Orontes, a city which appears to be referred to in the Bible, for

it has been maintained that where Joab and the captains “came to the

land of Tahtim-hodshi” (2 Sam. xxiv. 6), it should be rendered “the

land of Kadesh of the Hittites,” this being the northern border of

David’s kingdom at that time. A list of places in Palestine conquered

by Thothmes III., and engraved on the walls of his temple at Karnac,

includes the name of Kadesh. It is situated where the Orontes flows

into the lake of Homs (still called the lake of Kadesh) and had been

a sacred city of the Amorites before it was conquered by the Hittites

about 1400 B.C. [Rev. H. G. Tomkins, in “Records of the Past.”

New Series, vol. v.] The Hittites were thus seated in a region north of

Palestine proper; but they appear to have had colonies in the country,

and it is these isolated settlements which are classed with the small

nations of Canaan by the Bible writer. When Abraham, at Hebron,

required a parcel of earth in which to bury his wife Sarah, he bought

it of Ephron the Hittite; whence it is clear that there were Hittites

owning land in the south. From the mention of Hebron in association

with Zoan in Numbers xiii. 22, it is even suspected that the Shepherd

Kings who reigned in Zoan were a dynasty of Hittites. At any rate the

Hittites were a powerful people, able to hold their own both against

the Egyptians and against the Assyrians, and did so in the region of

Carchemish for a thousand years.

Thothmes III., “the Egyptian Alexander,” who accomplished thirteen

campaigns in twenty years, and made Egypt the centre of history,

invaded Palestine and gained a victory at Megiddo over the king of

Kadesh and his allies. “They fled, head over heels, to Megiddo, with

terror in their countenances, and left behind their horses and their

gold and silver chariots, and were drawn up, with ropes to their

clothes, into this town, since the people had closed the gates of the

said town on account of the deeds of the king.” “The miserable king

of Kadesh” and the miserable king of Megiddo would not have escaped

in this way, only that the Egyptian warriors relaxed the pursuit and

engaged in plunder. The Pharaoh was beside himself. However, the

warriors captured the tent of the miserable king, in which his son was

found. Then they raised a shout of joy and gave honour to Amon, the

lord of Thebes, who had given to his son Thothmes the victory. After

this the neighbouring kings came together to worship before Pharaoh,

“and to implore breath for their nostrils.” And then came the children

of the kings and presented gifts of silver, gold, blue-stone, and

green-stone; they brought also wheat, and wine in skins, and fruits

for the warriors of the king, since each of the Kitti [Hittites] had

taken care to have such provisions for his return home. Then the king

pardoned the foreign princes.

A catalogue of the booty includes 3401 living prisoners, 83 hands, 2041

mares, 191 foals, 6 bulls, one chariot, covered with plates of gold, of

the king of ..., 892 chariots of his miserable warriors, one beautiful

iron armour of the hostile king, one beautiful iron armour of the king

of Megiddo, 200 accoutrements of his miserable warriors, 602 bows, 7

tent-poles covered with plates of gold from the tent of the hostile

king. Pharaoh’s warriors had also taken as booty ... bulls, ... cows,

2000 kids, and 20,500 white goats.

A catalogue is also given of persons and things which Pharaoh

afterwards carried off as his property, including 39 noble persons, 87

children of the hostile king and the kings allied with him, 5 marina

(lords), 1596 men and maid-servants, 105 persons who gave themselves up

because of famine. Besides these prisoners there were taken precious

stones, golden dishes, and many utensils of this sort, a large jug with

a double handle, 97 swords, 1784 lbs. of gold rings which were found

in the hands of the artists, 969 lbs. of silver rings, one statue with

head of gold, 6 chairs and footstools of ivory and cedar wood, 6 large

tables of cedar wood inlaid with gold and precious stones, one staff

of the king worked as a kind of sceptre entirely of gold, one plough

inlaid with gold, many garments of the enemy, &c., &c.

These catalogues enable us to form some estimate of the degree of

perfection in art and refinement which had been arrived at in Northern

Palestine and Syria before the Israelitish invasion. Lists are also

given of the towns conquered and the peoples made to submit. Remarking

upon these, Brugsch justly says that what gives the highest importance

to the catalogue is the undisputed fact that more than three hundred

years before the entrance of the Jews into the land of Canaan, a great

league of peoples of the same race existed in Palestine under little

kings, who dwelt in the same towns and fortresses as we find stated on

the monuments, and who for the greater part fell by conquest into the

hands of the Jewish immigrants. Among these the King of Kadesh, on the

Orontes, in the land of the Amorites--as the inscriptions expressly

state--played the first part, since there obeyed him, as their chief

leader, all the kings and their peoples from the water of Egypt (which

is the same as the Biblical brook which flowed as the boundary of

Egypt) to the rivers of Naharain, afterwards called Mesopotamia.

After the death of Thothmes III. the Hittites recovered their

independence, and their importance grew from year to year, in such a

way that even the Egyptian inscriptions mention the names of their

kings in a conspicuous manner, and speak of their gods with reverence.

Seti I. came to the throne of Egypt about two centuries after the

death of Thothmes, and with him the martial spirit of Egypt revived.

Seti drove back the Syrians who had invaded his frontier, and pursued

them as far as Phœnicia, where he overthrew with great slaughter “the

kings of the land of Phœnicia.” He probably suspected the Hittites

of abetting his enemies, for, from the overthrow of the Phœnicians,

he advanced against Kadesh, professedly as “the avenger of broken

treaties.” The battle scene is represented on the north side of the

great temple of Karnak, where Pharaoh is shown as having thrown to the

ground the Hittites, and slain their princes.

Rameses II. was first associated with his father on the throne, and

afterwards succeeded him. The great battle of his reign was fought

against the Hittites at Kadesh, and was an event of first-class

importance. The King of the Hittites had brought together his forces

from the remotest parts of his empire, and was aided by allies and

satraps from Mesopotamia to Mysia, and from Arvad in the sea. The

Egyptian advance followed the coast line, through Joppa, Tyre,

Sidon, and Beyrout. On the cliff by the Dog River, Rameses cut his

bas-reliefs, and then appears to have advanced up the valley of the

Eleutherus. Bringing his army before Kadesh, a great battle was fought,

in which the Egyptians claim to be the victors; but at one point of the

struggle the Pharaoh was surrounded and in the greatest danger, and at

the close of the fighting a treaty was signed as between equals.

On the great temple at Ibsamboul there is a picture of the battle

of Kadesh, nineteen yards long by more than eight yards deep. In

this great battle scene there are eleven hundred figures, and among

these there is no difficulty in recognizing the slim Egyptians and

their Sardonian allies, with horned and crested helmets, and long

swords, shields, and spears. “The hosts also of the Hittites and of

their allies are represented” (says Brugsch) “with a lively pictorial

expression, for the artist has been guided by the intention of bringing

before the eyes of the beholder the orderly masses of the Hittite

warriors, and the less regular and warlike troops of the allied

peoples, according to their costume and arms. The Canaanites are

distinguished in the most striking manner from the allies, of races

unknown to us, who are attired with turban-like coverings for the

head, or with high caps, such as are worn at the present day by the

Persians.” Conder also remarks that the one race is bearded, the other

beardless, and that this battle picture gives us most lively portraits

of the Hittite warriors in their chariots, and of their walled and

tower-crowned city, with its name written over it, and its bridges over

the Orontes. The Hittites have long pigtails, and their Chinese-like

appearance is very remarkable.

[Illustration: HITTITES (ABOU-SIMBEL). (_By permission of

Messrs C. Philip & Son._)]

Pentaur of Thebes, the poet-laureate of Egypt, had accompanied Rameses

in this expedition, and he celebrated the achievements of the day in a

poem which has come down to us in several editions. It is found on a

papyrus roll, and again in conjunction with splendid battle scenes, on

the walls of temples at Abydos, Luxor, Karnak, and Ibsamboul.

This prize poem of Pentaur’s was written three thousand two hundred

years ago, and is the oldest heroic poem in the world. “It may be

relied upon,” says Dr Wright, “as the earliest specimen of special war

correspondence.” Besides this narration there is a simple prose account

of the same battle, and this is followed by a copy of the treaty of

peace which established an offensive and defensive alliance between the

empire of the Hittites and Egypt.

I here insert a few incidents from the prize poem of Pentaur, written

two years after the battle of Kadesh. Reading between the lines of

the boastful hieroglyphs, it is clear that the Hittites must have

maintained their ground in the battle, for their king, who, at the

beginning of the fight, is “the _vile_ king of the Hittites,” and “the

_miserable_ king of the Hittites,” towards the close of the battle

becomes “the _great_ king of the Hittites.”

According to Pentaur, the Hittites and their allies covered mountains

and valleys like grasshoppers, and no such multitude had ever been

seen before.... Pharaoh was young and bold, he seized his arms, he

armed his people and his chariots, and marched towards the land of the

Hittites.... Arab spies were caught, who told Pharaoh that the Hittite

army was in the neighbourhood of Aleppo; but “the miserable king of the

Hittites” was all the time lying in ambush with his allies north-west

of Kadesh. They rose up and surprised the Egyptians. Pharaoh’s retreat

was cut off. In this crisis he prayed to his god and father, Amon, and

was assisted to perform prodigies of valour. He hurled darts with his

right hand and fought with his left; the two thousand three hundred

horses were dashed to pieces, and the hearts of the Hittites sank

within them. The King of the Hittites sent eight of his brother kings

with armed chariots against Pharaoh; but six times he charged the

unclean wretches, who did not acknowledge his god; he killed them, none

escaped. Pharaoh upbraided his worthless warriors, who had left him to

fight the battle single-handed, and promised that on his return to

Egypt he would see the fodder given to his pair of horses which did not

leave him in the lurch.

The battle was renewed the following morning and went sore against the

Hittites. Then the hostile king sent a messenger to ask for peace,

and to say that the Egyptians and the Hittites ought to be brothers.

Pharaoh assembled his warriors to hear the message of “the great king

of the Hittites,” and by their advice he made peace, and returned to

Egypt in serene humour.

On the outer wall of the temple of Karnak we find inscribed the treaty

of peace which was made on this or a later occasion, and the terms of

the offensive and defensive alliance entered into. It is related that

Kheta-sira, King of the Hittites, sent two heralds, bearing a plate of

silver, upon which the treaty was engraved. The treaty is between the

Grand-Duke of Kheta, Kheta-sira, the puissant, and Rameses, the great

ruler of Egypt, the puissant. The arrangement is sanctioned by the Sun

and by Sutekh, the chief gods respectively of Egypt and Kheta. There

is to be peace and good brotherhood for ever--he shall fraternize with

me and I will fraternize with him. The Grand-Duke of Kheta shall not

invade the land of Egypt for ever, to carry away anything from it, nor

shall Ramessu-Meriamen, the great ruler of Egypt, invade the land of

Kheta for ever, to carry away anything from it. If Egypt is invaded by

some other enemy, and Pharaoh sends to Kheta for help, the Grand-Duke

is to go, or at least to send his infantry and cavalry; and he is, of

course, to look for reciprocal aid. If emigrants or fugitives pass

from one country to the other they are not to find service and favour,

but to be given up; nevertheless, when taken back, they are not to be

punished as criminals. In support of the provisions of the treaty the

parties thereunto invoke “the thousand gods of the land of Kheta, in

concert with the thousand gods of the land of Egypt.” Whosoever shall

not observe the provisions of the treaty, the gods shall be against

his house and family and servants; but to whomsoever shall observe them

the gods shall give health and life--to his family, himself, and his

servants.

“In such a form,” says Brugsch, “were peace and friendship made at

Ramses, the city in Lower Egypt, between the two most powerful nations

of the world at that time--Kheta in the east, and Kemi (Egypt) in the

west.”

Following upon the conclusion of this treaty we have a happy dynastic

alliance. Kheta-sira, the great king of the Hittites, appeared in

Egypt in Hittite costume, accompanied by his beautiful daughter, and

Pharaoh made this princess his queen. A memorial tablet at Ibsamboul

speaks of this as a great, inconceivable wonder--“she herself knew not

the impression which her beauty made on thy heart”--and we may fairly

infer that her influence contributed to the international friendship

which lasted as long as Rameses lived. We do not know the native name

of the Hittite princess, but the name given her on her marriage was

Ur-Maa-Noferu Ra.

Since it has become evident that the Hittites were a great people,

and not a petty local tribe like the Hivites or the Perizzites,

scholars have naturally turned again to the Bible references to see

what they really imply. On careful examination the Bible passages are

seen to be all consistent with the idea that the Hebrew writers were

well acquainted with the power and greatness of the Hittites. Their

greatness is nowhere denied; on the contrary there are some passages

which seem plainly to imply it. When Solomon imported horses and

chariots from Egypt, he sold them to the kings of Syria and to “all the

kings of the Hittites” (2 Chron. i. 16). Again, when Ben-hadad, king of

Syria, was besieging Samaria, and the Syrians were smitten with panic,

believing that they heard “a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses,

even the noise of a great host,” what nations did they suppose were

alone able to send great hosts into the field with horses and chariots?

They said one to another, “Lo, the King of Israel has hired against

us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians” (2 Kings

vii. 6). Further--to take an instance nearer to the age of Rameses

II.--when the future wide inheritance of Israel is promised to Moses

and to Joshua, the description runs thus:--“From the wilderness and

this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the

land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of

the sun”--words which had been regarded as a pictorial exaggeration,

but which may now be looked upon as literally accurate (Deut. xi. 24;

Josh. i. 4).

Exploration and research are now making us acquainted with Hittite

works of art and with inscriptions in the Hittite character and

language; while, as already stated, we have Egyptian portraits of their

soldiers on the Temple wall at Ibsamboul.

Burckhardt the traveller was perhaps the first to discover and describe

a Hittite inscription. He gives an account of a stone which he saw

in a wall in the city of Hamath, which was covered with hieroglyphs

differing from those of Egypt. The discovery was without result at

the time; but when the stone had been seen again, with four others,

in 1870, by the American visitor, Mr J. A. Johnson, interest began to

be aroused. Similar stones have been found at Carchemish, at Aleppo,

and in various parts of Asia Minor. Some have been removed to the

Museum at Constantinople, some are in the British Museum, and some

inscriptions remain on rock faces irremovable. A very good collection

of illustrative plates will be found appended to Dr Wm. Wright’s

“Empire of the Hittites.” The Hittite hieroglyphs cannot yet be

deciphered, although Dr A. H. Sayce and Major Conder may be said to

have made a promising beginning. The inquiry has been aided a little by

a short inscription in Hittite and Cuneiform characters, engraved on

a convex silver plate, which looked like the knob of a staff or dagger,

and is known as the boss of Tarkondêmos. We shall probably have to wait

for the discovery of some longer bi-lingual inscription before much

progress can be made. Meanwhile Major Conder finds much reason to think

that the affinities of the Hittites and their language were Mongolian.

The inscriptions of course are quite a mystery to the Asiatic folk in

whose districts they are found, and they attribute magical virtues to

some of them. The particular stone figured above was very efficacious

in cases of lumbago: a man had only to lean his back against it and he

was effectually cured.

[Illustration:

HAMATH INSCRIPTION (HITTITE). (_Specially drawn by W. Harry Rylands,

F.S.A._)]

We know something of the religion of the Hittites from their invocation

of the gods in their treaty with Rameses II. They adored the sun and

moon, the mountains, rivers, clouds, and the sea. But their chief

deity was Sutekh, “king of heaven, protector of this treaty,” supposed

by Brugsch to be a form of Baal, but who is more likely to have been

allied to Set or to Dagon. We cannot suppose that their worship was

purer than that of the nations round about them; but it may not have

been less pure, nor their life less moral. The appeal to the King of

Heaven to protect a treaty is admirable so far as it goes. To what

height they could sometimes rise in their conceptions of duty is

pleasantly shown if, as seems possible, that beautiful passage in Micah

vi. 8 is to be attributed to them--“What doth the Lord require of thee

but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” The

prophet quotes the sentiment from Balaam, and gives it as Balaam’s

answer to the question of Balak, king of Moab, who had sent for him

to curse Israel. A conversation took place which may be set forth as

follows:--

_King_--Wherewithal shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before

the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves

of a year old?

_Prophet_--Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten

thousands of rivers of oil?

_King_--Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of

my body for the sin of my soul?

_Prophet_--He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the

Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk

humbly with thy God?[2]

In the Book of Numbers we find that Balaam had been sent for from

another country, and came from the city of Pethor. Now, in the temple

of Karnak, Thothmes III. gives a list of two hundred and eighteen towns

in Syria and Aram, which he claims to have conquered, and among them

we find Pethor. It was a city on the Upper Euphrates, not far from

Carchemish, and so was well within the circle of the Hittite dominion.

Balaam, then, may be regarded as a Hittite, or as belonging to the

Hittite confederacy,[3] and since the text quoted shows his idea of the

Divine requirements, it indicates the standard of duty which had been

arrived at by some among that people.

The rock inscriptions prove that the Hittites possessed a written

language, and this is further shown by their engraved treaty sent to

Rameses II. They appear even to have possessed a literature, for the

Egyptian records mention a certain Khilp-sira as a writer of books

among the Hittites. One of their cities in the south of Palestine was

called Kirjath-Sepher, or Book-Town, so that the place must have been

noted for writings of some kind.

The fact that the copy of the treaty sent to Rameses was engraved

upon a silver plate, with a figure of the god Sutekh in the middle,

shows that the Hittites were an artistic people also. In fact their

civilisation was far advanced. “They had walled towns, chased metal

work, chariots and horses, skilled artificers. They could carve in

stone, and could write in hieroglyphic character. All this wonderful

cultivation they possessed while Israel as yet was hardly a nation.

Thus the Bible account of the Canaan overrun by Joshua is fully

confirmed by monumental evidence.”[4]

[_Authorities and Sources_:--“A History of Egypt under the

Pharaohs.” By Henry Brugsch-Bey. “The Empire of the Hittites.”

By William Wright, D.D. “The Hittites: the Story of a

forgotten Empire.” By A. H. Sayce, LL.D. “Transactions of the

Society of Biblical Archæology.”]

5. _Semites in Egypt before the Oppression._

If, as seems probable, the Pharaoh of Joseph was Apepi, the last of the

Shepherd Kings, and the Pharaoh of the Oppression was Rameses II., the

third king of the nineteenth dynasty, we have a period of nearly three

centuries between Joseph and the “new king who knew not Joseph.” The

period appears to be much too long to make the expression “new king”

seem natural, while at the same time a shorter period would hardly

leave room for the descendants of Jacob to multiply and become a danger

to Egypt. This perplexity is removed by the recent discovery of ancient

writings under the extensive ruins existing at Tell-el-Amarna in Upper

Egypt--a site about midway between Minieh and Siout, and on the eastern

bank of the Nile. From these documents it appears that Semites were

in great favour with Amenhotep IV. (Amenôphis), the last king of the

eighteenth dynasty, whereas the new dynasty that succeeded abominated

this foreign influence.

In the latter part of the eighteenth dynasty friendly relations

prevailed between Egypt and Mitanni or Nahrina (Aram Naharaim, Judges

iii. 8), a Mesopotamian district which lay opposite to the Hittite

city of Carchemish. Amenôphis III. married a wife from the royal house

of Mitanni; and the offspring of this marriage--Amenôphis IV.--in his

turn married Tadukhepa, daughter of Duisratta, the Mitannian king.

He was thus doubly drawn to look favourably upon the Mitannian form

of faith, which, like that of the Semites, included the adoration of

the winged solar disk. Meantime the Egyptian conquest of Palestine,

whose petty kings and governors now ruled as satraps for the Egyptian

monarch, had paved the way for strangers from Canaan and Syria to rise

into favour at Pharaoh’s court. Amenôphis IV. surrounded himself with

Semitic officers and courtiers, thus offending the nobles of Egypt;

and by forsaking the ancient religion of his country, brought about a

rupture with the powerful priesthood of Thebes. Forced to go forth,

the “heretic king” built a new capital on the edge of the desert to

the north. Here he assumed the name of Khu-en-Aten, “the glory of the

solar disk,” while his architects and sculptors consecrated a new

and peculiar style of art to the new religion, and even the potters

decorated the vases they modelled with new colours and patterns.

“The archives of the empire were transferred from Thebes to the new

residence of the king, and there stored in the royal palace, which

stood among its gardens at the northern extremity of the city. But

the existence and prosperity of Khu-en-Aten’s capital were of short

duration. When the king died he left only daughters behind him, whose

husbands assumed in succession the royal power. Their reigns lasted

but a short time, and it is even possible that more than one of them

had to share his power with another prince. At any rate it was not

long before rulers and people alike returned to the old paths. The

faith which Khu-en-Aten had endeavoured to introduce was left without

worshippers, the Asiatic strangers whom he and his father had promoted

to high offices of State were driven from power, and the new capital

was deserted never to be inhabited again. The great temple of the

solar disk fell into decay, like the royal palace, and the archives of

Khu-en-Aten were buried under the ruins of the chamber wherein they had

been kept.”

It is these archives which have now come to light, and which furnish

such extraordinary information concerning the state of Egypt and

Palestine in the century before the Oppression. In the winter of 1887

the fellahin of Egypt, searching for nitrous earth with which to

manure their fields, discovered some three hundred ancient tablets

inscribed with Babylonian cuneiform writing. The tablets are copies of

letters and despatches from the kings and governors of Babylonia and

Assyria, of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Eastern Cappadocia, of Phœnicia

and Palestine, exchanging information with the Pharaoh of Egypt, or

making reports as to the state of the country they governed. Among

the correspondents of the Egyptian sovereigns were Assurynballidh

of Assyria and Burnaburyas of Babylonia, which thus fix the date of

Khu-en-Aten to about 1430 B.C. This shows incidentally that

the Egyptologists have been quite right in not assigning the Exodus

to an earlier period than 1320 B.C., that is to say, the reign of

Menephtah, the son and successor of Rameses II.

At the date of the despatches Palestine and Phœnicia were garrisoned

by Egyptian troops, and their affairs were more or less directed by

Egyptian governors. But in some cases the native prince was allowed

to retain his title and a portion of his power. Thus Jerusalem (which

was then called Uru-’Salim--the seat or oracle of the god Salim, it

is supposed, whose temple stood on the mountain of Moriah)--was ruled

over by Ebed-tob. He appears to have been a priest rather than a king,

since he tells us that he was appointed by an oracle of the god; and

in that case the state over which he presided would be a Theocracy. Dr

Sayce considers that an unexpected light is thus thrown on the person

and position of Melchizedek. He was priest of El-Elyon, the “Most

High God,” and king only in virtue of his priestly office. His father

therefore is not named. [“Records of the Past.” New Series, vol. v.]

There were as yet no signs of the Israelites coming into the land. But

the Canaanite population was already threatened by an enemy from the

north. These were the Hittites, to whom references are made in several

of the despatches from Syria and Phœnicia. After the weakening of the

Egyptian power, in consequence of the religious troubles which followed

the death of Khu-en-Aten, the Hittites were enabled to complete their

conquests in the south, and to drive a wedge between the Semites of

the East and the West. With the revival of the Egyptian empire under

the rulers of the nineteenth dynasty the southward course of Hittite

conquest was checked; but the wars of Rameses II. against the Hittites

of Kadesh on Orontes desolated and exhausted Canaan and prepared the

way for the Israelitish invasion. Phœnicia seems to have been the

furthest point to the north to which the direct government of Egypt

extended. At any rate the letters which came to the Egyptian monarch

from Syria and Mesopotamia were sent to him by princes who called

themselves his “brothers,” and not by officials who were the “servants”

of the king.

It is wonderful to find that in the fifteenth century before our era,

active literary intercourse was carried on throughout the civilised

world of Western Asia, between Babylonia and Egypt and the smaller

states of Palestine, of Syria, of Mesopotamia, and even of Eastern

Cappadocia. And this intercourse was carried on by means of the

Babylonian language and the complicated Babylonian script. It implies

that all over the civilised East there were libraries and schools,

where the Babylonian language and literature were taught and learned.

Babylonian in fact was as much the language of diplomacy and cultivated

society as French has been in modern times, with the difference that

whereas it does not take long to read French, the cuneiform syllabary

required years of hard labour and attention before it could be

acquired. There must surely have been a Babylonian conquest. In fact,

Mr Theo. G. Pinches now finds, from a text of about B.C. 2115

to 2090, that Animisutana, king of Babylon at that time, was also king

of Phœnicia among other places. [“Records of the Past” New Series, vol.

v.]

One of the facts which result most clearly from a study of the tablets

is that, not only was a Semitic language the medium of literary

intercourse between the Pharaoh of Egypt and his officers abroad, but

that Semites held high and responsible posts in the Egyptian Court

itself. Thus we find Dudu, or David, addressed by his son as “my

lord,” and ranking apparently next to the monarch; and there are in

the Egyptian National Collection not only letters written by officials

with Egyptian names, like Khapi or Hapi (Apis), but with such Semitic

names as Rib-Addu, Samu-Addu, Bu-Dadu (the Biblical Bedad) and Milkili

(the Biblical Malchiel). A flood of light is thus poured upon a period

of Egyptian history which is of high interest for the student of the

Old Testament. In spite of the reticence of the Egyptian monuments, we

can now see what was the meaning of the attempt of Amenophis IV. to

supersede the ancestral religion of Egypt. The king was in all respects

an Asiatic. His mother, who seems to have been a woman of strong

character,--able to govern not only her son, but even her less pliable

husband,--came from the region of the Euphrates, and brought with her

Asiatic followers, Asiatic ideas, and an Asiatic form of faith. The

court became Semitised. The favourites and officials of the Pharaoh,

his officers in the field, his correspondents abroad, bore names which

showed them to be of Canaanite and even of Israelitish origin. If

Joseph and his brethren had found favour among the Hyksos princes of an

earlier day, their descendants were likely to find equal favour at the

court of “the heretic king.”

We need not wonder, therefore, if Amenophis IV. found himself compelled

to quit Thebes. The old aristocracy might have condoned his religious

heresy, but they could not condone his supplanting them with foreign

favourites. The rise of the nineteenth dynasty marks the successful

reaction of the native Egyptian against the predominance of the Semite

in the closing days of the eighteenth dynasty. It was not the founder

of the eighteenth dynasty (Aahmes, who drove out the Hyksos) but the

founder of the nineteenth dynasty that was “the new king who knew not

Joseph.” Ever since the progress of Egyptology had made it clear that

Rameses II. was the Pharaoh of the Oppression, it was difficult to

understand how so long an interval of time as the whole period of the

eighteenth dynasty could lie between him and that “new king,” whose

rise seems to have been followed almost immediately by the servitude

and oppression of the Hebrews. If Aahmes began the Oppression, how was

it that a whole dynasty passed away before the Israelites cried out?

The tablets of Tell-el-Amarna now show that the difficulty does not

exist. Up to the death of Khu-en-Aten the Semite had greater influence

than the native in the land of Mizraim.

How highly educated this old world was we are but just beginning to

learn. But we have already learned enough to discover how important

a bearing it has on the criticism of the Old Testament. It has long

been tacitly assumed by the critical school that the art of writing

was practically unknown in Palestine before the age of David. Little

historical credence, it has been urged, can be placed in the earlier

records of the Hebrew people, because they could not have been

committed to writing until a period when the history of the past had

become traditional and mythical. But this assumption can no longer be

maintained. Long before the Exodus Canaan had its libraries and its

scribes, its schools and literary men. The annals of the country, it

is true, were not inscribed in the letters of the Phœnician alphabet

on perishable papyrus; the writing material was imperishable clay, the

characters were those of the cuneiform syllabary. Though Kirjath-Sepher

(_i.e._, Book-Town) was destroyed by the Israelites, other cities

mentioned in the Tell-el-Amarna tablets, like Gaza, or Gath, or Tyre,

remained independent, and we cannot imagine that the old traditions of

culture and writing were forgotten in any of them. In what is asserted

by the critical school to be the oldest relic of Hebrew literature,

the Song of Deborah, reference is made to the scribes of Zebulon “that

handle the pen of the writer” (Judges v. 14); and we have now no longer

any reason to interpret the words in a non-natural sense, and transform

the scribe into a military commander (an officer who arranges men in a

row instead of arranging letters and words). Only it is probable that

the scribes still made use of the cuneiform syllabary, and not yet of

the Phœnician alphabet. At all events the Tell-el-Amarna tablets have

overthrown the primary foundation on which much of this criticism was

built, and have proved that the populations of Palestine, among whom

the Israelites settled, and whose culture they inherited, were as

literary as the inhabitants of Egypt or Babylonia.

But apart from such side-lights as these upon ancient history, the

discovery of the Tell-el-Amarna tablets has a lesson for us of

momentous interest. The collection cannot be the only one of its

kind. Elsewhere, in Palestine and Syria as well as in Egypt, similar

collections must still be lying under the soil. Burnt clay is not

injured by rain and moisture, and even the climate of Palestine will

have preserved uninjured its libraries of clay. Such libraries must

still be awaiting the spade of the excavator on the sites of places

like Gaza, or others whose remains are buried under the lofty mounds

of Southern Judea. Kirjath-Sepher must have been the seat of a famous

library, consisting mainly, if not altogether, of clay tablets

inscribed with cuneiform characters. As the city also bore the name of

Debir, or “Sanctuary,” we may conclude that the tablets were stored in

its chief temple, like the libraries of Assyria and Babylonia. When

such relics of the past have been disinterred--as they will be if they

are properly searched for--we shall know how the people of Canaan

lived in the days of the Patriarchs, and how their Hebrew conquerors

established themselves among them in the days when, as yet, there was

no king in Israel.

[The information contained in this section is derived almost

exclusively from the writings of Dr A. H. Sayce, who has

taken a chief part in England in the decipherment of the

Tell-el-Amarna inscriptions. See “Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch.”

“Records of the Past.” New Series, vols, ii., iii., iv., and

v.; “Victoria Institute Annual Address, 1889.” See additional

facts in the _Contemporary Review_, Dec. 1890, and opinions in

Naville’s _Bubastis_. For later excavations at Tell-el-Amarna,

by Mr Flinders Petrie, see the _Academy_, 9th April 1892. For

a suggestion by Conder that the tablets are in the Phœnician

or Amorite language and writing of that time, see _Quarterly

Statement_, July 1891.]

6. _Israel in Egypt._