The Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotos Part 1

The Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotos.

by A. H. Sayce.

PREFACE

A few words of preface are needful to justify the addition of another contribution to the over-abundant ma.s.s of literature of which Egypt is the subject. It is intended to supplement the books already in the hands of tourists and students, and to put before them just that information which either is not readily accessible or else forms part of larger and c.u.mbrous works. The travels of Herodotos in Egypt are followed for the first time in the light of recent discoveries, and the history of the intercourse between the Egyptians and the Jews is brought down to the age of the Roman Empire. As the ordinary histories of Egypt used by travellers end with the extinction of the native Pharaohs, I have further given a sketch of the Ptolemaic period. I have moreover specially noted the results of the recent excavations and discoveries made by the Egypt Exploration Fund and by Professor Flinders Petrie, at all events where they bear upon the subject-matter of the book. Those who have not the publications of the Fund or of Professor Petrie, or who do not care to carry them into Egypt, will, I believe, be glad to have the essence of them thus extracted in a convenient shape. Lastly, in the Appendices I have put together information which the visitor to the Nile often wishes to obtain, but which he can find in none of his guide-books. The Appendix on the nomes embodies the results of the latest researches, and the list will therefore be found to differ here and there from the lists which have been published elsewhere. Those who desire the a.s.sistance of maps should procure the very handy and complete _Atlas of Ancient Egypt_, published by the Egypt Exploration Fund (price 3s. 6d.). It makes the addition of maps to this or any future work on Ancient Egypt superfluous.

Discoveries follow so thickly one upon the other in these days of active exploration that it is impossible for an author to keep pace with them.

Since my ma.n.u.script was ready for the press Dr. Naville, on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund, has practically cleared the magnificent temple of Queen Hatshepsu at Der el-Bahari, and has discovered beneath it the unfinished sepulchre in which the queen fondly hoped that her body would be laid; Professor Petrie has excavated in the desert behind Zawedeh and opposite Qoft the tombs of barbarous tribes, probably of Libyan origin, who settled in the valley of the Nile between the fall of the sixth and the rise of the eleventh dynasty; Mr. de Morgan has disinterred more jewellery of exquisite workmanship from the tombs of the princesses of the twelfth dynasty at Dahshur; and Dr. Botti has discovered the site of the Serapeum at Alexandria, thus obtaining for the first time a point of importance for determining the topography of the ancient city.

The people whose remains have been found by Professor Petrie buried their dead in open situated in the central court. But his most interesting discovery is that of long subterranean pa.s.sages, once faced with masonry, and furnished with niches for lamps, where the mysteries of Serapis were celebrated. At the entrance of one of them pious visitors to the shrine have scratched their vows on the wall of rock. Those who are interested in the discovery should consult Dr. Botti's memoir on _L'Acropole d'Alexandrie et le Serapeum_, presented to the Archaeological Society of Alexandria, 17th August 1895.

Two or three other recent discoveries may also find mention here. A Babylonian seal-cylinder now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art at New York has at last given me a clue to the native home of the Hyksos leaders. This was in the mountains of Elam, on the eastern frontier of Chaldaea. It was from these mountains that the Ka.s.si descended upon Babylonia and founded a dynasty there which lasted for nearly 600 years, and the same movement which brought them into Babylonia may have sent other bands of them across Western Asia into Egypt. At all events, the inscription upon the seal shows that it belonged to a certain Uzi-Sutakh, "the son of the Ka.s.site,"

and "the servant of Burna-buryas," who was the Ka.s.site king of Babylonia in the age of the Tel el-Amarna correspondence. As the name of Sutakh is preceded by the determinative of divinity, it is clear that we have in it the name of the Hyksos deity Sutekh.

In a hieroglyphic stela lately discovered at Saqqarah, and now in the Gizeh Museum, we read of an earlier parallel to the Tyrian Camp at Memphis seen by Herodotos. We learn from the stela that, in the time of King Ai, in the closing days of the eighteenth dynasty, there was already a similar "Camp" or quarter at Memphis which was a.s.signed to the Hitt.i.tes. The inscription is further interesting as showing that the authority of Ai was acknowledged at Memphis, the capital of Northern Egypt, as well as in the Thebaid.

Lastly, Professor Hommel seems to have found the name of the Zakkur or Zakkal, the kinsfolk and a.s.sociates of the Philistines, in a broken cuneiform text which relates to one of the Ka.s.site kings of Babylonia not long before the epoch of Khu-n-Aten. Here mention is made not only of the city of Arka in Phnicia, but also of the city of Zaqqalu. In Zaqqalu we must recognise the Zakkur of Egyptian history. I may add that Khar or Khal, the name given by the Egyptians to the southern portion of Palestine, is identified by Professor Maspero with the Horites of the Old Testament.

By way of conclusion, I have only to say that those who wish to read a detailed account of the manner in which the great colossus of Ramses II.

at Memphis was raised and its companion statue disinterred must refer to the Paper published by Major Arthur H. Bagnold himself in the _Proceedings_ of the Society of Biblical Archaeology for June 1888.

A. H. Sayce.

_October 1895._

CHAPTER I. THE PATRIARCHAL AGE.

"Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there." When he entered the country the civilisation and monarchy of Egypt were already very old. The pyramids had been built hundreds of years before, and the origin of the Sphinx was already a mystery. Even the great obelisk of Heliopolis, which is still the object of an afternoon drive to the tourist at Cairo, had long been standing in front of the temple of the Sun-G.o.d.

The monuments of Babylonia enable us to fix the age to which Abraham belongs. Arioch of Ellasar has left memorials of himself on the bricks of Chaldaea, and we now know when he and his Elamite allies were driven out of Babylonia and the Babylonian states were united into a single monarchy.

This was 2350 B.C.

The united monarchy of Egypt went back to a far earlier date. Menes, its founder, had been king of This (or Girgeh) in Upper Egypt, and starting from his ancestral dominions had succeeded in bringing all Egypt under his rule. But the memory of an earlier time, when the valley of the Nile was divided into two separate sovereignties, survived to the latest age of the monarchy. Up to the last the Pharaohs of Egypt called themselves "kings of the two lands," and wore on their heads the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. The crown of Upper Egypt was a tiara of white linen, that of Lower Egypt a throne-like head-dress of red. The double crown was a symbol of the imperial power.

To Menes is ascribed the building of Memphis, the capital of the united kingdom. He is said to have raised the great d.y.k.e which Linant de Bellefonds identifies with that of Kosheish near Kafr el-Ayyat, and thereby to have diverted the Nile from its ancient channel under the Libyan plain. On the ground that he thus added to the western bank of the river his new capital was erected.

Memphis is the Greek form of the old Egyptian Men-nefer or "Good Place."

The final _r_ was dropped in Egyptian p.r.o.nunciation at an early date, and thus arose the Hebrew forms of the name, Moph and Noph, which we find in the Old Testament,(1) while "Memphis" itself-Mimpi in the cuneiform inscriptions of a.s.syria-has the same origin. Another name by which it went in old Egyptian times was Anbu-hez, "the white wall," from the great wall of brick, covered with white stucco, which surrounded it, and of which traces still remain on the northern side of the old site. Here a fragment of the ancient fortification still rises above the mounds of the city; the wall is many feet thick, and the sun-dried bricks of which it is formed are bonded together with the stems of palms.

In the midst of the mounds is a large and deep depression, which is filled with water during the greater part of the year. It marks the site of the sacred lake, which was attached to every Egyptian temple, and in which the priests bathed themselves and washed the vessels of the sanctuary. Here, not long ago, lay the huge colossus of limestone which represented Ramses II. of the nineteenth dynasty, and had been presented by the Egyptian Khedive to the British Government. But it was too heavy and unwieldy for modern engineers to carry across the sea, and it was therefore left lying with its face p.r.o.ne in the mud and water of the ancient lake, a prey to the first comer who needed a quarry of stone. It was not until after the English occupation of Egypt that it was lifted out of its ign.o.ble position by Major Bagnold and placed securely in a wooden shed. While it was being raised another colossus of the same Pharaoh, of smaller size but of better workmanship, was discovered, and lifted beyond the reach of the inundation.

The two statues once stood before the temple of the G.o.d Ptah, whom the Greeks identified with their own deity Hephaestos, for no better reason than the similarity of name. The temple of Ptah was coeval with the city of Memphis itself. When Menes founded Memphis, he founded the temple at the same time. It was the centre and glory of the city, which was placed under the protection of its G.o.d. Pharaoh after Pharaoh adorned and enlarged it, and its priests formed one of the most powerful organisations in the kingdom.

The temple of Ptah, the Creator, gave to Memphis its sacred name. This was Ha-ka-Ptah, "the house of the double (or spiritual appearance) of Ptah,"

in which Dr. Brugsch sees the original of the Greek Aigyptos.

But the glories of the temple of Ptah have long since pa.s.sed away. The worship of its G.o.d ceased for ever when Theodosius, the Roman Emperor, closed its gates, and forbade any other religion save the Christian to be henceforth publicly professed in the empire. Soon afterwards came the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt. Memphis was deserted; and the sculptured stones of the ancient shrine served to build the palaces and mosques of the new lords of the country. Fostat and Cairo were built out of the spoils of the temple of Ptah. But the work of destruction took long to accomplish. As late as the twelfth century, the Arabic writer 'Abd el-Latif describes the marvellous relics of the past which still existed on the site of Memphis. Colossal statues, the bases of gigantic columns, a chapel formed of a single block of stone and called "the green chamber"-such were some of the wonders of ancient art which the traveller was forced to admire.

The history of Egypt, as we have seen, begins with the record of an engineering feat of the highest magnitude. It is a fitting commencement for the history of a country which has been wrested by man from the waters of the Nile, and whose existence even now is dependent on the successful efforts of the engineer. Beyond this single record, the history of Menes and his immediate successors is virtually a blank. No dated monuments of the first dynasty have as yet been discovered. It may be, as many Egyptologists think, that the Sphinx is older than Menes himself; but if so, that strange image, carved out of a rock which may once have jutted into the stream of the Nile, still keeps the mystery of its origin locked up in its breast. We know that it was already there in the days of Khephren of the fourth dynasty; but beyond that we know nothing.

Of the second dynasty a dated record still survives. Almost the first gift received by the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford was the lintel-stone of an ancient Egyptian tomb, brought from Saqqarah, the necropolis of Memphis, by Dr. Greaves at the end of the seventeenth century. When, more than a century later, the hieroglyphics upon it came to be read, it was found that it had belonged to the sepulchre of a certain Sheri who had been the "prophet" of the two Pharaohs Send and Per-ab-sen. Of Per-ab-sen no other record remains, but the name of Send had long been known as that of a king of the second dynasty.

The rest of Sheri's tomb, so far as it has been preserved, is now in the Gizeh Museum. Years after the inscription on the fragment at Oxford had been deciphered, the hinder portion of the tomb was discovered by Mariette. Like the lintel-stone in the Ashmolean Museum, it is adorned with sculptures and hieroglyphics. Already, we learn from it, the hieroglyphic system of writing was complete, the characters being used not only to denote ideas and express syllables, but alphabetically as well.

The name of Send himself is spelt in the letters of the alphabet. The art of the monument, though not equal to that which prevailed a few generations later, is already advanced, while the texts show that the religion and organisation of the empire were already old. In the age of the second dynasty, at all events, we are far removed from the beginnings of Egyptian civilisation.

With Snefru, the first king of the fourth dynasty, or, according to another reckoning, the last king of the third, we enter upon the monumental history of Egypt. Snefru's monuments are to be found, not only in Egypt, but also in the deserts of Sinai. There the mines of copper and malachite were worked for him, and an Egyptian garrison kept guard upon the Bedouin tribes. In Egypt, as has now been definitely proved by Professor Petrie's excavations, he built the pyramid of Medum, one of the largest and most striking of the pyramids. Around it were ranged the tombs of his n.o.bles and priests, from which have come some of the most beautiful works of art in the Gizeh Museum.

The painted limestone statues of Ra-nefer and his wife Nefert, for instance, are among the finest existing specimens of ancient Egyptian workmanship. They are clearly life-like portraits, executed with a delicacy and finish which might well excite the envy of a modern artist.

The character, and even the antecedents of the husband and wife, breathe through their features. While in the one we can see the strong will and solid common-sense of the self-made man, in the other can be traced the culture and refinement of a royal princess.

The pyramids of Gizeh are the imperishable record of the fourth dynasty.

Khufu, Khaf-Ra and Men-ka-Ra, the Kheops, Khephren and Mykerinos of Herodotos, were the builders of the three vast sepulchres which, by their size and nearness to Cairo, have so long been an object of pilgrimage to the traveller. The huge granite blocks of the Great Pyramid of Khufu have been cut and fitted together with a marvellous exact.i.tude. Professor Petrie found that the joints of the casing-stones, with an area of some thirty-five square feet each, were not only worked with an accuracy equal to that of the modern optician, but were even cemented throughout. "Though the stones were brought as close as 1/500 inch, or, in fact, into contact, and the mean opening of the joint was 1/50 inch, yet the builders managed to fill the joint with cement, despite the great area of it and the weight of the stone to be moved-some sixteen tons. To merely place such stones in exact contact at the sides would be careful work; but to do so with cement in the joints seems almost impossible."(2)

Professor Petrie believes that the stones were cut with tubular drills fitted with jewel points-a mode of cutting stone which it was left to the nineteenth century to re-discover. The lines marked upon the stone by the drills can still be observed, and there is evidence that not only the tool but the stone also was rotated. The great pressure needed for driving the drills and saws with the requisite rapidity through the blocks of granite and diorite is indeed surprising. It brings before us the high mechanical knowledge attained by the Egyptians in the fourth millennium before our era even more forcibly than the heights to which the blocks were raised.

The machinery, however, with which this latter work was effected is still unknown.

The sculptured and painted walls of the tombs which surround the pyramids of Gizeh tell us something about the life and civilisation of the period.

The government was a highly organised bureaucracy, under a king who was already regarded as the representative of the Sun-G.o.d upon earth. The land was inhabited by an industrious people, mainly agricultural, who lived in peace and plenty. Arts and crafts of all kinds were cultivated, including that of making gla.s.s. The art of the sculptor had reached a high perfection. One of the most striking statues in the world is that of Khaf-Ra seated on his imperial throne, which is now in the Museum of Gizeh. The figure of the king is more than life-size; above his head the imperial hawk stretches forth its wings, and on the king's face, though the features bear the unmistakable impress of a portrait, there rests an aspect of divine calm. And yet this statue, with its living portraiture and exquisite finish, is carved out of a dioritic rock, the hardest of hard stone.

The fourth dynasty was peaceably succeeded by the fifth and the sixth.

Culture and cultivation made yet further progress, and the art of the painter and sculptor reached its climax. Those whose knowledge of Egyptian art is derived from the museums of Europe have little idea of the perfection which it attained at this remote period. The hard and crystallised art of later ages differed essentially from that of the early dynasties. The wooden figure of the 'Sheikh el-Beled'-the sleek and well-to-do farmer, who gazes complacently on his fertile fields and well-stocked farm-is one of the n.o.blest works of human genius. And yet it belongs to the age of the fifth or the sixth dynasty, like the pictures in low relief, resembling exquisite embroidery on stone, which cover the walls of the tombs of Ti and Ptah-hotep at Saqqarah.

The first six dynasties const.i.tute what Egyptologists call the Old Empire.

They ended with a queen, Nit-aqer (the Greek Nitokris), and Egypt pa.s.sed under sudden eclipse. For several centuries it lies concealed from the eye of history. A few royal names alone are preserved; other records there are as yet none. What befell the country and its rulers we do not know.

Whether it was foreign invasion or civil war, or the internal decay of the government, certain it is that disaster overshadowed for a while the valley of the Nile. It may be that the barbarian tribes, whose tombs Professor Petrie has lately discovered in the desert opposite Qoft, and whom he believes to have been of Libyan origin, were the cause. With the tenth dynasty light begins again to dawn. Mr. Griffith has shown that some at least of the tombs cut out of the cliffs behind Siut belonged to that era, and that Ka-meri-Ra, whose name appears in one of them, was a king of the tenth dynasty. The fragmentary inscription, which can still be traced on the walls of the tomb, seems to allude to the successful suppression of a civil war.

The eleventh dynasty arose at Thebes, of which its founders were the hereditary chiefs. It introduces us to the so-called Middle Empire. But the Egypt of the Middle Empire was no longer the Egypt of the Old Empire.

The age of the great pyramid-builders was past, and the tomb carved in the rock begins to take the place of the pyramid of the earlier age. Memphis has ceased to be the capital of the country; the centre of power has been transferred to Thebes and the south. The art which flourished at Memphis has been superseded by the art with which our museums have made us familiar. With the transfer of the government, moreover, from north to south, Egyptian religion has undergone a change. Ptah of Memphis and Ra of Heliopolis have had to yield to Amon, the G.o.d of Thebes. The G.o.d of the house of the new Pharaohs now takes his place at the head of the pantheon, and the older G.o.ds of the north fall more and more into the background.

The Egypt of the Middle Empire was divided among a number of great princes, who had received their power and property by inheritance, and resembled the great lords of the feudal age. The Pharaoh at first was little more than the chief among his peers. But when the sceptre pa.s.sed into the vigorous hands of the kings of the twelfth dynasty, the influence and authority of the feudal princes was more and more encroached upon. A firm government at home and successful campaigns abroad restored the supreme rule of the Pharaoh and made him, perhaps more than had ever been the case before, a divinely-inst.i.tuted autocrat.

The wars of the twelfth dynasty extended the Egyptian domination far to the south. The military organisation of the Middle Empire was indeed its most striking point of contrast to the Old Empire. The Egypt of the first six dynasties had been self-contained and pacific. A few raids were made from time to time against the negroes south of the First Cataract, but only for the sake of obtaining slaves. The idea of extending Egyptian power beyond the natural boundaries of Egypt has as yet never presented itself. The Pharaohs of the Old Empire did not need an army, and accordingly did not possess one. But with the Middle Empire all this was changed. Egypt ceases to be isolated: its history will be henceforth part of the history of the world. Foreign wars, however, and the organisation of a strong government at home, did not absorb the whole energies of the court. Temples and obelisks were erected, art was patronised, and the creation of the Fayyum, whereby a large tract of fertile land was won for Egypt, not only proved the high engineering skill of the age of the twelfth dynasty, but const.i.tuted a solid claim for grat.i.tude to its creator, Amon-em-hat III., on the part of all succeeding generations.

The thirteenth dynasty followed in the footsteps of its predecessor. We possess the names of more than one hundred and fifty kings who belonged to it, and their monuments were scattered from one end of Egypt to the other.

The fourteenth dynasty ended in disaster. Egypt was invaded by Asiatic hordes, and the line of native Pharaohs was for a time extinct.

The invaders were called by Manetho, the Egyptian historian, the Hyksos or Shepherd Princes: on the monuments they are known as the Aamu or "Asiatics." At first, we are told, their progress was marked by ma.s.sacre and destruction. The temples were profaned and overthrown, the cities burned with fire. But after a while the higher culture of the conquered people overcame the conquerors. A king arose among the invaders who soon adopted the prerogatives and state of the Pharaohs. The fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth dynasties were Hyksos.

Recent discoveries have proved that at one time the dominion of the Hyksos extended, if not to the first cataract, at all events far to the south of Thebes. Their monuments have been found at Gebelen and El-Kab. Gradually, however, the native princes recovered their power in Upper Egypt. While the seventeenth Hyksos dynasty was reigning at Zoan, or Tanis, in the north, a seventeenth Egyptian dynasty was ruling at Thebes. But the princes of Thebes did not as yet venture to claim the imperial t.i.tle. They still acknowledged the supremacy of the foreign Pharaoh.