History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 2 — 28 - Vol. 02, Ch. 03: The First Theban Empire, pt. 4

We are doubtless far from having any adequate idea of its great achievements, for the biographies of its eight sovereigns, and the details of their interminable wars are very imperfectly known to us.

The development of its foreign and domestic policy we can, however, follow without a break.

[Illustration: 326. jpg SOME OF THE BAND OF ASIATICS, WITH THEIR BEASTS, BROUGHT FROM KHNÛMHOTPÛ]

Asia had as little attraction for these kings as for their Memphite predecessors; they seem to have always had a certain dread of its warlike races, and to have merely contented themselves with repelling their attacks.

Amenemhâît I. had completed the line of fortresses across the isthmus, and these were carefully maintained by his successors.

The Pharaohs were not ambitious of holding direct sway over the tribes of the desert, and scrupulously avoided interfering with their affairs as long as the “Lords of the Sands” agreed to respect the Egyptian frontier.

Commercial relations were none the less frequent and certain on this account.

[Illustration: 327. jpg THE WOMEN PASSING BY IN PROCESSION, IN CHARGE OF A WARRIOR AND OF A MAN PLAYING UPON THE LYRE]

Dwellers by the streams of the Delta were accustomed to see the continuous arrival in their towns of isolated individuals or of whole bands driven from their homes by want or revolution, and begging for refuge under the shadow of Pharaoh’s throne, and of caravans offering the rarest products of the north and of the east for sale.

A celebrated scene in one of the tombs of Beni-Hasan illustrates what usually took place.

We do not know what drove the thirty-seven Asiatics, men, women, and children, to cross the Red Sea and the Arabian desert and hills in the VIth year of Usirtasen II.

;* they had, however, suddenly appeared in the Gazelle nome, and were there received by Khîti, the superintendent of the huntsmen, who, as his duty was, brought them before the prince Khnûmhotpû.

* This bas-relief was first noticed and described by Champollion, who took the immigrants for Greeks of the archaic period.

Others have wished to consider it as representing Abraham, the sons of Jacob, or at least a band of Jews entering into Egypt, and on the strength of this hypothesis it has often been reproduced.

The foreigners presented the prince with green eye-paint, antimony powder, and two live ibexes, to conciliate his favour; while he, to preserve the memory of their visit, had them represented in painting upon the walls of his tomb.

The Asiatics carry bows and arrows, javelins, axes, and clubs, like the Egyptians, and wear long garments or close-fitting loin-cloths girded on the thigh.

One of them plays, as he goes, on an instrument whose appearance recalls that of the old Greek lyre.

The shape of their arms, the magnificence and good taste of the fringed and patterned stuffs with which they are clothed, the elegance of most of the objects which they have brought with them, testify to a high standard of civilisation, equal at least to that of Egypt.

Asia had for some time provided the Pharaohs with slaves, certain perfumes, cedar wood and cedar essences, enamelled vases, precious stones, lapis-lazuli, and the dyed and embroidered woollen fabrics of which Chaldæa kept the monopoly until the time of the Komans.

Merchants of the Delta braved the perils of wild beasts and of robbers lurking in every valley, while transporting beyond the isthmus products of Egyptian manufacture, such as fine linens, chased or _cloisonné_ jewellery, glazed pottery, and glass paste or metal amulets.

Adventurous spirits who found life dull on the banks of the Nile, men who had committed crimes, or who believed themselves suspected by their lords on political grounds, conspirators, deserters, and exiles were well received by the Asiatic tribes, and sometimes gained the favour of the sheikhs.

In the time of the XIIth dynasty, Southern Syria, the country of the “Lords of the Sands,” and the kingdom of Kadûma were full of Egyptians whose eventful careers supplied the scribes and storytellers with the themes of many romances.

Sinûhît, the hero of one of these stories, was a son of Amenemhâît I. , and had the misfortune involuntarily to overhear a state secret.

He happened to be near the royal tent when news of his father’s sudden death was brought to Usirtasen.

Fearing summary execution, he fled across the Delta north of Memphis, avoided the frontier-posts, and struck into the desert.

“I pursued my way by night; at dawn I had reached Pûteni, and set out for the lake of Kîmoîrî.

Then thirst fell upon me, and the death-rattle was in my throat, my throat cleaved together, and I said, ‘It is the taste of death!

’ when suddenly I lifted up my heart and gathered my strength together: I heard the lowing of the herds.

I perceived some Asiatics; their chief, who had been in Egypt, knew me; he gave me water, and caused milk to be boiled for me, and I went with him and joined his tribe.

” But still Sinûhît did not feel himself in safety, and fled into Kadûma, to a prince who had provided an asylum for other Egyptian exiles, and where he “could hear men speak the language of Egypt.

” Here he soon gained honours and fortune.

“The chief preferred me before his children, giving me his eldest daughter in marriage, and he granted me that I should choose for myself the best of his land near the frontier of a neighbouring country.

It is an excellent land, Aîa is its name.

Figs are there and grapes; wine is more plentiful than water; honey abounds in it; numerous are its olives and all the produce of its trees; there are corn and flour without end, and cattle of all kinds.

Great, indeed, was that which was bestowed upon me when the prince came to invest me, installing me as prince of a tribe in the best of his land.

I had daily rations of bread and wine, day by day;

cooked meat and roasted fowl, besides the mountain game which I took, or which was placed before me in addition to that which was brought me by my hunting dogs.

Much butter was made for me, and milk prepared in every kind of way.

There I passed many years, and the children which were born to me became strong men, each ruling his own tribe.

When a messenger was going to the interior or returning from it, he turned aside from his way to come to me, for I did kindness to all: I gave water to the thirsty, I set again upon his way the traveller who had been stopped on it, I chastised the brigand.

The Pitaîtiû, who went on distant campaigns to fight and repel the princes of foreign lands, I commanded them and they marched forth; for the prince of Tonû made me the general of his soldiers for long years.

When I went forth to war, all countries towards which I set out trembled in their pastures by their wells.

I seized their cattle, I took away their vassals and carried off their slaves, I slew the inhabitants, the land was at the mercy of my sword, of my bow, of my marches, of my well-conceived plans glorious to the heart of my prince.

Thus, when he knew my valour, he loved me, making me chief among his children when he saw the strength of my arms.

“A valiant man of Tonu came to defy me in my tent; he was a hero beside whom there was none other, for he had overthrown all his adversaries.

He said: ‘Let Sinûhît fight with me, for he has not yet conquered me!

’ and he thought to seize my cattle and therewith to enrich his tribe.

The prince talked of the matter with me.

I said: ‘I know him not.

Verily, I am not his brother.

I keep myself far from his dwelling; have I ever opened his door, or crossed his enclosures?

Doubtless he is some jealous fellow envious at seeing me, and who believes himself fated to rob me of my cats, my goats, my kine, and to fall on my bulls, my rams, and my oxen, to take them....

If he has indeed the courage to fight, let him declare the intention of his heart!

Shall the god forget him whom he has heretofore favoured?

This man who has challenged me to fight is as one of those who lie upon the funeral couch.

I bent my bow, I took out my arrows, I loosened my poignard, I furbished my arms.

At dawn all the land of Tonu ran forth; its tribes were gathered together, and all the foreign lands which were its dependencies, for they were impatient to see this duel.

Each heart was on live coals because of me; men and women cried ‘Ah!

’ for every heart was disquieted for my sake, and they said: ‘Is there, indeed, any valiant man who will stand up against him?

Lo!

the enemy has buckler, battle-axe, and an armful of javelins.

’ When he had come forth and I appeared, I turned aside his shafts from me.

When not one of them touched me, he fell upon me, and then I drew my bow against him.

When my arrow pierced his neck, he cried out and fell to the earth upon his nose; I snatched his lance from him, I shouted my cry of victory upon his back.

While the country people rejoiced, I made his vassals whom he had oppressed to give thanks to Montu.

This prince, Ammiânshi, bestowed upon me all the possessions of the vanquished, and I took away his goods, I carried off his cattle.

All that he had desired to do unto me that did I unto him; I took possession of all that was in his tent, I despoiled his dwelling; therewith was the abundance of my treasure and the number of my cattle increased.

” In later times, in Arab romances such as that of Antar or that of Abû-Zeît, we find the incidents and customs described in this Egyptian tale; there we have the exile arriving at the court of a great sheikh whose daughter he ultimately marries, the challenge, the fight, and the raids of one people against another.

Even in our own day things go on in much the same way.

Seen from afar, these adventures have an air of poetry and of grandeur which fascinates the reader, and in imagination transports him into a world more heroic and more noble than our own.

He who cares to preserve this impression would do well not to look too closely at the men and manners of the desert.

Certainly the hero is brave, but he is still more brutal and treacherous; fighting is one object of his existence, but pillage is a far more important one.

How, indeed, should it be otherwise?

the soil is poor, life hard and precarious, and from remotest antiquity the conditions of that life have remained unchanged;

apart from firearms and Islam, the Bedouin of to-day are the same as the Bedouin of the days of Sinûhît. There are no known documents from which we can derive any certain information as to what became of the mining colonies in Sinai after the reign of Papi II.

Unless entirely abandoned, they must have lingered on in comparative idleness; for the last of the Memphites, the Heracleopohtans, and the early Thebans were compelled to neglect them, nor was their active life resumed until the accession of the XIIth dynasty.

The veins in the Wady Maghara were much exhausted, but a series of fortunate explorations revealed the existence of untouched deposits in the Sarbût-el-Khâdîm, north of the original workings.

From the time of Amenemhâît II.

these new veins were worked, and absorbed attention during several generations.

Expeditions to the mines were sent out every three or four years, sometimes annually, under the command of such high functionaries as “Acquaintances of the King,” “Chief Lectors,” and Captains of the Archers.

As each mine was rapidly worked out, the delegates of the Pharaohs were obliged to find new veins in order to meet industrial demands.

The task was often arduous, and the commissioners generally took care to inform posterity very fully as to the anxieties which they had felt, the pains which they had taken, and the quantities of turquoise or of oxide of copper which they had brought into Egypt.

Thus the Captain Haroëris tells us that, on arriving at Sarbût in the month Pha-menoth of an unknown year of Amenemhâît III.

, he made a bad beginning in his work of exploration.

Wearied of fruitless efforts, the workmen were quite ready to desert him if he had not put a good face on the business and stoutly promised them the support of the local Hâthor.

[Illustration: 334. jpg PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF SARBUT EL KHADIM] And, as a matter of fact, fortune did change.

When he began to despair, “the desert burned like summer, the mountain was on fire, and the vein exhausted; one morning the overseer who was there questioned the miners, the skilled workers who were used to the mine, and they said: ‘There is turquoise for eternity in the mountain.

’ At that very moment the vein appeared.

” And, indeed, the wealth of the deposit which he found so completely indemnified Haroëris for his first disappointments, that in the month Pachons, three months after the opening of these workings, he had finished his task and prepared to leave the country, carrying his spoils with him.

From time to time Pharaoh sent convoys of cattle and provisions--corn, sixteen oxen, thirty geese, fresh vegetables, live poultry--to his vassals at the mines.

[Illustration: 335. jpg THE RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF HATHOR]