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The oval in which the fourth and fifth names are placed,

is called in Egyptian Shennu, and is commonly

known as the " cartouche." It was originally circular in form, Q, like a signet ring, and Besh, a king of the IInd dynasty, appears to have been the first to use the cartouche. Another common title of the king was PER-AA, ie., "Great House," meaning the "house in which all men live," or the "Asylum of the Universe," "Sublime Porte," etc., which we find in the Bible under the form of "Pharaoh." The king being god never died, and he owed the property of immortality which he

possessed to the “fluid of life" & †,

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sa en ankh, which he obtained from Rā before his birth, for the god was believed to become incarnate from time to time, and to consort with queen after queen, so that his son might always sit on the throne of Egypt. The statues of Ra, being inhabited by his doubles, were endowed with the "fluid of life," and this they transmitted to their human counterpart, the king, by resting their hands upon his head, or by drawing them over the back of his head and down his back. The king performed the ceremonies of the "divine cult " daily, and as a result he drew from the god each day a new supply of the "fluid of life," which justified him in adopting the title " Endowed with life, like Rā, for ever,"

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The Queen was called either the woman of the

god," 90, or the "woman of the king," but she

possessed several other titles.

The official to whom the king entrusted the administration of the country was called Erpā, and of almost equal authority was the Tchat equivalent in modern in modern times is the Kâdi, or Judge.

whose

Other high offices were Chief Councillor,

Governor,

the Town

, the Chancellor,, and, of course, the chiefs of the nomes, the officers of the Treasury, Army, Works Department, Police and Law Courts, and Temples, each of

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whom had his own staff. Titles often bestowed by the king

were Ḥā, Prince, and Smer

and Smer. Smer-uāt

which mean something like "friend," and "only friend." Picturesque titles appear occasionally; thus one official calls

himself "the eyes of the king in the South, and his ears in the North," "the eyes of the king in Thebes," etc. In the priesthood were the following grades: 1. The neter hen, or servant of the god; ; 2. The tef neter, father of the god ;

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kinds of minor priests, e.g., the hen ka, or priest of the Ka, the sem, or setem, the amm as, the amm khent, and the ministrants in general. The title of the high priest of Memphis was "Ur-Kherp-hem," ie., "Great Chief of the hammer," in allusion to his being priest of Ptah, the Blacksmith-god of Memphis; that of the high priest of Heliopolis was Ur-maau," i.e., "great seer "; and that of the high priest of Thebes was Chief prophet of AmenRā." Among the civilians the Scribes played the most prominent part in the administration of the country, and in all periods

66

etc. There were several

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Statues of Maḥu, a director of Works, and
Sebta, a priestess of Hathor, B.C. 1350.

both royal scribes" and [Central Saloon, No. 637.]
"scribes" held many high

offices, especially in connection with the Treasury, and with institutions which possessed large properties, such as the great temples of Heliopolis, Memphis, Saïs, Bubastis, Abydos and Thebes.

Military service.-The Egyptian was neither a fighting man nor a soldier by nature, and except for a few comparatively short periods in her history, Egypt never had an Army in the sense in which the word is used by Western Nations. The Egyptian hated military service, and in any conflict which resembled war he generally ran away. When a hostile force threatened the country, the head of each nome

collected a number of men from his district, and armed them as well as he could, and then sent his contingent to some place appointed by the king. Individual nobles also, no doubt, sent companies of men more or less armed from their estates to fight the king's battles. The peasant, or fellaḥ, was then, as now, a formidable opponent in a fight, when armed with a stout stick, or club, especially when he could fight under cover or behind a wall; but anything like organized resistance terrified him, and rendered him useless. On the other hand, the native of the Sûdân was a very fine fighter, and whenever it was possible Pharaoh stiffened his troops with regiments of Blacks. Thus, if we may believe the account of Unȧ, the commander-in-chief of Pepi, a king of the VIth dynasty, his army contained Blacks from every great province of the Sûdân, and numbered "many times ten thousand." In the Asiatic campaigns, which produced such great spoil for Egypt, the organizers of these wars, which are better termed “military raids," and the finest fighters in them were either Blacks, or of Sûdânî origin. Egypt had only need of soldiers in the strict sense of the word when it was necessary to suppress sudden rebellions in the provinces, or to compel tributary kings to pay what was due from them, or to provide escorts to Government trading expeditions. In times of peace the troops of the militia laid down their clubs, bows, daggers, and spears, and worked at their trades or cultivated the fields. Military exercises, drillings, manœuvres, etc., there

were none.

The Predynastic Egyptian warrior armed himself with a short, stout stick; later it was weighted at one end with a piece of flint or stone, and so became a kind of club. A flat piece of flint, or stone, with a roughly-formed cutting edge, bound to a stick by thongs of leather, served as an axe. Double-headed axes were also known, and knives, spearheads, arrow-heads, etc., were commonly used.

The equipment of the soldier of the Ancient Empire was simple. He wore a sort of skull cap, of leather (?), with a feather or two stuck in the top; he fought with a club, or mace, and a bow, carrying his flint-tipped arrows in a leather quiver slung over his back, and he caught the blows and arrows of his foe on a large leathern shield, which was sometimes ornamented with the badge of his master or his family. At a later period he wore a leathern shirt to protect his body, and he added to his arms a long spear, a knife, or dagger, with a curved blade, and some

times a battle-axe. The equipment of the mercenaries of a still later period differed in many details from that of the native Egyptian. (For examples of bows, arrows, daggers, spears, etc., see Table-case B in the Third Egyptian Room.)

The horse and chariot were unused in Egypt before the kings of the XVIIIth dynasty began to make conquests in Western Asia. At a comparatively early period the Egyptians began to fortify their towns with walls and strong gates, and in the XIIth dynasty King Usertsen III erected a series of forts in the Second Cataract to prevent the Nubians from descending the river and laying Egypt waste. One strong fort was built near Buhen (Wâdî Halfah), another on the island now called Jazîrat al-Malik, one at Semnah, and another exactly opposite at Kummah. The walls were built of mud bricks, many feet thick, and long slopes cased with stone were built against them. Within each enclosure were series of chambers for storehouses and barracks, and at one corner a small temple, dedicated to the chief god of the district. Another series of forts was built on the frontier between the north-east line of the Delta and Syria, generally of great strength.

The geographical position of Egypt made it unnecessary for her to possess a navy, and, moreover, the peasants were as little fitted to become sailors as soldiers. The most important sea-fight in which the Egyptians took part was the engagement in which Rameses III (B.C. 1200, or later) vanquished the confederation of Libyan tribes. This king built war-ships, and manned them with crews from the seafaring peoples of the Mediterranean, and he succeeded in gaining a signal victory by sea and land over his enemies.

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