Granite lion dedicated to the temple of Sulb by Tutankhamen (about B.C. 1400) in memory of "his father" Amenḥetep III. It was found at Jabal Barkal, whither it seems to have been taken by Amen-Asru, about 1000 years later. XVIIIth dynasty.

B.M. No. 34.

Was this pottery taken there by trading caravans from the North in the ordinary way of business, or was it made there by the people who formed a Hyksos colony in that great and ancient Sûdânî trading-centre ?1 The cemetery suggests the existence of a Hyksos colony, governed by Hyksos officials. Be this as it may, the only Theban kings of the XVIIth dynasty are: Taua Seqenenrā I, whose tomb is mentioned in the Abbott Papyrus2; Tauāā Seqenenrā II, whose tomb is mentioned in the same papyrus; Tauāqen Seqenenrā III, who was killed in fighting against the Hyksos3; Kames, who was probably the son of Tauaqen, and Senekhtenrā. The Hyksos contemporary of Tauaqen was one of the kings called Apepà, or Rä-Apepi

o

O

as we know from the

Papyrus Sallier I (Brit. Mus. No. 10185). This document states that Ra-Apepi wrote to Tauaqen from Avaris complaining that the hippopotami in the sacred lake at Thebes made so much noise, both by day and by night, that he was unable to sleep, and he called upon him to let huntsmen deal with the noisy beasts. The text suggests, too, that Rā-Apepi wished the Theban king to introduce the worship of the Hyksos god Sutekh, e

, into

Thebes. The chief value of this composition is that it shows that Ra-Apepi was the overlord of Tauaqen. What answer Tauäqen sent to Avaris is not known, but it seems that war broke out between the Hyksos and the Egyptians in his reign, and that with his head almost battered to pieces he died fighting for the independence of his people. The war was continued by Kames, his son by Queen Tetȧsheret, but nothing is known of his acts, and, though his reign was short, he seems to have made his rule effective so far as Herakleopolis, perhaps even beyond. He married his sister Aaḥḥetep, the daughter of Tetasheret, whose family seems to have belonged to Khemenu (Hermopolis), and probably consolidated his kingdom by so doing. Of their sons, one called Senekhtenrā reigned for a year or two, but nothing is known about him.

THE NEW KINGDOM

The Eighteenth Dynasty. From Thebes.

The Hyksos were conquered and driven out of Egypt by Аāḥmes (I), the Amôs, Amâses or Amôsis of Manetho, the son of Kames and Aāḥḥetep, who was the founder of the XVIIIth dynasty. The story of the expulsion of the Hyksos is told by Aāḥmes, whose

1 Specimens of Hyksos pottery are exhibited in the British Museum; see Guide to the 4th, 5th and 6th Egyptian Rooms, P. 257.

2 Maspero, Enquête, p. 20.

3 His mummy was found at Dêr al-Baḥarî.

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father, Baba, had fought in the wars under Tauäqen (Seqenen-Rā III). He was a native of Nekheb (Al-Kâb), and was made captain of a war-boat at an early age. He was present at the capture, by Aāḥmes I, of Avaris, the Hyksos capital in the Eastern Delta, and was on several occasions rewarded with gifts of gold and slaves. He followed the king in the pursuit of the Hyksos to Sharuhen (mentioned in Joshua xix, 6), and witnessed the capture of that city. A namesake and fellow-citizen, Aāḥmes-pen-Nekheb, describes a further pursuit of the Hyksos by the king, who pushed his forces through Palestine and invaded Southern Syria. Aāḥmes I also sent an expedition into Nubia and reduced the tribes between Al-Kâb and Elephantine and the Nubians to subjection. With a portion of the spoil obtained by his successful warfare he endowed the temple of Amen at Karnak, and so laid the foundation of the great wealth and power of the priesthood of Amen, or Àmen-Rā, King of the gods" at Thebes.

Amenḥetep I, the Amenôphthis of Manetho, sent an expedition to raid Nubia and re-established the Egyptian frontier in the south at Kash, in the Third Cataract, and captured the captain of the Blacks and appointed an overlord for their country. He also raided a district of Libya and a portion of Syria, and returned with much spoil, a portion of which he devoted to rebuilding the temple of Amen and endowing the priesthood thereof. The incorporation of the name of Åmen in his name proclaims the influence of the priesthood of Åmen over his family and their devotion to this god. Amenhetep's predecessor had been a votary of the Moon-god Аāḥ, and the god's name formed part of his own.

Tcheḥutimes (Thothmes I), the Tuthmôsis of Manetho, married Princess Аāḥmes , and thus consolidated his claim to the throne; his mother was called Senseneb. He at once appointed a viceroy over Lower and Upper Nubia, who bore the title "Prince of Kash (Cush)," and caused records of his accession to be cut on the rocks at Buhen and other parts of Nubia. In the second year of his reign he set out for Nubia, taking with him the two officers called Aāḥmes (Amasis), who had served under his predecessors, and, according to the story of one of them, he engaged in the fight personally and slew his antagonist. He built a fort on the Island of Tombos near the head of the Third Cataract, and in the stele which he set up there he boasts that his kingdom extends from this point to the Euphrates, a river which, up to that time at all events, he had never seen. He returned to Thebes with the body of the Nubian chief, whom he had slain, hanging head downwards from the bows of his boat. He next led an expedition into Syria and marched as far north as the country of the great rivers (Naharina), and took many prisoners and obtained great spoil. His captains Aāḥmes, the son of Baba, and Aāḥmes-pen-Ñekheb, performed

splendid acts of personal bravery, and one brought into the king's camp a chariot and horses and the charioteer, and the other a chariot and a horse and 21 hands which he had cut off from his prisoners' bodies! Thothmes I set up a stele somewhere in Syria to commemorate his victories, and it was seen by Thothmes III. He devoted a large share of his spoil to the repairs of the temples throughout the land, and he built a splendid pylon at Karnak in the temple of Amen, and set up two granite obelisks there in honour of Amen-Ra. These, the successors of the "sun-stones" of Heliopolis, probably mark the fusion of Amen, the old god of Thebes, with Ra, the foreign Sun-god of Heliopolis. Thothmes I also rebuilt and refurnished the temple of Osiris at Abydos.

Thothmes II, the Chebrôs or Chebron of Manetho, was the son of Thothmes I by Princess Mutnefert. He had been co-regent with his father, just as had been his half-brothers Uatchmes and Amenmes and his half-sister Hatshepsut, who were the offspring of Thothmes I by Queen Aāḥmes. Uatchmes and Amenmes died before Thothmes I, and when this king died Thothmes II and Hatshepsut had equal claims to the throne, so they married each other and reigned jointly. The above statements rest upon the facts which, it seems to the present writer, may be legitimately deduced from the evidence of the monuments. But some think that Thothmes I had one son, called Thothmes, by his wife Princess Aāḥmes, and another son, also called Thothmes, by a lady of inferior birth whose name was Åset. Thothmes, son of Aset, they say, compelled Thothmes I to abdicate and became the king whom we know as Thothmes III. He married Hatshepsut, and the two reigned jointly for a few years, then Thothmes III, having dissociated Hatshepsut from the rule of the kingdom, had her name cut out of the monuments. Then Thothmes, the son of Princess Аāḥmes, overthrew Thothmes, the son of Åset, who was reigning, and re-established his father Thothmes I as co-regent, and also cut out Hatshepsut's name from the monuments. When Thothmes I died, Thothmes, son of Princess Aāḥmes, reigned alone; on his death Thothmes, son of Aset, resumed his reign and, the breach between himself and his half-sister being patched up, he remarried Hatshepsut and they reigned jointly. When Hatshepsut died he became sole king. This theory, which was first propounded by Sethe,1 has few, if any, facts to support it, and is contradicted by the general evidence of the monuments of the period. It has been adopted by Breasted, who, however, in his History (p. 267), frankly states that his "reconstruction is not without difficulties. Elsewhere, in a book published in the same year as his History (1906), he says that Sethe's explanation

1 See his Untersuchungen, I, Leipzig, 1896, pp. 1-58, and Aeg. Zeit., Bd. XXXVI, p. 24 f.

2 "A New Chapter in the Life of Thothmes III," published in Sethe's Untersuchungen, Vol. II, Leipzig, 1900.