Produced by David Widger
[Illustration: Spines]
[Illustration: Cover]
HISTORY OF EGYPT CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA
By G. MASPERO, Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of Queens
College, Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at the College of
France
Edited by A. H. SAYCE, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford
Translated by M. L. McCLURE, Member of the Committee of the Egypt
Exploration Fund
CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Volume V.
LONDON
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
PUBLISHERS
[Illustration: Frontispiece]
[Illustration: Titlepage]
THE EIGHTEENTH THEBAN DYNASTY--(continued)
_THÛTMOSIS III.: THE ORGANISATION OF THE SYRIAN PROVINCES--AMENÔTHES
III.: THE WORSHIPPERS OF ATONÛ._
_Thutmosis III.: the talcing of Qodshâ in the 42nd year of his
reign--The tribute of the south--The triumph-song of Amon._
_The constitution of the Egyptian empire--The Grown vassals and
their relations with the Pharaoh--The kings messengers--The allied
states--Royal presents and marriages; the status of foreigners in the
royal harem--Commerce with Asia, its resources and its risks; protection
granted to the national industries, and treaties of extradition._
_Amenôthes II, his campaigns in Syria and Nubia--Thûtmosis IV.; his
dream under the shadow of the Sphinx and his marriage--Amenôthes III.
and his peaceful reign--The great building works--The temples of
Nubia: Soleb and his sanctuary built by Amenôthes III, Gebel Barkal,
Elephantine--The beautifying of Thebes: the temple of Mat, the temples
of Amon at Luxor and at Karnak, the tomb of Amenôthes III, the chapel
and the colossi of Memnon._
_The increasing importance of Anion and his priests: preference shown
by Amenôthes III. for the Heliopolitan gods, his marriage with Tii--The
influence of Tii over Amenôthes IV.: the decadence of Amon and of
Thebes, Atonû and Khûîtniatonû--Change of physiognomy in Khûniaton, his
character, his government, his relations with Asia: the tombs of Tel
el-Amarna and the art of the period--Tutanlchamon, At: the return of the
Pharaohs to Thebes and the close of the XVIIIth dynasty._
CHAPTER I--THE EIGHTEENTH THEBAN DYNASTY--(continued)
_Thutmosis III.: the organisation of the Syrian provinces--Amenothes
III.: the royal worshippers of Atonû._
In the year XXXIV. the Egyptians reappeared in Zahi. The people of
Anaugasa having revolted, two of their towns were taken, a third
surrendered, while the chiefs of the Lotanû hastened to meet their lord
with their usual tribute. Advantage was taken of the encampment being at
the foot of the Lebanon to procure wood for building purposes, such as
beams and planks, masts and yards for vessels, which were all shipped by
the Kefâtiu at Byblos for exportation to the Delta. This expedition was,
indeed, little more than a military march through the country. It would
appear that the Syrians soon accustomed themselves to the presence of
the Egyptians in their midst, and their obedience henceforward could be
fairly relied on. We are unable to ascertain what were the circumstances
or the intrigues which, in the year XXXV., led to a sudden outbreak
among the tribes settled on the Euphrates and the Orontes. The King
of Mitanni rallied round him the princes of Naharaim, and awaited the
attack of the Egyptians near Aruna. Thûtmosis displayed great personal
courage, and the victory was at once decisive. We find mention of only
ten prisoners, one hundred and eighty mares, and sixty chariots in the
lists of the spoil. Anaugasa again revolted, and was subdued afresh
in the year XXXVIII.; the Shaûsû rebelled in the year XXXIX., and the
Lotanû or some of the tribes connected with them two years later. The
campaign of the year XLII. proved more serious. Troubles had arisen in
the neighbourhood of Arvad. Thûtmosis, instead of following the usual
caravan route, marched along the coast-road by way of Phoenicia. He
destroyed Arka in the Lebanon and the surrounding strongholds, which
were the haunts of robbers who lurked in the mountains; then turning to
the northeast, he took Tunipa and extorted the usual tribute from
the inhabitants of Naharaim. On the other hand, the Prince of Qodshû,
trusting to the strength of his walled city, refused to do homage to the
Pharaoh, and a deadly struggle took place under the ramparts, in which
each side availed themselves of all the artifices which the strategic
warfare of the times allowed. On a day when the assailants and besieged
were about to come to close quarters, the Amorites let loose a mare
among the chariotry of Thûtmosis. The Egyptian horses threatened to
become unmanageable, and had begun to break through the ranks, when
Amenemhabî, an officer of the guard, leaped to the ground, and, running
up to the creature, disembowelled it with a thrust of his sword; this
done, he cut off its tail and presented it to the king. The besieged
were eventually obliged to shut themselves within their newly
built walls, hoping by this means to tire out the patience of their
assailants; but a picked body of men, led by the same brave Amenemhabî
who had killed the mare, succeeded in making a breach and forcing an
entrance into the town. Even the numerous successful campaigns we have
mentioned, form but a part, though indeed an important part, of the wars
undertaken by Thûtmosis to fix his frontiers in the ends of the
earth. Scarcely a year elapsed without the viceroy of Ethiopia having a
conflict with one or other of the tribes of the Upper Nile; little merit
as he might gain in triumphing over such foes, the spoil taken from them
formed a considerable adjunct to the treasure collected in Syria, while
the tributes from the people of Kûsh and the Uaûaîû were paid with as
great regularity as the taxes levied on the Egyptians themselves. It
comprised gold both from the mines and from the rivers, feathers, oxen
with curiously trained horns, giraffes, lions, leopards, and slaves of
all ages. The distant regions explored by Hâtshopsîtû continued to pay
a tribute at intervals. A fleet went to Pûanît to fetch large cargoes
of incense, and from time to time some Ilîm chief would feel himself
honoured by having one of his daughters accepted as an inmate of the
harem of the great king. After the year XLII. we have no further records
of the reign, but there is no reason to suppose that its closing years
were less eventful or less prosperous than the earlier. Thûtmosis III.,
when conscious of failing powers, may have delegated the direction of
his armies to his sons or to his generals, but it is also quite possible
that he kept the supreme command in his own hands to the end of his
days. Even when old age approached and threatened to abate his vigour,
he was upheld by the belief that his father Amon was ever at hand to
guide him with his counsel and assist him in battle. I give to thee,
declared the god, the rebels that they may fall beneath thy sandals,
that thou mayest crush the rebellious, for I grant to thee by decree the
earth in its length and breadth. The tribes of the West and those of the
East are under the place of thy countenance, and when thou goest up
into all the strange lands with a joyous heart, there is none who
will withstand Thy Majesty, for I am thy guide when thou treadest them
underfoot. Thou hast crossed the water of the great curve of Naharaim*
in thy strength and in thy power, and I have commanded thee to let them
hear thy roaring which shall enter their dens, I have deprived their
nostrils of the breath of life, I have granted to thee that thy deeds
shall sink into their hearts, that my uraeus which is upon thy head may
burn them, that it may bring prisoners in long files from the peoples of
Qodi, that it may consume with its flame those who are in the marshes,**
that it may cut off the heads of the Asiatics without one of them being
able to escape from its clutch. I grant to thee that thy conquests may
embrace all lands, that the urseus which shines upon my forehead may be
thy vassal, so that in all the compass of the heaven there may not be
one to rise against thee, but that the people may come bearing their
tribute on their backs and bending before Thy Majesty according to my
behest; I ordain that all aggressors arising in thy time shall fail
before thee, their heart burning within them, their limbs trembling!
* The Euphrates, in the great curve described by it across
Naharaim, after issuing from the mountains of Cilicia.
** The meaning is doubtful. The word signifies pools,
marshes, the provinces situated beyond Egyptian territory,
and consequently the distant parts of the world--those which
are nearest the ocean which encircles the earth, and which
was considered as fed by the stagnant waters of the
celestial Nile, just as the extremities of Egypt were
watered by those of the terrestrial Nile.
[Illustration: 006.jpg A PROCESSION OF NEGROES]
I.--I am come that I may grant unto thee to crush the great ones of
Zahi, I throw them under thy feet across their mountains,--I grant to
thee that they shall see Thy Majesty as a lord of shining splendour when
thou shinest before them in my likeness!
II.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush those of the
country of Asia, to break the heads of the people of Lotanû,--I grant
thee that they may see Thy Majesty, clothed in thy panoply, when thou
seizest thy arms, in thy war-chariot.
III.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush the land of the
East, and invade those who dwell in the provinces of Tonûtir,--I grant
that they may see Thy Majesty as the comet which rains down the heat of
its flame and sheds its dew.
IV.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush the land of the
West, so that Kafîti and Cyprus shall be in fear of thee,--I grant that
they may see Thy Majesty like the young bull, stout of heart, armed with
horns which none may resist.
V.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush those who are in
their marshes, so that the countries of Mitanni may tremble for fear of
thee,--I grant that they may see Thy Majesty like the crocodile, lord of
terrors, in the midst of the water, which none can approach.
VI.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush those who are in
the isles, so that the people who live in the midst of the Very-Green
may be reached by thy roaring,--I grant that they may see Thy Majesty
like an avenger who stands on the back of his victim.
VII.--I am come, to grant that thou mayest crush the Tihonu, so that
the isles of the Utanâtiû may be in the power of thy souls,--I grant
that they may see Thy Majesty like a spell-weaving lion, and that thou
mayest make corpses of them in the midst of their own valleys.*
VIII.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush the ends of the
earth, so that the circle which surrounds the ocean may be grasped in
thy fist,--I grant that they may see Thy Majesty as the sparrow-hawk,
lord of the wing, who sees at a glance all that he desires.
IX.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush the peoples who
are in their duars, so that thou mayest bring the Hirû-shâîtû into
captivity,--I grant that they may see Thy Majesty like the jackal of the
south, lord of swiftness, the runner who prowls through the two lands.
X.--I am come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush the nomads, so that
the Nubians as far as the land of Pidît are in thy grasp,--I grant that
they may see Thy Majesty like unto thy two brothers Horus and Sit, whose
arms I have joined in order to establish thy power.
* The name of the people associated with the Tihonu was read
at first Tanau, and identified with the Danai of the Greeks.
Chabas was inclined to read Ûtena, and Brugsch, Ûthent, more
correctly Utanâtiû, utanâti, the people of Uatanit. The
juxtaposition of this name with that of the Libyans compels
us to look towards the west for the site of this people: may
we assign to them the Ionian Islands, or even those in the
western Mediterranean.
The poem became celebrated. When Seti I., two centuries later, commanded
the Poet Laureates of his court to celebrate his victories in verse,
the latter, despairing of producing anything better, borrowed the finest
strophes from this hymn to Thûtmosis IIL, merely changing the name of
the hero. The composition, unlike so many other triumphal inscriptions,
is not a mere piece of official rhetoric, in which the poverty of the
subject is concealed by a multitude of common-places whether historical
or mythological. Egypt indeed ruled the world, either directly or
through her vassals, and from the mountains of Abyssinia to those
of Cilicia her armies held the nations in awe with the threat of the
Pharaoh.
The conqueror, as a rule, did not retain any part of their territory. He
confined himself to the appropriation of the revenue of certain domains
for the benefit of his gods.* Amon of Karnak thus became possessor of
seven Syrian towns which he owed to the generosity of the victorious
Pharaohs.**
* The seven towns which Amon possessed in Syria are
mentioned, in the time of Ramses III., in the list of the
domains and revenues of the god.
** In the year XXIII., on his return from his first
campaign, Thûtmosis III. provided offerings, guaranteed from
the three towns Anaûgasa, Inûâmû, and Hûrnikarû, for his
father Amonrâ.
Certain cities, like Tunipa, even begged for statues of Thûtmosis
for which they built a temple and instituted a cultus. Amon and his
fellow-gods too were adored there, side by side with the sovereign the
inhabitants had chosen to represent them here below.* These rites were
at once a sign of servitude, and a proof of gratitude for services
rendered, or privileges which had been confirmed. The princes of
neighbouring regions repaired annually to these temples to renew their
oaths of allegiance, and to bring their tributes before the face of the
king. Taking everything into account, the condition of the Pharaohs
subjects might have been a pleasant one, had they been able to accept
their lot without any mental reservation. They retained their own laws,
their dynasties, and their frontiers, and paid a tax only in proportion
to their resources, while the hostages given were answerable for their
obedience. These hostages were as a rule taken by Thûtmosis from among
the sons or the brothers of the enemys chief. They were carried to
Thebes, where a suitable establishment was assigned to them,** the
younger members receiving an education which practically made them
Egyptians.
* The statues of Thûtmosis III. and of the gods of Egypt
erected at Tunipa are mentioned in a letter from the
inhabitants of that town to Amenôthes III. Later, Ramses
II., speaking of the two towns in the country of the Khâti
in which were two statues of His Majesty, mentions Tunipa as
one of them.
** The various titles of the lists of Thûtmosis III. at
Thebes show us the children of the Syrian chiefs conducted
as prisoners into the town of Sûhanû, which is elsewhere
mentioned as the depot, the prison of the temple of Anion.
W. Max Mullcr was the first to remark the historical value
of this indication, but without sufficiently insisting on
it; the name indicates, perhaps, as he says, a great prison,
but a prison like those where the princes of the family of
the Ottoman sultans were confined by the reigning monarch--
a palace usually provided with all the comforts of Oriental
life.
As soon as a vacancy occurred in the succession either in Syria or in
Ethiopia, the Pharaoh would choose from among the members of the family
whom he held in reserve, that prince on whose loyalty he could best
count, and placed him upon the throne.* The method of procedure was not
always successful, since these princes, whom one would have supposed
from their training to have been the least likely to have asserted
themselves against the man to whom they owed their elevation, often gave
more trouble than others. The sense of the supreme power of Egypt, which
had been inculcated in them during their exile, seemed to be weakened
after their return to their native country, and to give place to a
sense of their own importance. Their hearts misgave them as the time
approached for them to send their own children as pledges to their
suzerain, and also when called upon to transfer a considerable part of
their revenue to his treasury. They found, moreover, among their own
cities and kinsfolk, those who were adverse to the foreign yoke, and
secretly urged their countrymen to revolt, or else competitors for the
throne who took advantage of the popular discontent to pose as champions
of national independence, and it was difficult for the vassal prince to
counteract the intrigues of these adversaries without openly declaring
himself hostile to his foreign master.**
* Among the Tel el-Amarna tablets there is a letter of a
petty Syrian king, Adadnirari, whose father was enthroned
after a fashion in Nûkhassi by Thûtmosis III.
** Thus, in the Tel el-Amarna correspondence, Zimrida,
governor of Sidon, gives information to Amenôthes III. on
the intrigues which the notables of the town were concocting
against Egyptian authority. Ribaddû relates in one of these
despatches that the notables of Byblos and the women of his
harem were urging him to revolt; later, a letter of Amûnirâ
to the King of Egypt informs us that Ribaddû had been driven
from Byblos by his own brother.
A time quickly came when a vestige of fear alone constrained them to
conceal their wish for liberty; the most trivial incident then sufficed
to give them the necessary encouragement, and decided them to throw
off the mask, a repulse or the report of a repulse suffered by the
Egyptians, the news of a popular rising in some neighbouring state, the
passing visit of a Chaldæan emissary who left behind him the hope
of support and perhaps of subsidies from Babylon, and the unexpected
arrival of a troop of mercenaries whose services might be hired for
the occasion.* A rising of this sort usually brought about the most
disastrous results. The native prince or the town itself could keep back
the tribute and own allegiance to no one during the few months required
to convince Pharaoh of their defection and to allow him to prepare the
necessary means of vengeance; the advent of the Egyptians followed, and
the work of repression was systematically set in hand. They destroyed
the harvests, whether green or ready for the sickle, they cut down the
palms and olive trees, they tore up the vines, seized on the flocks,
dismantled the strongholds, and took the inhabitants prisoners.**
* Bûrnabûriash, King of Babylon, speaks of Syrian agents who
had come to ask for support from his father, Kûrigalzû, and
adds that the latter had counselled submission. In one of
the letters preserved in the British Museum, Azîrû defends
himself for having received an emissary of the King of the
Khâti.
** Cf. the raiding, for instance, of the regions of Arvad
and of the Zahi by Thûtmosis III., described in the Annals,
11. 4, 5. We are still in possession of the threats which
the messenger Khâni made against the rebellious chief of a
province of the Zahi--possibly Aziru.
The rebellious prince had to deliver up his silver and gold, the
contents of his palace, even his children,* and when he had finally
obtained peace by means of endless sacrifices, he found himself a vassal
as before, but with an empty treasury, a wasted country, and a decimated
people.
* See, in the accounts of the campaigns of Thûtmosis, the
record of the spoils, as well as the mention of the children
of the chiefs brought as prisoners into Egypt.
[Illustration: 015.jpg A SYRIAN TOWN AND ITS OUTSKIRTS AFTER AN EGYPTIAN
ARMY HAD PASSED THROUGH IT]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Gayet.
In spite of all this, some head-strong native princes never relinquished
the hope of freedom, and no sooner had they made good the breaches in
their walls as far as they were able, than they entered once more
on this unequal contest, though at the risk of bringing irreparable
disaster on their country. The majority of them, after one such
struggle, resigned themselves to the inevitable, and fulfilled their
feudal obligations regularly. They paid their fixed contribution,
furnished rations and stores to the army when passing through their
territory, and informed the ministers at Thebes of any intrigues among
their neighbours.* Years elapsed before they could so far forget the
failure of their first attempt to regain independence, as to venture to
make a second, and expose themselves to fresh reverses.
The administration of so vast an empire entailed but a small
expenditure on the Egyptians, and required the offices of merely a few
functionaries.** The garrisons which they kept up in foreign provinces
lived on the country, and were composed mainly of light troops, archers,
a certain proportion of heavy infantry, and a few minor detachments of
chariotry dispersed among the principal fortresses.***
* We find in the _Annals_, in addition to the enumeration of
the tributes, the mention of the foraging arrangements which
the chiefs were compelled to make for the army on its
passage. We find among the tablets letters from Aziru
denouncing the intrigues of the Khâti; letters also of
Ribaddu pointing out the misdeeds of Abdashirti, and other
communications of the same nature, which demonstrate the
supervision exercised by the petty Syrian princes over each
other.
** Under Thûtmosis III. we have among others Mir, or Nasi
sîtû mihâtîtû, governors of the northern countries, the
Thûtîi who became afterwards a hero of romance. The
individuals who bore this title held a middle rank in the
Egyptian hierarchy.
*** The archers--_pidâtid, pidâti, pidâte_--and the
chariotry quartered in Syria are often mentioned in the Tel
el-Amarna correspondence. Steindorff has recognised the term
-ddû aûîtû, meaning infantry, in the word ûeû, ûiû, of the
Tel el-Amarna tablets.
The officers in command had orders to interfere as little as possible
in local affairs, and to leave the natives to dispute or even to fight
among themselves unhindered, so long as their quarrels did not threaten
the security of the Pharaoh.* It was never part of the policy of Egypt
to insist on her foreign subjects keeping an unbroken peace among
themselves. If, theoretically, she did not recognise the right of
private warfare, she at all events tolerated its practice. It mattered
little to her whether some particular province passed out of the
possession of a certain Eibaddû into that of a certain Azîru, or _vice
versa_, so long as both Eibaddû and Azîru remained her faithful slaves.
She never sought to repress their incessant quarrelling until such time
as it threatened to take the form of an insurrection against her own
power. Then alone did she throw off her neutrality; taking the side of
one or other of the dissentients, she would grant him, as a pledge of
help, ten, twenty, thirty, or even more archers.**
* A half at least of the Tel el-Amarna correspondence treats
of provincial wars between the kings of towns and countries
subject to Egypt--wars of Abdashirti and his son Azîru
against the cities of the Phoenician coast, wars of
Abdikhiba, or Abdi-Tabba, King of Jerusalem, against the
chiefs of the neighbouring cities.
** Abimilki (Abisharri) demands on one occasion from the
King of Egypt ten men to defend Tyre, on another occasion
twenty; the town of Gula requisitioned thirty or forty to
guard it. Delattre thinks that these are rhetorical
expressions answering to a general word, just as if we
should say a handful of men; the difference of value in
the figures is to me a proof of their reality.
No doubt the discipline and personal courage of these veterans exercised
a certain influence on the turn of events, but they were after all a
mere handful of men, and their individual action in the combat would
scarcely ever have been sufficient to decide the result; the actual
importance of their support, in spite of their numerical inferiority,
lay in the moral weight they brought to the side on which they fought,
since they represented the whole army of the Pharaoh which lay behind
them, and their presence in a camp always ensured final success. The
vanquished party had the right of appeal to the sovereign, through whom
he might obtain a mitigation of the lot which his successful adversary
had prepared for him; it was to the interest of Egypt to keep the
balance of power as evenly as possible between the various states which
looked to her, and when she prevented one or other of the princes from
completely crushing his rivals, she was minimising the danger which
might soon arise from the vassal whom she had allowed to extend his
territory at the expense of others.
These relations gave rise to a perpetual exchange of letters and
petitions between the court of Thebes and the northern and southern
provinces, in which all the petty kings of Africa and Asia, of whatever
colour or race, set forth, either openly or covertly, their ambitions
and their fears, imploring a favour or begging for a subsidy, revealing
the real or suspected intrigues of their fellow-chiefs, and while loudly
proclaiming their own loyalty, denouncing the perfidy and the secret
projects of their neighbours. As the Ethiopian peoples did not,
apparently, possess an alphabet of their own, half of the correspondence
which concerned them was carried on in Egyptian, and written on papyrus.
In Syria, however, where Babylonian civilization maintained itself
in spite of its conquest by Thûtmosis, cuneiform writing was still
employed, and tablets of dried clay.* It had, therefore, been found
necessary to establish in the Pharaohs palace a department for this
service, in which the scribes should be competent to decipher the
Chaldæan character. Dictionaries and easy mythological texts had been
procured for their instruction, by means of which they had learned the
meaning of words and the construction of sentences. Having once mastered
the mechanism of the syllabary, they set to work to translate the
despatches, marking on the back of each the date and the place from
whence it came, and if necessary making a draft of the reply.** In these
the Pharaoh does not appear, as a rule, to have insisted on the endless
titles which we find so lavishly used in his inscriptions, but the
shortened protocol employed shows that the theory of his divinity was
as fully acknowledged by strangers as it was by his own subjects. They
greet him as their sun, the god before whom they prostrate themselves
seven times seven, while they are his slaves, his dogs, and the dust
beneath his feet.***
* A discovery made by the fellahîn, in 1887, at Tel el-
Arnarna, in the rums of the palace of Khûniaton, brought to
light a portion of the correspondence between Asiatic
monarchs, whether vassals or independent of Egypt, with the
officers of Amenôthes III. and IV., and with these Pharaohs
themselves.
** Several of these registrations are still to be read on
the backs of the tablets at Berlin, London, and Gîzeh.
***The protocols of the letters of Abdashirti may be taken
as an example, or those of Abimilki to Pharaoh, sometimes
there is a development of the protocol which assumes
panegyrical features similar to those met with in Egypt.
The runners to whom these documents were entrusted, and who delivered
them with their own hand, were not, as a rule, persons of any
consideration; but for missions of grave importance the kings
messengers were employed, whose functions in time became extended to
a remarkable degree. Those who were restricted to a limited sphere
of activity were called the kings messengers for the regions of
the south, or the kings messengers for the regions of the north,
according to their proficiency in the idiom and customs of Africa or of
Asia. Others were deemed capable of undertaking missions wherever they
might be required, and were, therefore, designated by the bold title of
the kings messengers for all lands. In this case extended powers were
conferred upon them, and they were permitted to cut short the disputes
between two cities in some province they had to inspect, to excuse from
tribute, to receive presents and hostages, and even princesses destined
for the harem of the Pharaoh, and also to grant the support of troops
to such as could give adequate reason for seeking it.* Their tasks were
always of a delicate and not infrequently of a perilous nature, and
constantly exposed them to the danger of being robbed by highwaymen or
maltreated by some insubordinate vassal, at times even running the risk
of mutilation or assassination by the way.**
* The Tel el-Amarna correspondence shows the messengers in
the time of Amenôthes III. and IV. as receiving tribute, as
bringing an army to the succour of a chief in difficulties,
as threatening with the anger of the Pharaoh the princes o£
doubtful loyalty, as giving to a faithful vassal compliments
and honours from his suzerain, as charged with the
conveyance of a gift of slaves, or of escorting a princess
to the harem of the Pharaoh.
** A letter of Ribaddu, in the time of Amenôthes III.,
represents a royal messenger as blockaded in By bios by the
rebels.
They were obliged to brave the dangers of the forests of Lebanon and of
the Taurus, the solitudes of Mesopotamia, the marshes of Chaldoa, the
voyages to Pûanît and Asia Minor. Some took their way towards Assyria
and Babylon, while others embarked at Tyre or Sidon for the islands of
the Ægean Archipelago.* The endurance of all these officers, whether
governors or messengers, their courage, their tact, the ready wit they
were obliged to summon to help them out of the difficulties into which
their calling frequently brought them, all tended to enlist the public
sympathy in their favour.**
* We hear from the tablets of several messengers to Babylon,
and the Mitanni, Rasi, Mani, Khamassi. The royal messenger
Thûtîi, who governed the countries of the north, speaks of
having satisfied the heart of the king in the isles which
are in the midst of the sea. This was not, as some think, a
case of hyperbole, for the messengers could embark on
Phoenician vessels; they had a less distance to cover in
order to reach the Ægean than the royal messenger of Queen
Hâtshopsîtû had before arriving at the country of the
Somalis and the Ladders of Incense.
** The hero of the _Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 1, with whom
Chabas made us acquainted in his _Voyage dun Égyptien_, is
probably a type of the messenger or the time of Ramses
II.; in any case, his itinerary and adventures are natural
to a royal messenger compelled to traverse Syria alone.
Many of them achieved a reputation, and were made the heroes of popular
romance. More than three centuries after it was still related how one
of them, by name Thûtîi, had reduced and humbled Jaffa, whose chief had
refused to come to terms. Thûtîi set about his task by feigning to throw
off his allegiance to Thûtmosis III., and withdrew from the Egyptian
service, having first stolen the great magic wand of his lord; he then
invited the rebellious chief into his camp, under pretence of showing
him this formidable talisman, and killed him after they had drunk
together. The cunning envoy then packed five hundred of his soldiers
into jars, and caused them to be carried on the backs of asses before
the gates of the town, where he made the herald of the murdered prince
proclaim that the Egyptians had been defeated, and that the pack train
which accompanied him contained the spoil, among which was Thûtîi
himself. The officer in charge of the city gate was deceived by this
harangue, the asses were admitted within the walls, where the soldiers
quitted their jars, massacred the garrison, and made themselves masters
of the town. The tale is, in the main, the story of Ali Baba and the
forty thieves.
The frontier was continually shifting, and Thûtmosis III., like
Thûtmosis I., vainly endeavoured to give it a fixed character by
erecting stelas along the banks of the Euphrates, at those points
where he contended it had run formerly. While Kharu and Phoenicia were
completely in the hands of the conqueror, his suzerainty became more
uncertain as it extended northwards in the direction of the Taurus.
Beyond Qodshû, it could only be maintained by means of constant
supervision, and in Naharaim its duration was coextensive with the
sojourn of the conqueror in the locality during his campaign, for it
vanished of itself as soon as he had set out on his return to Africa.
It will be thus seen that, on the continent of Asia, Egypt possessed a
nucleus of territories, so far securely under her rule that they might
be actually reckoned as provinces; beyond this immediate domain there
was a zone of waning influence, whose area varied with each reign, and
even under one king depended largely on the activity which he personally
displayed.
This was always the case when the rulers of Egypt attempted to carry
their supremacy beyond the isthmus; whether under the Ptolemies or the
native kings, the distance to which her influence extended was always
practically the same, and the teaching of history enables us to note its
limits on the map with relative accuracy.*
* The development of the Egyptian navy enabled the Ptolemies
to exercise authority over the coasts of Asia Minor and of
Thrace, but this extension of their power beyond the
indicated limits only hastened the exhaustion of their
empire. This instance, like that of Mehemet Ali, thus
confirms the position taken up in the text.
The coast towns, which were in maritime communication with the ports of
the Delta, submitted to the Egyptian yoke more readily than those of the
interior. But this submission could not be reckoned on beyond Berytus,
on the banks of the Lykos, though occasionally it stretched a little
further north as far as Byblos and Arvad; even then it did not extend
inland, and the curve marking its limits traverses Coele-Syria from
north-west to south-east, terminating at Mount Hermon. Damascus,
securely entrenched behind Anti-Lebanon, almost always lay outside this
limit. The rulers of Egypt generally succeeded without much difficulty
in keeping possession of the countries lying to the south of this line;
it demanded merely a slight effort, and this could be furnished for
several centuries without encroaching seriously on the resources of the
country, or endangering its prosperity. When, however, some province
ventured to break away from the control of Egypt, the whole mechanism
of the government was put into operation to provide soldiers and the
necessary means for an expedition. Each stage of the advance beyond the
frontier demanded a greater expenditure of energy, which, with prolonged
distances, would naturally become exhausted. The expedition would
scarcely have reached the Taurus or the Euphrates, before the force
of circumstances would bring about its recall homewards, leaving but a
slight bond of vassalage between the recently subdued countries and the
conqueror, which would speedily be cast off or give place to relations
dictated by interest or courtesy. Thûtmosis III. had to submit to this
sort of necessary law; a further extension of territory had hardly
been gained when his dominion began to shrink within the frontiers that
appeared to have been prescribed by nature for an empire like that
of Egypt. Kharû and Phoenicia proper paid him their tithes with due
regularity; the cities of the Amurru and of Zahi, of Damascus, Qodshû,
Hamath, and even of Tunipa, lying on the outskirts of these two subject
nations, formed an ill-defined borderland, kept in a state of perpetual
disturbance by the secret intrigues or open rebellions of the native
princes. The kings of Alasia, Naharaim, and Mitanni preserved their
independence in spite of repeated reverses, and they treated with the
conqueror on equal terms.*
* The difference of tone between the letters of these kings
and those of the other princes, as well as the consequences
arising from it, has been clearly defined by Delattre.
The tone of their letters to the Pharaoh, the polite formulas with which
they addressed him, the special protocol which the Egyptian ministry had
drawn up for their reply, all differ widely from those which we see in
the despatches coming from commanders of garrisons or actual vassals. In
the former it is no longer a slave or a feudatory addressing his master
and awaiting his orders, but equals holding courteous communication
with each other, the brother of Alasia or of Mitanni with his brother of
Egypt. They inform him of their good health, and then, before entering
on business, they express their good wishes for himself, his wives, his
sons, the lords of his court, his brave soldiers, and for his horses.
They were careful never to forget that with a single word their
correspondent could let loose upon them a whirlwind of chariots and
archers without number, but the respect they felt for his formidable
power never degenerated into a fear which would humiliate them before
him with their faces in the dust.
This interchange of diplomatic compliments was called for by a variety
of exigencies, such as incidents arising on the frontier, secret
intrigues, personal alliances, and questions of general politics. The
kings of Mesopotamia and of Northern Syria, even those of Assyria and
Chaldæa, who were preserved by distance from the dangers of a direct
invasion, were in constant fear of an unexpected war, and heartily
desired the downfall of Egypt; they endeavoured meanwhile to occupy the
Pharaoh so fully at home that he had no leisure to attack them. Even if
they did not venture to give open encouragement to the disposition in
his subjects to revolt, they at least experienced no scruple in hiring
emissaries who secretly fanned the flame of discontent. The Pharaoh,
aroused to indignation by such plotting, reminded them of their
former oaths and treaties. The king in question would thereupon deny
everything, would speak of his tried friendship, and recall the fact
that he had refused to help a rebel against his beloved brother.* These
protestations of innocence were usually accompanied by presents, and
produced a twofold effect. They soothed the anger of the offended party,
and suggested not only a courteous answer, but the sending of still more
valuable gifts. Oriental etiquette, even in those early times, demanded
that the present of a less rich or powerful friend should place the
recipient under the obligation of sending back a gift of still greater
worth. Every one, therefore, whether great or little, was obliged to
regulate his liberality according to the estimation in which he held
himself, or to the opinion which others formed of him, and a personage
of such opulence as the King of Egypt was constrained by the laws of
common civility to display an almost boundless generosity: was he not
free to work the mines of the Divine Land or the diggings of the Upper
Nile; and as for gold, was it not as the dust of his country?**
* See the letter of Amenôthes III. to Kallimmasin of
Babylon, where the King of Egypt complains of the inimical
designs which the Babylonian messengers had planned against
him, and of the intrigues they had connected on their return
to their own country; see also the letter from Burnaburiash
to Amenôthes IV., in which he defends himself from the
accusation of having plotted against the King of Egypt at
any time, and recalls the circumstance that his father
Kurigalzu had refused to encourage the rebellion of one of
the Syrian tribes, subjects of Amenôthes III.
** See the letter of Dushratta, King of Mitanni, to the
Pharaoh Amenôthes IV.
He would have desired nothing better than to exhibit such liberality,
had not the repeated calls on his purse at last constrained him to
parsimony; he would have been ruined, and Egypt with him, had he given
all that was expected of him. Except in a few extraordinary cases,
the gifts sent never realised the expectations of the recipients; for
instance, when twenty or thirty pounds of precious metal were looked
for, the amount despatched would be merely two or three. The indignation
of these disappointed beggars and their recriminations were then most
amusing: From the time when my father and thine entered into friendly
relations, they loaded each other with presents, and never waited to be
asked to exchange amenities;* and now my brother sends me two minas of
gold as a gift! Send me abundance of gold, as much as thy father sent,
and even, for so it must be, more than thy father. ** Pretexts
were never wanting to give reasonable weight to such demands: one
correspondent had begun to build a temple or a palace in one of his
capitals,*** another was reserving his fairest daughter for the Pharaoh,
and he gave him to understand that anything he might receive would help
to complete the brides trousseau.****
* Burnaburiash complains that the kings messengers had only
brought him on one occasion two minas of gold, on another
occasion twenty minas; moreover, that the quality of the
metal was so bad that hardly five minas of pure gold could
be extracted from it.
** Literally, and they would never make each other a fair
request. The meaning I propose is doubtful, but it appears
to be required by the context. The letter from which this
passage was taken is from Burnaburiash, King of Babylon, to
Amenôthes IV.
*** This is the pretext advanced by Burnaburiash in the
letter just cited.
**** This seems to have been the motive in a somewhat
embarrassing letter which Dushratta, King of Mitanni, wrote
to the Pharaoh Amenôthes III. on the occasion of his fixing
the dowry of his daughter.
The princesses thus sent from Babylon or Mitanni to the court of Thebes
enjoyed on their arrival a more honourable welcome, and were assigned
a more exalted rank than those who came from Kharû and Phoenicia. As a
matter of fact, they were not hostages given over to the conqueror to be
disposed of at will, but queens who were united in legal marriage to an
ally.* Once admitted to the Pharaohs court, they retained their full
rights as his wife, as well as their own fortune and mode of life. Some
would bring to their betrothed chests of jewels, utensils, and stuffs,
the enumeration of which would cover both sides of a large tablet;
others would arrive escorted by several hundred slaves or matrons as
personal attendants.** A few of them preserved their original name,***
many assumed an Egyptian designation,**** and so far adapted themselves
to the costumes, manners, and language of their adopted country, that
they dropped all intercourse with their native land, and became regular
Egyptians.
* The daughter of the King of the Khâti, wife of Ramses IL,
was treated, as we see from the monuments, with as much
honour as would have been accorded to Egyptian princesses of
pure blood.
** Gilukhipa, who was sent to Egypt to become the wife of
Amenôthes III., took with her a company of three hundred and
seventy women for her service. She was a daughter of
Sutarna, King of Mitanni, and is mentioned several times in
the Tel el-Amarna correspondence.
*** For example, Gilukhipa, whose name is transcribed
Kilagîpa in Egyptian, and another princess of Mitanni, niece
of Gilukhipa, called Tadu-khîpa, daughter of Dushratta and
wife of Amenôthes IV.
**** The prince of the Khâtis daughter who married Ramses
II. is an example; we know her only by her Egyptian name
Mâîtnofîrûrî. The wife of Ramses III. added to the Egyptian
name of Isis her original name, Humazarati.
When, after several years, an ambassador arrived with greetings from
their father or brother, he would be puzzled by the changed appearance
of these ladies, and would almost doubt their identity: indeed, those
only who had been about them in childhood were in such cases able
to recognise them.* These princesses all adopted the gods of their
husbands,** though without necessarily renouncing their own. From time
to time their parents would send them, with much pomp, a statue of one
of their national divinities--Ishtar, for example--which, accompanied by
native priests, would remain for some months at the court.***
* This was the case with the daughter of Kallimmasin, King
of Babylon, married to Amenôthes III.; her fathers
ambassador did not recognise her.
** The daughter of the King of the Khâti, wife of Ramses
II., is represented in an attitude of worship before her
deified husband and two Egyptian gods.
*** Dushratta of Mitanni, sending a statue of Ishtar to his
daughter, wife of Amenôthes III., reminds her that the same
statue had already made the voyage to Egypt in the time of
his father Sutarna.
The children of these queens ranked next in order to those whose mothers
belonged to the solar race, but nothing prevented them marrying their
brothers or sisters of pure descent, and being eventually raised to
the throne. The members of their families who remained in Asia were
naturally proud of these bonds of close affinity with the Pharaoh, and
they rarely missed an opportunity of reminding him in their letters that
they stood to him in the relationship of brother-in-law, or one of his
fathers-in-law; their vanity stood them in good stead, since it afforded
them another claim on the favours which they were perpetually asking of
him.*
* Dushratta of Mitanni never loses an opportunity of calling
Aoienôthes III., husband of his sister Gilukhîpa, and of one
of his daughters, akhiya, my brother, and khatani-ya, my
son-in-law.
These foreign wives had often to interfere in some of the contentions
which were bound to arise between two States whose subjects were in
constant intercourse with one another. Invasions or provincial wars may
have affected or even temporarily suspended the passage to and from of
caravans between the countries of the Tigris and those of the Nile; but
as soon as peace was re-established, even though it were the insecure
peace of those distant ages, the desert traffic was again resumed and
carried on with renewed vigour. The Egyptian traders who penetrated
into regions beyond the Euphrates, carried with them, and almost
unconsciously disseminated along the whole extent of their route, the
numberless products of Egyptian industry, hitherto but little known
outside their own country, and rendered expensive owing to the
difficulty of transmission or the greed of the merchants. The Syrians
now saw for the first time in great quantities, objects which had been
known to them hitherto merely through the few rare specimens which made
their way across the frontier: arms, stuffs, metal implements, household
utensils--in fine, all the objects which ministered to daily needs or to
luxury. These were now offered to them at reasonable prices, either
by the hawkers who accompanied the army or by the soldiers themselves,
always ready, as soldiers are, to part with their possessions in order
to procure a few extra pleasures in the intervals of fighting.
[Illustration: 031.jpg THE LOTANÛ AND THE GOLDSMITHSWORK CONSTITUTING
THEIR TRIBUTE]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger. The scene
here reproduced occurs in most of the Theban tombs of the
XVIIII. dynasty.
On the other hand, whole convoys of spoil were despatched to Egypt
after every successful campaign, and their contents were distributed in
varying proportions among all classes of society, from the militiaman
belonging to some feudal contingent, who received, as a reward of his
valour, some half-dozen necklaces or bracelets, to the great lord of
ancient family or the Crown Prince, who carried off waggon-loads of
booty in their train. These distributions must have stimulated a passion
for all Syrian goods, and as the spoil was insufficient to satisfy the
increasing demands of the consumer, the waning commerce which had been
carried on from early times was once more revived and extended, till
every route, whether by land or water, between Thebes, Memphis, and the
Asiatic cities, was thronged by those engaged in its pursuit. It would
take too long to enumerate the various objects of merchandise brought
in almost daily to the marts on the Nile by Phoenician vessels or the
owners of caravans. They comprised slaves destined for the workshop or
the harem,* Hittite bulls and stallions, horses from Singar, oxen from
Alasia, rare and curious animals such as elephants from Nîi, and
brown bears from the Lebanon,** smoked and salted fish, live birds of
many-coloured plumage, goldsmithswork*** and precious stones, of which
lapis-lazuli was the chief.
* Syrian slaves are mentioned along with Ethiopian in the
_Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 1, and there is mention in the Tel
el-Amarna correspondence of Hittite slaves whom Dushratta of
Mitanni brought to Amenôthes III., and of other presents of
the same kind made by the King of Alasia as a testimony of
his grateful homage.
** The elephant and the bear are represented on the tomb of
liakhmirî among the articles of tribute brought into Egypt.
*** The _Annals of Thutmosis III_. make a record in each
campaign of the importation of gold and silver vases,
objects in lapis-lazuli and crystal, or of blocks of the
same materials; the Theban tombs of this period afford
examples of the vases and blocks brought by the Syrians. The
Tel el-Amarna letters also mention vessels of gold or blocks
of precious stone sent as presents or as objects of exchange
to the Pharaoh by the King of Babylon, by the King of
Mitanni, by the King of the Hittites, and by other princes.
The lapis-lazuli of Babylon, which probably came from
Persia, was that which was most prized by the Egyptians on
account of the golden sparks in it, which enhanced the blue
colour; this is, perhaps, the Uknu of the cuneiform
inscriptions, which has been read for a long time as
crystal.
[Illustration: 032b.jpg PAINTED TABLETS IN THE HALL OF HARPS]
Wood for building or for ornamental work--pine,cypress, yew, cedar,
and oak,* musical instruments,** helmets, leathern jerkins covered with
metal scales, weapons of bronze and iron,*** chariots,**** dyed and
embroidered stuffs,^ perfumes,^^ dried cakes, oil, wines of Kharû,
liqueurs from Alasia, Khâti, Singar, Naharaim, Amurru, and beer from
Qodi.^^^
* Building and ornamental woods are often mentioned in the
inscriptions of Thûtmosis III. A scene at Karnak represents
Seti I. causing building-wood to be cut in the region of the
Lebanon. A letter of the King of Alasia speaks of
contributions of wood which several of his subjects had to
make to the King of Egypt.
** Some stringed instruments of music, and two or three
kinds of flutes and flageolets, are designated in Egyptian
by names borrowed from some Semitic tongue--a fact which
proves that they were imported; the wooden framework of the
harp, decorated with sculptured heads of Astartô, figures
among the objects coming from Syria in the temple of the
Theban Anion.
*** Several names of arms borrowed from some Semitic dialect
have been noticed in the texts of this period. The objects
as well as the words must have been imported into Egypt,
e.g. the quiver, the sword and javelins used by the
charioteers. Cuirasses and leathern jerkins are mentioned in
the inscriptions of Thûtmosis III.
**** Chariots plated with gold and silver figure frequently
among the spoils of Thûtmosis III.: the Anastasi Papyrus,
No. 1, contains a detailed description of Syrian chariots--
Markabûti--with a reference to the localities whore certain
parts of them were made;--the country of the Amurru, that of
Aûpa, the town of Pahira. The Tel el-Amarna correspondence
mentions very frequently chariots sent to the Pharaoh by the
King of Babylon, either as presents or to be sold in Egypt;
others sent by the King of Alasia and by the King of
Mitanni.
^ Some linen, cotton, or woollen stuffs are mentioned in the
_Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 4, and elsewhere as coming from
Syria. The Egyptian love of white linen always prevented
their estimating highly the coloured and brocaded stuffs of
Asia; and one sees nowhere, in the representations, any
examples of stuffs of such origin, except on furniture or in
ships equipped with something of the kind in the form of
sails.
^^ The perfumed oils of Syria are mentioned in a general way
in the _Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 1; the King of Alasia speaks
of essences which he is sending to Amenôthes III.; the King
of Mitanni refers to bottles of oil which he is forwarding
to Gilukhîpa and to Tii.
^^^ A list of cakes of Syrian origin is found in the
_Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 1; also a reference to balsamic oils
from Naharaim, and to various oils which had arrived in the
ports of the Delta, to the wines of Syria, to palm wine and
various liqueurs manufactured in Alasia, in Singar, among
the Khâti, Amorites, and the people of. Tikhisa; finally, to
the beer of Qodi.
[Illustration: 034.jpg. THE BEAR AND ELEPHANT BROUGHT AS TRIBUTE IN THE
TOMB OF RAKHMIRI]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph of Prisse
dAvennes sketch.
On arriving at the frontier, whether by sea or by land, the majority of
these objects had to pay the custom dues which were rigorously collected
by the officers of the Pharaoh. This, no doubt, was a reprisal tariff,
since independent sovereigns, such as those of Mitanni, Assyria, and
Babylon, were accustomed to impose a similar duty on all the products
of Egypt. The latter, indeed, supplied more than she received, for many
articles which reached her in their raw condition were, by means of
native industry, worked up and exported as ornaments, vases, and highly
decorated weapons, which, in the course of international traffic, were
dispersed to all four corners of the earth. The merchants of Babylon and
Assyria had little to fear as long as they kept within the domains of
their own sovereign or in those of the Pharaoh; but no sooner did they
venture within the borders of those turbulent states which separated
the two great powers, than they were exposed to dangers at every turn.
Safe-conducts were of little use if they had not taken the additional
precaution of providing a strong escort and carefully guarding their
caravan, for the Shaûsû concealed in the depths of the Lebanon or the
needy sheikhs of Kharû could never resist the temptation to rob the
passing traveller.*
* The scribe who in the reign of Ramses II. composed the
_Travels of an Egyptian_, speaks in several places of
marauding tribes and robbers, who infested the roads
followed by the hero. The Tel el-Amarna correspondence
contains a letter from the King of Alasia, who exculpates
himself from being implicated in the harsh treatment certain
Egyptians had received in passing through his territory; and
another letter in which the King of Babylon complains that
Chaldoan merchants had been robbed at Khinnatun, in Galilee,
by the Prince of Akku (Acre) and his accomplices: one of
them had his feet cut off, and the other was still a
prisoner in Akku, and Burnaburiash demands from Amenôthes
IV. the death of the guilty persons.
The victims complained to their king, who felt no hesitation in passing
on their woes to the sovereign under whose rule the pillagers were
supposed to live. He demanded their punishment, but his request was not
always granted, owing to the difficulties of finding out and seizing the
offenders. An indemnity, however, could be obtained which would nearly
compensate the merchants for the loss sustained. In many cases justice
had but little to do with the negotiations, in which self-interest was
the chief motive; but repeated refusals would have discouraged traders,
and by lessening the facilities of transit, have diminished the revenue
which the state drew from its foreign commerce.
The question became a more delicate one when it concerned the rights of
subjects residing out of their native country. Foreigners, as a rule,
were well received in Egypt; the whole country was open to them;
they could marry, they could acquire houses and lands, they enjoyed
permission to follow their own religion unhindered, they were eligible
for public honours, and more than one of the officers of the crown
whose tombs we see at Thebes were themselves Syrians, or born of Syrian
parents on the banks of the Nile.*
* In a letter from the King of Alasia, there is question of
a merchant who had died in Egypt. Among other monuments
proving the presence of Syrians about the Pharaoh, is the
stele of Ben-Azana, of the town of Zairabizana, surnamed
Ramses-Empirî: he was surrounded with Semites like himself.
Hence, those who settled in Egypt without any intention of returning to
their own country enjoyed all the advantages possessed by the natives,
whereas those who took up a merely temporary abode there were more
limited in their privileges. They were granted the permission to hold
property in the country, and also the right to buy and sell there, but
they were not allowed to transmit their possessions at will, and if by
chance they died on Egyptian soil, their goods lapsed as a forfeit to
the crown. The heirs remaining in the native country of the dead man,
who were ruined by this confiscation, sometimes petitioned the king to
interfere in their favour with a view of obtaining restitution. If the
Pharaoh consented to waive his right of forfeiture, and made over
the confiscated objects or their equivalent to the relatives of the
deceased, it was solely by an act of mercy, and as an example to foreign
governments to treat Egyptians with a like clemency should they chance
to proffer a similar request.*
* All this seems to result from a letter in which the King
of Alasia demands from Amenôthes III. the restitution of the
goods of one of his subjects who had died in Egypt; the tone
of the letter is that of one asking a favour, and on the
supposition that the King of Egypt had a right to keep the
property of a foreigner dying on his territory.
It is also not improbable that the sovereigns themselves had a personal
interest in more than one commercial undertaking, and that they were
the partners, or, at any rate, interested in the enterprises, of many
of their subjects, so that any loss sustained by one of the latter
would eventually fall upon themselves. They had, in fact, reserved to
themselves the privilege of carrying on several lucrative industries,
and of disposing of the products to foreign buyers, either to those who
purchased them out and out, or else through the medium of agents, to
whom they intrusted certain quantities of the goods for warehousing.
The King of Babylon, taking advantage of the fashion which prompted
the Egyptians to acquire objects of Chaldæan goldsmiths and
cabinet-makers art, caused ingots of gold to be sent to him by the
Pharaoh, which he returned worked up into vases, ornaments, household
utensils, and plated chariots. He further fixed the value of all
such objects, and took a considerable commission for having acted as
intermediary in the transaction.* In Alasia, which was the land of
metals, the king appears to have held a monopoly of the bronze. Whether
he smelted it in the country, or received it from more distant regions
ready prepared, we cannot say, but he claimed and retained for himself
the payment for all that the Pharaoh deigned to order of him.**
* Letter of Burnaburiash to Amenôthes IV.
** Letter from the King of Alasia to Amenôthes III., where,
whilst pretending to have nothing else in view than making a
present to his royal brother, he proposes to make an
exchange of some bronze for the products of Egypt,
especially for gold.
From such instances we can well understand the jealous, watch which
these sovereigns exercised, lest any individual connected with
corporations of workmen should leave the kingdom and establish himself
in another country without special permission. Any emigrant who opened
a workshop and initiated his new compatriots in the technique or
professional secrets of his craft, was regarded by the authorities as
the most dangerous of all evil-doers. By thus introducing his trade into
a rival state, he deprived his own people of a good customer, and thus
rendered himself liable to the penalties inflicted on those who were
guilty of treason. His savings were confiscated, his house razed to the
ground, and his whole family--parents, wives, and children--treated
as partakers in his crime. As for himself, if justice succeeded in
overtaking him, he was punished with death, or at least with mutilation,
such as the loss of eyes and ears, or amputation of the feet. This
severity did not prevent the frequent occurrence of such cases, and
it was found necessary to deal with them by the insertion of a special
extradition clause in treaties of peace and other alliances. The two
contracting parties decided against conceding the right of habitation
to skilled workmen who should take refuge with either party on the
territory of the other, and they agreed to seize such workmen forthwith,
and mutually restore them, but under the express condition that neither
they nor any of their belongings should incur any penalty for the
desertion of their country. It would be curious to know if all the
arrangements agreed to by the kings of those times were sanctioned,
as in the above instance, by properly drawn up agreements. Certain
expressions occur in their correspondence which seem to prove that this
was the case, and that the relations between them, of which we can catch
traces, resulted not merely from a state of things which, according
to their ideas, did not necessitate any diplomatic sanction, but from
conventions agreed to after some war, or entered on without any previous
struggle, when there was no question at issue between the two states.*
* The treaty of Ramses II. with the King of the Khâti, the
only one which has come down to us, was a renewal of other
treaties effected one after the other between the fathers
and grandfathers of the two contracting sovereigns. Some of
the Tel el-Amarna letters probably refer to treaties of this
kind; e.g. that of Burnaburiash of Babylon, who says that
since the time of Karaîndash there had been an exchange of
ambassadors and friendship between the sovereigns of Chaldoa
and of Egypt, and also that of Dushratta of Mitanni, who
reminds Queen Tîi of the secret negotiations which had taken
place between him and Amenôthes III.
When once the Syrian conquest had been effected, Egypt gave permanency
to its results by means of a series of international decrees, which
officially established the constitution of her empire, and brought about
her concerted action with the Asiatic powers.
[Illustration: 040.jpg THE MUMMY OF THUTMOSIS III.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken by Emil
Brugsch-Bey.
She already occupied an important position among them, when Thûtmosis
III. died, on the last day of Phamenoth, in the IVth year of his reign.*
He was buried, probably, at Deîr el-Baharî, in the family tomb wherein
the most illustrious members of his house had been laid to rest since
the time of Thûtmosis I. His mummy was not securely hidden away, for
towards the close of the XXth dynasty it was torn out of the coffin by
robbers, who stripped it and rifled it of the jewels with which it was
covered, injuring it in their haste to carry away the spoil. It was
subsequently re-interred, and has remained undisturbed until the
present day; but before re-burial some renovation of the wrappings was
necessary, and as portions of the body had become loose, the restorers,
in order to give the mummy the necessary firmness, compressed it between
four oar-shaped slips of wood, painted white, and placed, three inside
the wrappings and one outside, under the bands which confined the
winding-sheet.
* Dr. Mahler has, with great precision, fixed the date of
the accession of Thûtmosis III, as the 20th of March, 1503,
and that of his death as the 14th of February, 1449 b.c. I
do not think that the data furnished to Dr. Mahler by
Brugsch will admit of such exact conclusions being drawn
from them, and I should fix the fifty-four years of the
reign of Thûtmosis III. in a less decided manner, between
1550 and 1490 b.c., allowing, as I have said before, for an
error of half a century more or less in the dates which go
back to the time of the second Theban empire.
[Illustration: 041.jpg HEAD OF THE MUMMY OF THÛTMOSIS III.]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph lent by M. Grébaut,
taken by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
Happily the face, which had been plastered over with pitch at the time
of embalming, did not suffer at all from this rough treatment, and
appeared intact when the protecting mask was removed. Its appearance
does not answer to our ideal of the conqueror. His statues, though
not representing him as a type of manly beauty, yet give him refined,
intelligent features, but a comparison with the mummy shows that the
artists have idealised their model. The forehead is abnormally low, the
eyes deeply sunk, the jaw heavy, the lips thick, and the cheek-bones
extremely prominent; the whole recalling the physiognomy of Thûtmosis
II., though with a greater show of energy. Thûtmosis III. is a fellah of
the old stock, squat, thickset, vulgar in character and expression, but
not lacking in firmness and vigour.* Amenôthes II., who succeeded him,
must have closely resembled him, if we may trust his official portraits.
He was the son of a princess of the blood, Hâtshopsîtû II., daughter of
the great Hâtshopsîtû,** and consequently he came into his inheritance
with stronger claims to it than any other Pharaoh since the time of
Amenôthes I. Possibly his father may have associated him with himself on
the throne as soon as the young prince attained his majority;*** at any
rate, his accession aroused no appreciable opposition in the country,
and if any difficulties were made, they must have come from outside.
* The restored remains allow us to estimate the height at
about 5 ft. 3 in.
** His parentage is proved by the pictures preserved in the
tomb of his foster-father, where he is represented in
company with the _royal mother_, Marîtrî. Hâtshopsîtû.
*** It is thus that Wiedemann explains his presence by the
side of Thûtmosis III. on certain bas-reliefs in the temple
of Amada.
It is always a dangerous moment in the existence of a newly formed
empire when its founder having passed away, and the conquered people
not having yet become accustomed to a subject condition, they are called
upon to submit to a successor of whom they know little or nothing. It
is always problematical whether the new sovereign will display as great
activity and be as successful as the old one; whether he will be capable
of turning to good account the armies which his predecessor commanded
with such skill, and led so bravely against the enemy; whether, again,
he will have sufficient tact to estimate correctly the burden of
taxation which each province is capable of bearing, and to lighten it
when there is a risk of its becoming too heavy. If he does not show from
the first that it is his purpose to maintain his patrimony intact at all
costs, or if his officers, no longer controlled by a strong hand, betray
any indecision in command, his subjects will become unruly, and the
change of monarch will soon furnish a pretext for widespread rebellion.
The beginning of the reign of Amenôthes II. was marked by a revolt of
the Libyans inhabiting the Theban Oasis, but this rising was soon
put down by that Amenemhabî who had so distinguished himself under
Thûtmosis.* Soon after, fresh troubles broke out in different parts of
Syria, in Galilee, in the country of the Amurru, and among the peoples
of Naharaim. The kings prompt action, however, prevented their
resulting in a general war.** He marched in person against the
malcontents, reduced the town of Shamshiaduma, fell upon the Lamnaniu,
and attacked their chief, slaying him with his own hand, and carrying
off numbers of captives.
* Brugsch and Wiedemann place this expedition at the time
when Amenôthes IL was either hereditary prince or associated
with his father the inscription of Amenemhabî places it
explicitly after the death of Thûtmosis III., and this
evidence outweighs every other consideration until further
discoveries are made.
** The campaigns of Amenôthes II. were related on a granite
stele, which was placed against the second of the southern
pylons at Karnak. The date of this monument is almost
certainly the year II.; there is strong evidence in favour
of this, if it is compared with the inscription of Amada,
where Amenôthes II. relates that in the year III. he
sacrificed the prisoners whom he had taken in the country of
Tikhisa.
[Illustration: 044.jpg AMENÔTHES II., FROM THE STATUE AT TURIN]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin.
He crossed the Orontes on the 26th of Pachons, in the year II., and
seeing some mounted troops in the distance, rushed upon them and
overthrew them; they proved to be the advanced guard of the enemys
force, which he encountered shortly afterwards and routed, collecting
in the pursuit considerable booty. He finally reached Naharaim, where he
experienced in the main but a feeble resistance. Nîi surrendered without
resistance on the 10th of Epiphi, and its inhabitants, both men
and women, with censers in their hands, assembled on the walls and
prostrated themselves before the conqueror. At Akaîti, where the
partisans of the Egyptian government had suffered persecution from a
considerable section of the natives, order was at once reestablished as
soon as the kings approach was made known. No doubt the rapidity of
his marches and the vigour of his attacks, while putting an end to
the hostile attitude of the smaller vassal states, were effectual in
inducing the sovereigns of Alasia, of Mitanni,* and of the Hittites to
renew with Amenôthes the friendly relations which they had established
with his father.**
* Amenôthes II. mentions tribute from Mitanni on one of the
columns which he decorated at Karnak, in the Hall of the
Caryatides, close to the pillars finished by his
predecessors.
** The cartouches on the pedestal of the throne of Amenôthes
IL, in the tomb of one of his officers at Sheîkh-Abd-el-
Qûrneh, represent--together with the inhabitants of the
Oasis, Libya, and Kush--the Kefatiû, the people of Naharaim,
and the Upper Lotanû, that is to say, the entire dominion of
Thûtmosis III., besides the people of Manûs, probably
Mallos, in the Cilician plain.
This one campaign, which lasted three or four months, secured a lasting
peace in the north, but in the south a disturbance again broke out among
the Barbarians of the Upper Nile. Amenôthes suppressed it, and, in order
to prevent a repetition of it, was guilty of an act of cruel severity
quite in accordance with the manners of the time. He had taken prisoner
seven chiefs in the country of Tikhisa, and had brought them, chained,
in triumph to Thebes, on the forecastle of his ship. He sacrificed six
of them himself before Amon, and exposed their heads and hands on the
façade of the temple of Karnak; the seventh was subjected to a similar
fate at Napata at the beginning of his third year, and thenceforth
the sheîkhs of Kush thought twice before defying the authority of the
Pharaoh.*
* In an inscription in the temple of Amada, it is there said
that the king offered this sacrifice on his return from his
first expedition into Asia, and for this reason I have
connected the facts thus related with those known to us
through the stele of Karnak.
Amenôthesreign was a short one, lasting ten years at most, and the end
of it seems to have been darkened by the open or secret rivalries which
the question of the succession usually stirred up among the kings sons.
The king had daughters only by his marriage with one of his full
sisters, who like himself possessed all the rights of sovereignty; those
of his sons who did not die young were the children of princesses of
inferior rank or of concubines, and it was a subject of anxiety among
these princes which of them would be chosen to inherit the crown and be
united in marriage with the kings heiresses, Khûît and Mûtemûaû.
[Illustration: 046.jpg THE GREAT SPHINX AND THE CHAPEL OF THUTMOSIS IV.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the photograph taken in 1887 by
Émil Brugsch-Bey
[Illustration: 047.jpg THE SIMOOM. SPHINX AND PYRAMIDS AT GIZEH]
One of his sons, named Thûtmosis, who resided at the White Wall, was
in the habit of betaking himself frequently to the Libyan desert to
practise with the javelin, or to pursue the hunt of lions and gazelles
in his chariot. On these occasions it was his pleasure to preserve the
strictest incognito, and he was accompanied by two discreet servants
only. One day, when chance had brought him into the neighbourhood of the
Great Pyramid, he lay down for his accustomed siesta in the shade cast
by the Sphinx, the miraculous image of Khopri the most powerful, the
god to whom all men in Memphis and the neighbouring towns raised adoring
hands filled with offerings. The gigantic statue was at that time more
than half buried, and its head alone was seen above the sand. As soon
as the prince was asleep it spoke gently to him, as a father to his
son: Behold me, gaze on me, O my son Thûtmosis, for I, thy father
Harmakhis-Khopri-Tûmû, grant thee sovereignty over the two countries, in
both the South and the North, and thou shalt wear both the white and the
red crown on the throne of Sibû, the sovereign, possessing the earth in
its length and breadth; the flashing eye of the lord of all shall cause
to rain on thee the possessions of Egypt, vast tribute from all foreign
countries, and a long life for, many years as one chosen by the Sun,
for my countenance is thine, my heart is thine, no other than thyself is
mine! Nor am I covered by the sand of the mountain on which I rest,
and have given thee this prize that thou mayest do for me what my heart
desires, for I know that thou art my son, my defender; draw nigh, I am
with thee, I am thy well-beloved father. The prince understood that the
god promised him the kingdom on condition of his swearing to clear the
sand from the statue. He was, in fact, chosen to be the husband of the
queens, and immediately after his accession he fulfilled his oath; he
removed the sand, built a chapel between the paws, and erected against
the breast of the statue a stele of red granite, on which he related
his adventure. His reign was as short as that of Amenôthes, and his
campaigns both in Asia and Ethiopia were unimportant.*
* The latest date of his reign at present known is that of
the year VII., on the rocks of Konosso, and on a stele of
Sarbût el-Khâdîm. There is an allusion to his wars against
the Ethiopians in an inscription of Amada, and to his
campaigns against the peoples of the North and South on the
stele of Nofirhaît.
[Illustration: 050.jpg THE STELE OF THE SPHINX OF GIZER]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey.
He had succeeded to an empire so firmly established from Naharaim to
Kari,* that, apparently, no rebellion could disturb its peace. One of
the two heiress-princesses, Kûît, the daughter, sister, and wife of a
king, had no living male offspring, but her companion Mûtemûaû had at
least one son, named Amenôthes. In his case, again, the noble birth
of the mother atoned for the defects of the paternal origin. Moreover,
according to tradition, Amon-Ka himself had intervened to renew the
blood of his descendants: he appeared in the person of Thûtmosis IV.,
and under this guise became the father of the heir of the Pharaohs.**
* The peoples of Naharaim and of Northern Syria are
represented bringing him tribute, in a tomb at Sheîkh-Abd-
el-Qûrneh. The inscription published by Mariette, speaks of
the first expedition of Thûtmosis IV. to the land of
[Naharai]na, and of the gifts which he lavished on this
occasion on the temple of Anion.
** It was at first thought that Mûtemûaû was an Ethiopian,
afterwards that she was a Syrian, who had changed her name
on arriving at the court of her husband. The manner in which
she is represented at Luxor, and in all the texts where she
figures, proves not only that she was of Egyptian race, but
that she was the daughter of Amenôthes II., and born of the
marriage of that prince with one of his sisters, who was
herself an hereditary princess.
Like Queen Ahmasis in the bas-reliefs of Deîr el-Baharî, Mûtemûaû
is shown on those of Luxor in the arms of her divine lover, and
subsequently greeted by him with the title of mother; in another
bas-relief we see the queen led to her couch by the goddesses who
preside over the birth of children; her son Amenôthes, on coming into
the world with his double, is placed in the hands of the two Niles, to
receive the nourishment and the education meet for the children of the
gods. He profited fully by them, for he remained in power forty years,
and his reign was one of the most prosperous ever witnessed by Egypt
during the Theban dynasties.
[Illustration: 052.jpg QUEEN MUTEMÛAU.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Daniel Héron.
Amenôthes III. had spent but little of his time in war. He had
undertaken the usual raids in the South against the negroes and the
tribes of the Upper Nile. In his fifth year, a general defection of the
sheikhs obliged him to invade the province of Abhaît, near Semneh, which
he devastated at the head of the troops collected by Mari-ifi mosû, the
Prince of Kûsh; the punishment was salutary, the booty considerable, and
a lengthy peace was re-established. The object of his rare expeditions
into Naharaim was not so much to add new provinces to his empire, as to
prevent disturbances in the old ones. The kings of Alasia, of the Khâti,
of Mitanni, of Singar,* of Assyria, and of Babylon did not dare to
provoke so powerful a neighbour.**
* Amenôthes entitles himself on a scarabæus he who takes
prisoner the country of Singar; no other document has yet
been discovered to show whether this is hyperbole, or
whether he really reached this distant region.
** The lists of the time of Amenôthes III. contain the names
of Phoenicia, Naharaim, Singar, Qodshu, Tunipa, Patina,
Carchomish, and Assur; that is to say, of all the subject or
allied nations mentioned in the correspondence of Tel el-
Amarna. Certain episodes of these expeditions had been
engraved on the exterior face of the pylon constructed by
the king for the temple of Amon at Karnak; at the present
time they are concealed by the wall at the lower end of the
Hypostyle Hall. The tribute of the Lotanû was represented on
the tomb of Hûi, at Sheîkh-Abd-el-Qûrneh.
[Illustration: 052b.jpg Amenothes III. Colossal Head in the British
Museum]
[Illustration: 052b-text.jpg]
The remembrance of the victories of Thûtmosis III. was still fresh in
their memories, and, even had their hands been free, would have
made them cautious in dealing with his great-grandson; but they were
incessantly engaged in internecine quarrels, and had recourse to
Pharaoh merely to enlist his support, or at any rate make sure of his
neutrality, and prevent him from joining their adversaries.
[Illustration: 053.jpg AMENOTHES III. FROM THE TOMB OF KHAMHAIT]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Daniel Héron.
Whatever might have been the nature of their private sentiments, they
professed to be anxious to maintain, for their mutual interests, the
relations with Egypt entered on half a century before, and as the surest
method of attaining their object was by a good marriage, they would each
seek an Egyptian wife for himself, or would offer Amenôthes a princess
of one of their own royal families. The Egyptian king was, however, firm
in refusing to bestow a princess of the solar blood even on the most
powerful of the foreign kings; his pride rebelled at the thought that
she might one day be consigned to a place among the inferior wives
or concubines, but he gladly accepted, and even sought for wives for
himself, from among the Syrian and Chaldæan princesses. Kallimmasin of
Babylon gave Amenôthes first his sister, and when age had deprived this
princess of her beauty, then his daughter Irtabi in marriage.*
* Letter from Amenôthes III. to Kallimmasin, concerning a
sister of the latter, who was married to the King of Egypt,
but of whom there are no further records remaining at
Babylon, and also one of his daughters whom Amenôthes had
demanded in marriage; and letters from Kallimmasin,
consenting to bestow his daughter Irtabi on the Pharaoh, and
proposing to give to Amenothes whichever one he might choose
of the daughters of his house.
Sutarna of Mitanni had in the same way given the Pharaoh his daughter
Gilukhîpa; indeed, most of the kings of that period had one or two
relations in the harem at Thebes. This connexion usually proved a
support to Asiatic sovereigns, such alliances being a safeguard against
the rivalries of their brothers or cousins. At times, however, they were
the means of exposing them to serious dangers. When Sutarna died he was
succeeded by his son Dushratta, but a numerous party put forward another
prince, named Artassumara, who was probably Gilukhîpas brother, on the
mothers side;* a Hittite king of the name of Pirkhi espoused the cause
of the pretender, and a civil war broke out.
* Her exact relationship is not explicitly expressed, but is
implied in the facts, for there seems no reason why
Gilukhîpa should have taken the part of one brother rather
than another, unless Artassumara had been nearer to her than
Dushratta; that is to say, her brother on the mothers side
as well as on the fathers.