History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 2 — 25 - Vol. 02, Ch. 03: The First Theban Empire, pt. 1

_The two Heracleopolitan dynasties and the XIIth dynasty--The conquest of Ethiopia, and the making of Greater Egypt by the Theban kings.

_ The principality of the Oleander--Nârû--was bounded on the north by the Memphite nome; the frontier ran from the left bank of the Nile to the Libyan range, from the neighbourhood of Riqqah to that of Mêdûm. The principality comprised the territory lying between the Nile and the Bahr Yûsûf, from the above-mentioned two villages to the Harabshent Canal--a district known to Greek geographers as the island of Heracleopolis;--it moreover included the whole basin of the Fâyûm, on the west of the valley.

In very early times it had been divided into three parts: the Upper Oleander--Nârû Khonîti--the Lower Oleander--Nârû Pahûi--and the lake land--To-shît; and these divisions, united usually under the supremacy of one chief, formed a kind of small state, of which Heracleopolis was always the capital.

The soil was fertile, well watered, and well tilled, but the revenues from this district, confined between the two arms of the river, were small in comparison with the wealth which their ruler derived from his hands on the other side of the mountain range.

The Fayûm is approached by a narrow and winding gorge, more than six miles in length--a depression of natural formation, deepened by the hand of man to allow a free passage to the waters of the Nile.

The canal which conveys them leaves the Bahr Yûsûf at a point a little to the north of Heracleopolis, carries them in a swift stream through the gorge in the Libyan chain, and emerges into an immense amphitheatre, whose highest side is parallel to the Nile valley, and whose terraced slopes descend abruptly to about a hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean.

Two great arms separate themselves from this canal to the right and left--the Wady Tamieh and the Wady Nazleh; they wind at first along the foot of the hills, and then again approaching each other, empty themselves into a great crescent or horn-shaped lake, lying east and west--the Moeris of Strabo, the Birket-Kerun of the Arabs.

A third branch penetrates the space enclosed by the other two, passes the town of Shodû, and is then subdivided into numerous canals and ditches, whose ramifications appear on the map as a network resembling the reticulations of a skeleton leaf.

The lake formerly extended beyond its present limits, and submerged districts from which it has since withdrawn.

* * Most of the specialists who have latterly investigated the Fayûm have greatly exaggerated the extent of the Birket- Kerûn in historic times.

Prof. Petrie states that it covered the whole of the present province throughout the time of the Memphite kings, and that it was not until the reign of Amenemhâît I. that even a very small portion was drained.

Major Brown adopts this theory, and considers that it was under Amenemhâît III.

that the great lake of the Fayûm was transformed into a kind of artificial reservoir, which was the Mceris of Herodotus.

The city of Shodû, Shadû, Shadît-- the capital of the Fayûm--and its god Sovkû are mentioned even in the Pyramid texts: and the eastern district of the Fayûm is named in the inscription of Amten, under the IIIrd dynasty.

[Illustration: 297. jpg MAP, THE FAYUM] In years when the inundation was excessive, the surplus waters were discharged into the lake; when, however, there was a low Nile, the storage which had not been absorbed by the soil was poured back into the valley by the same channels, and carried down by the Bahr-Yûsûf to augment the inundation of the Western Delta.

[Illustration: 298. jpg FLAT-BOTTOMED VESSEL OF BRONZE OPEN-WORK BEARING THE CARTOUCHES OF PHARAOH KHÎTI I]

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

The Nile was the source of everything in this principality, and hence they were gods of the waters who received the homage of the three nomes.

The inhabitants of Heracleopolis worshipped the ram Harshafîtû, with whom they associated Osiris of Narûdûf as god of the dead; the people of the Upper Oleander adored a second ram, Khnûmû of Hâsmonîtû, and the whole Fayûm was devoted to the cult of Sovkû the crocodile.

Attracted by the fertility of the soil, the Pharaohs of the older dynasties had from time to time taken up their residence in Heracleopolis or its neighbourhood, and one of them--Snofrûi--had built his pyramid at Mêdûm, close to the frontier of the nome.

In proportion as the power of the Memphites declined, the princes of the Oleander grew more vigorous and enterprising; and when the Memphite kings passed away, these princes succeeded their former masters and sat “upon the throne of Horus.

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

He ruled over all Egypt, and his name has been found on rocks at the first cataract.

A story dating from the time of the Ramessides mentions his wars against the Bedouin of the regions east of the Delta; and what Manetho relates of his death is merely a romance, in which the author, having painted him as a sacrilegious tyrant like Kheops and Khephren, states that he was dragged down under the water and there devoured by a crocodile or hippopotamus, the appointed avengers of the offended gods.

His successors seem to have reigned ingloriously for more than a century.

Their deeds are unknown to history, but it was under the reign of one of them--Nibkaûrî--that a travelling fellah, having been robbed of his earnings by an artisan, is said to have journeyed to Heracleopolis to demand justice from the governor, or to charm him by the eloquence of his pleadings and the variety of his metaphors.

It would, of course, be idle to look for the record of any historic event in this story; the common people, moreover, do not long remember the names of unimportant princes, and the tenacity with which the Egyptians treasured the memories of several kings of the Heracleopolitan line amply proves that, whether by their good or evil qualities, they had at least made a lasting impression upon the popular imagination.

[Illustration: 300. jpg PART OF THE WALLS OF EL-KAB ON THE NORTHERN SIDE] Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Grébaut.

The illustration shows a breach where the gate stood, and the curves of the brickwork courses can clearly be traced both to the right and the left of the opening.

The history of this period, as far as we can discern it through the mists of the past, appears to be one confused struggle: from north to south war raged without intermission; the Pharaohs fought against their rebel vassals, the nobles fought among themselves, and--what scarcely amounted to warfare--there were the raids on all sides of pillaging bands, who, although too feeble to constitute any serious danger to large cities, were strong enough either in numbers or discipline to render the country districts uninhabitable, and to destroy national prosperity.

The banks of the Nile already bristled with citadels, where the monarchs lived and kept watch over the lands subject to their authority: other fortresses were established wherever any commanding site--such as a narrow part of the river, or the mouth of a defile leading into the desert--presented itself.

All were constructed on the same plan, varied only by the sizes of the areas enclosed, and the different thickness of the outer walls.

The outline of their ground-plan formed a parallelogram, whose enclosure wall was often divided into vertical panels easily distinguished by the different arrangements of the building material.

At El-Kab and other places the courses of crude brick are slightly concave, somewhat resembling a wide inverted arch whose outer curve rests on the ground.

In other places there was a regular alternation of lengths of curved courses, with those in which the courses were strictly horizontal.

The object of this method of structure is still unknown, but it is thought that such building offers better resistance to shocks of earthquake.

The most ancient fortress at Abydos, whose ruins now lie beneath the mound of Kom-es-Sultân, was built in this way.

Tombs having encroached upon it by the time of the VIth dynasty, it was shortly afterwards replaced by another and similar fort, situate rather more than a hundred yards to the south-east;

the latter is still one of the best-preserved specimens of military architecture dating from the times immediately preceding the first Theban empire.

* * My first opinion was that the second fortress had been built towards the time of the XVIIIth dynasty at the earliest, perhaps even under the XXth.

Further consideration of the details of its construction and decoration now leads me to attribute it to the period between the VIth and XIIth dynasties.

[Illustration: 302. jpg THE SECOND FORTRESS OF ABYDOS--THE SHÛNET-EZ-ZEBÎB--AS SEEN FROM THE EAST]

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

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

The exterior is unbroken by towers or projections of any kind, and consists of four sides, the two longer of which are parallel to each other and measure 143 yards from east to west: the two shorter sides, which are also parallel, measure 85 yards from north to south.

The outer wall is solid, built in horizontal courses, with a slight batter, and decorated by vertical grooves, which at all hours of the day diversify the surface with an incessant play of light and shade.

When perfect it can hardly have been less than 40 feet in height.

The walk round the ramparts was crowned by a slight, low parapet, with rounded battlements, and was reached by narrow staircases carefully constructed in the thickness of the walls.

A battlemented covering wall, about five and a half yards high, encircled the building at a distance of some four feet.

The fortress itself was entered by two gates, and posterns placed at various points between them provided for sorties of the garrison.

The principal entrance was concealed in a thick block of building at the southern extremity of the east front.

The corresponding entrance in the covering wall was a narrow opening closed by massive wooden doors;

behind it was a small _place d’armes_, at the further end of which was a second gate, as narrow as the first, and leading into an oblong court hemmed in between the outer rampart and two bastions projecting at right angles from it; and lastly, there was a gate purposely placed at the furthest and least obvious corner of the court.

Such a fortress was strong enough to resist any modes of attack then at the disposal of the best-equipped armies, which knew but three ways of taking a place by force, viz.

scaling, sapping, and breaking open the gates.

The height of the walls effectually prevented scaling.

The pioneers were kept at a distance by the brave, but if a breach were made in that, the small flanking galleries fixed outside the battlements enabled the besieged to overwhelm the enemy with stones and javelins as they approached, and to make the work of sapping almost impossible.

Should the first gate of the fortress yield to the assault, the attacking party would be crowded together in the courtyard as in a pit, few being able to enter together;

they would at once be constrained to attack the second gate under a shower of missiles, and did they succeed in carrying that also, it was at the cost of enormous sacrifice.

The peoples of the Nile Valley knew nothing of the swing battering-ram, and no representation of the hand-worked battering-ram has ever been found in any of their wall-paintings or sculptures; they forced their way into a stronghold by breaking down its gates with their axes, or by setting fire to its doors.

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

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a scene in the tomb of Amoni- Amenemhâît at Beni-Hasan.

While the sappers were hard at work, the archers endeavoured, by the accuracy of their aim, to clear the enemy from the curtain, while soldiers sheltered behind movable mantelets tried to break down the defences and dismantle the flanking galleries with huge metal-tipped lances.

In dealing with a resolute garrison none of these methods proved successful; nothing but close siege, starvation, or treachery could overcome its resistance.

The equipment of Egyptian troops was lacking in uniformity, and men armed with slings, or bows and arrows, lances, wooden swords, clubs, stone or metal axes, all fought side by side.

The head was protected by a padded cap, and the body by shields, which were small for light infantry, but of great width for soldiers of the line.

The issue of a battle depended upon a succession of single combats between foes armed with the same weapons; the lancers alone seem to have charged in line behind their huge bucklers.

As a rule, the wounds were trifling, and the great skill with which the shields were used made the risk of injury to any vital part very slight.

Sometimes, however, a lance might be driven home into a man’s chest, or a vigorously wielded sword or club might fracture a combatant’s skull and stretch him unconscious on the ground.

With the exception of those thus wounded and incapacitated for flight, very few prisoners were taken, and the name given to them, “Those struck down alive”--_sokirûonkhû_--sufficiently indicates the method of their capture.

The troops were recruited partly from the domains of military fiefs, partly from tribes of the desert or Nubia, and by their aid the feudal princes maintained the virtual independence which they had acquired for themselves under the last kings of the Memphite line.

Here and there, at Hermopolis, Shit, and Thebes, they founded actual dynasties, closely connected with the Pharaonic dynasty, and even occasionally on an equality with it, though they assumed neither the crown nor the double cartouche.

Thebes was admirably adapted for becoming the capital of an important state.

It rose on the right bank of the Nile, at the northern end of the curve made by the river towards Hermonthis, and in the midst of one of the most fertile plains of Egypt.

Exactly opposite to it, the Libyan range throws out a precipitous spur broken up by ravines and arid amphitheatres, and separated from the river-bank by a mere strip of cultivated ground which could be easily defended.

A troop of armed men stationed on this neck of land could command the navigable arm of the Nile, intercept trade with Nubia at their pleasure, and completely bar the valley to any army attempting to pass without having first obtained authority to do so.

The advantages of this site do not seem to have been appreciated during the Memphite period, when the political life of Upper Egypt was but feeble.

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

Elephantine particularly, owing to its trade with the Soudan, and its constant communication with the peoples bordering the Red Sea, was daily increasing in importance.

Hermonthis, the Aûnû of the South, occupied much the same position, from a religious point of view, as was held in the Delta by Heliopolis, the Aûnû of the North, and its god Montû, a form of the Solar Horus, disputed the supremacy with Mînû, of Koptos.

Thebes long continued to be merely an insignificant village of the Uisit nome and a dependency of Hermonthis.

It was only towards the end of the VIIIth dynasty that Thebes began to realize its power, after the triumph of feudalism over the crown had culminated in the downfall of the Memphite kings.

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