With the exception of one or two of the kings whose names are given in the above list, e.g., Sebek-em-sa-f and Sebek-em-sau-f, who, however, probably lived in the period of the XIIIth Dynasty, none of the monarchs of the XIVth Dynasty can ever have possessed dominion over Egypt, south and north, and if they all actually reigned, some of their reigns must have been contemporaneous. Moreover, it is very probable, 1 Parts of about thirty other royal names of the XIVth Dynasty will be seen in the fragments of the Turin Papyrus, but they are not worth recording here; they will be found duly set out in the Aegyptische Geschichte of Prof. Wiedemann, pp. 274, 275, where also is given a list of names derived from stelae, scarabs, and other monuments, which seem to belong to the period of the XIIIth and XIVth Dynasties (pp. 275–283). HELPLESSNESS OF EGYPT 131 as some have supposed, that the kings of the XIVth Dynasty ruled in the Delta and in the north of Egypt whilst the later kings of the XIIIth Dynasty were ruling in the Thebaïd. In any case, the almost total absence of monuments of the kings of the XIVth Head of a portrait statue of an official. XIVth Dynasty. Dynasty proves that their power in the land was very small, and that, in consequence, Egypt lay defenceless before any attack that might be made by Libyan, or Syrian, or Negro. The rich and fertile country of Egypt was coveted by her hereditary foes from time immemorial, and she fell an easy prey before them under the failing power of the kings of the XIIIth and XIVth Dynasties. The Syrians and people belonging to the nomad tribes of the desert had been quietly settling in the Delta for centuries, and had been making themselves owners of lands and estates. For some reason which is unknown to us the immigration of the foreigners from the east increased largely, and their kinsmen, who were already in the country, making common cause with them, they seized the land and set up a king over them. The rulers of the people who did these things are called by Manetho "Hyksos," or 'Shepherd-Kings." 66 ( 133 ) CHAPTER V. THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH DYNASTIES. THE HYKSOS OR SHEPHERDS. WE have already seen that at the end of the XIIIth Dynasty the government of Egypt had become so feeble that it could not set up one king sufficiently strong to prove himself master of the entire country, and we find that Egypt was soon after the end of the period of that dynasty taken possession of without war and strife, not by a nation but by a confederation of nomad tribes, which are known as the "HYKSOS." Of the origin of these people little is known, and of the exact period when they made themselves masters of Egypt nothing is known, and all that has come down to us are a few statements concerning the Hyksos which the historian Josephus quotes from the lost Egyptian History of Manetho, not with the view of giving us information about them, but merely in support of his theory that the Hyksos kings of Egypt were ancestors of the Jewish nation. Many years ago a theory was put forward by Lepsius to the effect that 2 1 the Hyksos invasion of Egypt took place at the end of the XIIth Dynasty, but this was soon proved by de Rougé to be impossible, and the view expressed later by Lepsius that it took place early in the XIIIth Dynasty was soon seen to be equally impossible, for at that period the Egyptian kings were indeed masters of their own country. The Egyptian monuments tell us nothing about the Hyksos, but we are certainly right in assuming that they were only a vast gathering of tribes from the Sinaitic Peninsula, the Eastern Desert, Palestine, and Syria, whole sections of which, from time to time, migrated into the Delta and settled down there; but before we consider these we may analyze the statements made by Manetho concerning the Hyksos. He says that the people who invaded the country were of ignoble race, ἄνθρωποι τὸ γένος ἄσημοι, and that they conquered the country without a battle; this, M. Maspero thinks very possible, because the invaders were provided with chariots drawn by horses, which would enable them to move swiftly from one place to another at a pace unknown to the Egyptian soldiers. Having seized the local governors, they burnt I See Königsbuch, p. 21. 2 Examen de l'Ouvrage de M. le Chevalier de Bunsen, ii. p. 35. 3 See Josephus against Apion, I. 14. Apion was a Greek grammarian who flourished in the first half of the first century of our era; he was a native of Oasis, and was the author of many works, one at least of which contained several attacks upon the Jews. |