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Twentieth Dynasty. From Thebes.

About B.C. 1200.

We learn from the great papyrus of Rameses III that after the downfall of the XIXth dynasty the land of Egypt fell into a state of anarchy, every man acting according to his own judgment, and no one holding supreme authority for many years. The country was in the hands of the nobles and the governors of the cities who fought against each other. This continued for some years, and then “ years of want"

succeeded, and a certain Syrian called Arsuela,

rose to power. Gathering his followers about him, he levied tribute and seized the goods of the people. As he paid no honour to the gods of Egypt and did nothing for their temples, they in due course set him aside and placed on the throne Set-nekht, who brought the country into order, and re-established the worship of the gods, and provided the temples with offerings. His reign was short, and he was succeeded by Rameses III, the chief event of whose reign of 31 years was the victory of the Egyptians over a confederation of peoples from Philistia, Cyprus, Crete, and the northern shores of the Mediterranean, who attacked Egypt by land and sea. Rameses III collected an army and a fleet, and in the battle which followed on the coast of Southern Palestine, his forces were victorious. Multitudes of the enemy were slain on land, and those who succeeded in reaching their ships could not escape, for the fleet of the Egyptians hemmed them in, and a great slaughter ensued. Rameses then marched through Syria, and having collected much spoil, returned to Egypt. Soon afterwards the Libyans attacked Egypt on the west, but they were quickly defeated and spoiled.

Rameses appears to have kept one fleet in the Mediterranean and one in the Red Sea, for trading purposes, and this "sea-power" was probably the source of the great material prosperity of Egypt under his reign. The peace and security of the country were such that he could boast: "I made it possible for an Egyptian woman to "walk with a bold and free step whithersoever she pleased, "and no man or woman among the people of the land would "molest her." Rameses built the so-called "Pavilion" and the great Temple of Madînat Habû at Thebes, and a small palace at Tell al-Yahûdiyyah (see the glazed tiles, etc., from it in the

Fourth Egyptian Room), and he richly endowed the temples of Heliopolis, Memphis, and Thebes, and gave them gifts of an almost incredible amount.' Lists of all his benefactions and a valuable summary of his reign are preserved in the great Papyrus of Rameses III, the longest Egyptian papyrus in the world (see page 74). Among the monuments and small objects bearing his name may be mentioned: The base of a pillar from a shrine of Rameses III (Bay 18, No. 716); a slab from one of his buildings at Sakkarah (Central Saloon, No. 717); and the royal ushabtiu figures (Wallcase 85, Second Egyptian Room, Nos. 12, 13).

On the death of Rameses III the power of Egypt began rapidly to decline, and the succeeding kings of the dynasty, each of whom bore the name of Rameses, found their authority more and more usurped by the high-priests of Amen, the great god of Thebes. Among the objects inscribed with the name of Rameses IV are scarabs (Table-case D, Fourth Egyptian Room), a fragment of an alabaster vase (Wallcase 137, same room), and the stele of Heru-à, a royal scribe (Bay 24, No. 719).

Under the rule of Rameses V-VIII the people of Thebes became poor, and the living were driven to plunder the tombs of kings and queens for the sake of the gold ornaments on the mummies and in the coffins. Under Rameses IX the government undertook a prosecution of the principal thieves, and appointed a commission to report upon the extent of the robberies of the royal tombs. Part of the statement of the examination of the tombs is preserved in the Abbott Papyrus in the British Museum (No. 10,221). During the course of the enquiry a number of the accused were beaten on the hands and feet, and confessed to breaking into the tombs of Sebek-em-sa-f and queen Nub-khā-s. In the reign of Rameses IX, the highpriest of Amen, called Amen-hetep, held great power, and induced the king to authorize him to levy taxes on the people for the maintenance of his temple and priesthood. Under Rameses X further prosecutions of the tomb robbers took place, but the government was powerless to stop the depredations. Rameses XI and Rameses XII were weaker than their predecessors, and allowed the high-priest of Amen. to rule the country. On the death of Rameses XII, the

1 E.g., 2,756 images of the gods, 113,433 men, 490,386 oxen and cattle, 1,071,780 aruras of land, 514 vineyards, 160 towns, 71,000 bundles of flax, 6,272,431 loaves of bread, 19,130,032 bundles of vegetables, 1,933,766 jars of honey, 5,279,552 bushels of corn, etc.

high-priest, Her-Heru, seized the supreme power, and assumed all the titles and functions of the king of Egypt. But the priests of Amen were as little able to maintain the power of Egypt as the kings Rameses, and they could not make their authority effective even in the Delta, or Northern Egypt. Thus it fell out that Egypt became once more divided into two kingdoms, viz., the Kingdom of the North, ruled from Tanis by Nessu-ba-neb-Teț, whose name was Graecized by Manetho under the form of Smendes, and the Kingdom of the South, ruled from Thebes by Her-Heru, the first of the priest-kings of Egypt. For some years, however, Smendes must have been king of all Egypt, for when repairs of an urgent character were needed for the temples of Thebes, it was he who had the quarries opened, and collected the workmen, and directed the building operations which saved one of the temples from falling down.

The monuments of the XXth dynasty are characterized by coarseness of work and lack of finish, but the inscriptions on them are of considerable value linguistically. Among large objects may be mentioned the granite coffin of Setau, a governor of the Sûdân (Bay 19, No. 720); the libation basin (Bay 19, No. 722); the seated figures of Amen-Ra and Mut (Bay 18, No. 728); the stele of Pai, comptroller of a chief queen (Bay 22, No. 752); and the shrine of Amen-em-ḥeb, a scribe of the king's bowmen (Bay 17, No. 754).

Twenty-First Dynasty.

KINGS OF TANIS.

B.C. 1050 (?)

PRIEST-KINGS OF THEBES.

Nessu-ba-neb-Tet (Smendes). Her-Heru.

Pasebkhānut I.

Amen-em-Apt.

Sa-Amen.

Pasebkhānut II.

Paiankh.

Painetchem I.

Painetchem II.

Masaherth.

Men-kheper-Rā.

Painetchem III.

The reigns of all these kings are historically of little importance. As soon as Her-Heru had proclaimed himself king at Thebes, he assumed a series of titles indicating that he was the temporal as well as spiritual head of Egypt. One of the chief works carried out by the priest-kings was in connexion with the repair and removal of the royal mummies

from their tombs to places of safety. The mummies of Seti I and Rameses II were removed from tomb to tomb, but the pillaging continued, and we read that many of the royal mummies required to be repaired, re-swathed, and provided with new coffins. The rule of the priest-kings was not successful, and several serious riots seem to have occurred at Thebes through their neglect of the temporal affairs of the country. One of the most important objects of the reign of Her-Heru is the copy of the Book of the Dead which was written for his wife Queen Netchemet; an important portion of it was presented to the British Museum by HIS MAJESTY THE KING in 1903, and this is exhibited in the Southern Egyptian Gallery, No. 758 (see Plates I and XLI). The vignettes are very fine examples of the work of the period, and the texts contain interesting hymns to Rã and Osiris, and a valuable version of one of the most important sections of the Book of the Dead, viz., Chapter XVII. This papyrus was found at Thebes. A number of ushabtiu figures, inscribed with the names of Nesi-Khensu, Hent-taui, the Painetchems, Maat-ka-Rā, and other members of the families of the priestkings, will be found in Wall-cases 153, 154, in the Fourth Egyptian Room. The largest monument of this dynasty in the British Museum is a lintel from a temple of Sa-Amen at Memphis (No. 1170). In the First Egyptian Room are exhibited several very fine mummies and coffins belonging to the period of this dynasty, and in the Second Room several typical examples of ushabtiu figures and boxes, which illustrate the funerary art of the period. The monuments of the Tanite kings are few and unimportant.

The history of the next two hundred and fifty years (B.C. IC50-800) is full of difficulty. When the rule of the priest-kings of Thebes came to an end the Kingdom of the South appears to have passed into the hands of a series of weak and incapable men, not one of whom succeeded in making himself "King of the South and North." On the death of the last Tanite king of the XXIst dynasty (about B.C. 950), the Kingdom of the North was seized by Shashanq, a descendant of a Libyan chief, who established his seat of power at Bubastis. He and his descendants formed the XXIInd dynasty, which lasted till about B.C. 760. About this time the priests of Amen departed from Thebes to Nubia, and soon afterwards the supreme power in the North was seized by local chiefs dwelling at Tanis (XXIIIrd dynasty), who made a league with all the feudal lords in the Delta, with the view of taking possession of the whole country.

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The Ape-gods and Isis and Nephthys adoring the rising sun. Presented by His Majesty the King, 1903.

Vignettes from the Papyrus of Queen Netchemet.

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