Seated figure of Harua, an official of Queen Amenȧrtas holding figures of Hathor and Tefnut. XXVIth dynasty. B.M. No. 46699.

the king whose army was destroyed was not Sennacherib, but Esarhaddon, and that the destruction of that army was caused by a STORM, and not by field mice or pestilence. The proof of this statement is obtained from a chronological tablet, No. 25091, in the British Museum, which describes the Egyptian campaigns of Esarhaddon. This tablet says:

In the 6th year (of Esarhaddon's reign, B.C. 675) the troops of
Assyria went to Egypt, they fled before a great storm.

In the 7th year (B.C. 674) on the 8th Adar, the troops of Assyria
fought against the city Sha amelie.

Now the Babylonian Chronicle merely says concerning B.C. 675 that "The Assyrian went to Egypt," and does not mention a storm. It goes on to say that in the 7th year of Esarhaddon (B.c. 674) the army of Assyria fought against Egypt; in the tenth year (B.C. 671) Esarhaddon took Memphis; its king (Tirhâkâh) escaped, but his brother was taken prisoner and the city was looted. In the twelfth year (B.C. 669) Esarhaddon went to Egypt," fell sick on the way and died on Marcheswân 10th." The Babylonian Chronicle mentions the expedition of B.C. 675, but the recently translated tablet shows why it was without results. Having ordered the investment of Jerusalem and Tyre, Esarhaddon marched against Pelusium,1 Egypt's chief fortress on her north-east frontier. He was overtaken by a storm-that is to say, the terrible habûb, which is really a sandblast driven by a desert wind travelling 60 or 70 miles an hour, that suffocates man and beast, and tears up tents and buries an encampment in an hour or two. The number of the men who perished as given in the Bible must be an exaggeration, but as the storm wrecked Esarhaddon's plans for the year his army must have suffered severely. In 671 he captured Memphis, received the submission of the nobles, and having appointed twenty governors to rule the provinces of his new kingdom, returned to Nineveh. Soon after his departure Tirhâkâh appeared again in Egypt, drove out the governors appointed by Esarhaddon, and, having entered Memphis, proclaimed himself king of all Egypt. Hearing of these doings Esarhaddon, in the twelfth year of his reign (B.C. 669), set out again for Egypt, probably with the intention of punishing Tirhâkah, but he died on the way.

Esarhaddon was succeeded by Ashurbanipal (B.C. 668-626), who, as soon as he heard of the deposition of Esarhaddon's governors, set out for Egypt and, having defeated Tirhâkâh's forces at Karbaniti, occupied Memphis. Tirhâķâh fled a second time, probably to Thebes. Ashurbanipal sent a force up the Nile to Thebes, whereupon Mentuemḥat, the governor, submitted, and Tirhâkâh fled to Napata. Ashurbanipal recalled and re-appointed the governors

1 Smith, op. cit., p. 10.

who had been appointed by his father,1 and returned to Nineveh with great spoil. At once Tirhâkâh reappeared, and plotted the destruction of the Assyrian garrison in Egypt with Sharruludari, governor of Tanis, Nekau, governor of Saïs, and others. The plot was discovered, and when Ashurbanipal heard of it he sent another army to Egypt; the revolt was crushed mercilessly, and Sharruludari and Nekau were sent in chains to Nineveh. The former was put to death there, but Nekau was pardoned and entreated honourably, and sent back to Egypt loaded with gifts, and his son, to whom the Assyrian name of Nabûshezibani was given, was made governor of Athribis. A few years later Tirhâķâh died, and we may note that in an inscription found at Karnak he claims sovereignty over Khati Land, Assyria, Libya, Western Asia and the Eastern Deserts.

Tirhâkâh was succeeded, B.C. 663, by Tanutȧmen,2 "lord of the

two horns,"

a Nubian who had been his co-regent

for some years. Under the inspiration of a dream3 he marched into Egypt, seized Memphis, and slaughtered the Assyrian garrison. Nekau of Saïs was killed, but his son Psemtek escaped to Assyria. When these things were reported to Ashurbanipal in Nineveh he set out for Egypt, and when Tanutȧmen heard of his arrival he fled to Thebes. The chiefs of the Delta promptly submitted to Ashurbanipal, who left Memphis and followed Tanutȧmen to Thebes. Tanutȧmen then fled to Kipkipi (Qepqepa ?), and Thebes fell into the hands of the Assyrians, who plundered temples and houses alike, and stripped the city of everything that had value and could be carried away. They then burnt the city and left it a smoking ruin, and they carried off so much spoil, to say nothing of men, women and children and horses, that the king himself says that he returned to Nineveh with "a full hand." Thebes never recovered from the punishment that Ashurbanipal inflicted upon it.

The Twenty-Sixth Dynasty. From Saïs.

The first king of this dynasty was Psemtek (I), or Psammitichos, the son of Nekau, the governor of Saïs who had been pardoned by Ashurbanipal, and he reigned 54 years, counting from the time when

1 For their names and cities see Smith, G., History of Assurbanipal, p. 48 ff. ; Aeg. Zeit., 1872, p. 29 ff.; Steindorff, Beiträge zur Assyriologie, Vol. I, p. 595 ff. A list of names in cuneiform, with their probable Egyptian equivalents, will be found in Budge, History of Egypt, Vol. VI, p. 172.

2 I have shown in my History of Egypt (Vol. VI, p. 165) that the Assyrian transcript of this name is TAN-DA-MA-NI-E; Tanutȧmen was a nephew of Tirhâ kâh.

3 A copy of the text made from a cast of the stele recording it which was found at Jabal Barkal is given by Budge, with an English translation in Annals of Nubian Kings, p. 71 ff. The text was first published by Mariette, Mon. Div., pl. 7.

he was reinstated by the king of Assyria. He married Shepenupt, a daughter of Piankhi, and so legalized his claim to the throne of Egypt. His daughter Nitaqert (Nitocris) was adopted by Shepenupt, a sister of Tirhâķâh, and thus was able to inherit her property legally. He obtained the throne by the help of Ionian and Carian mercenaries. He trusted to the garrisons that he had established at Elephantine, Pelusium, Daphnae and Marea to protect his country against the Nubians, Arabians and Libyans, and devoted himself to the development of the commerce of Egypt. He built the large side-gallery to the Serapeum at Sakkârah. A great revival of art and sculpture took place in his reign, and the best works of the Old Kingdom were chosen as models. In 612, two years before the death of Psemtek I, the Fall of Nineveh took place; we owe the discovery of this fact to Mr. C. J. Gadd, of the British Museum.1

Psemtek I was succeeded by his son Nekau, the Pharaoh Nechoh of II Kings xxiii, 29, II Chron. xxxv, 20, and Jeremiah xlvi, 2, who reigned at least 16 years. He maintained a large army, which contained many Greeks and Carians, and he encouraged commerce in every way, keeping one fleet of ships in the Mediterranean and another in the Red Sea. He tried to remake the old canal which ran from Memphis to the head of the Gulf of Suez, but though he employed 120,000 men on the work he did not finish it. Early in his reign he collected a large army and marched into Palestine and, having vanquished Josiah, king of Judah, in the Battle of Megiddo, became practically master of the country. A few years later he went up to Carchemish to fight against the Babylonians and Medes,3 who were led by Nebuchadrezzar II, and was utterly defeated and obliged to retreat in hot haste to Egypt.

Psemtek II, son of Nekau, is said to have made an expedition into Nubia, and to have reached the town of Kerkis, near Wâdî Ḥalfah, but the monuments say little about him. The famous. Greek inscription on the broken statue of Rameses II at Abu Simbel dates from his reign.4

Uahabra, the Hophra of Jeremiah xliv, 30, and the Apries of the Greeks, succeeded Psemtek II and reigned 19 years. He made an expedition into Phoenicia and captured Tyre and Sidon, but he gave no effective help to Zedekiah in Jerusalem, and the city was taken by Nebuchadrezzar II. Apries sent by request a number of Egyptians to help the chief Adikran against the Cyrenaeans, but as a result of their defeat and slaughter by the Cyrenaeans a rebellion broke out in Egypt, the people declaring that Apries had wilfully

1 For the text and translation of the Babylonian Chronicle see his Fall of Nineveh, London, 1923.

2 It was finished by Darius I, was re-dug by Trajan in the IInd century A.D., and repaired or re-dug by 'Amr ibn al-'As about A.D. 640.

3 See Gadd, The Fall of Nineveh, p. 7, note 1.

See Krall, Grundriss, p. 177; Wiedemann, Aeg. Gesch., p. 631 f.