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and returned in triumph without the loss of a man, and how on two occasions he was employed, once with 400 and once with 600 men of his nome, to guard the gold convoys coming from the Wady Alaki and from Koptos. Ameny further describes the success of his administration of the Oryx nome, the evenhandedness with which he dealt with his subjects, and the care with which he attended to their welfare, particularly in the years of famine. Altogether his inscription reveals to us the way in which, under the strong hands of the Twelfth Dynasty kings, the turbulent nobles were now settling down into useful administrators, who took a pride in their work and in their relation to the sovereign.

In the eighteenth year of his reign, and the eighth of his sole rule, Usertsen sent an expedition into Nubia under a commander named Mentuhotep, who left a large stele at Wady Halfa recording his triumph, and giving a list of the towns and tribes which he had conquered. Unfortunately most of the names of this, the first of many such lists, are not to be identified with any certainty.

The remains of Usertsen's public works are found in many localities. At Tanis there are fragments of three of his statues, all of which have been usurped in later days by Merenptah, of the Nineteenth Dynasty. At the Wady Maghareh and at Serabit-el-Khadem there are steles of his reign which show that he had renewed the former Egyptian hold upon the Sinai Peninsula, with its turquoise and copper mines. But the chief structure of his reign was the great temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, of the founding of which we have an account upon a leather roll dating from the time of Amenhotep IV. (Eighteenth Dynasty). The king is represented as forecasting immortality for himself in the great work which he is resolved to begin :

'There shall be remembrance of my benefits in his house. My name shall be the temple, my monument the lake.'

'The king rose with the diadem and double pen, all men following him. The Lector read the holy book, while extending the cord and laying the foundation on the spot to be occupied by this temple. Then His Majesty departed. . . .' Of this great temple, the daughter of the high-priest of which, according to the Bible account, was married to Joseph, there remains but one relic-the famous obelisk of Heliopolis, oldest of Egyptian obelisks, which still stands at Matariyeh. The total length of Usertsen's reign was forty-five years, of which the first ten were in co-regency with his father, while during the last three he associated his own son Amenemhat II. with him on the throne.

The reigns of the two following sovereigns, Amenemhat II. and Usertsen II., are comparatively devoid of incident, though the prosperity of the country seems to have been fully maintained during the half-century which they cover. The most interesting record of the period is the picture in the tomb of Khnem-hotep at Beni-Hasan. In it we see two of the officials of Prince Khnem-hotep presenting to their master thirty-seven 'Aamu' or Asiatics, who come, as the record states, 'on account of the mestchem' (kohl, or eye-paint). The faces of the Aamu are obviously of Semitic type, and the name of their leader, Absha, or 'father of a present,' is the same as that of the well-known captain of David's body-guard, Abishai. In the dress and appointments of the men and women who compose the party there is, as Petrie remarks, 'no sign of inferior civilization.' It is a civilization of a different type which is presented to us, but the type is quite as advanced, and quite as well adapted to the needs of its habitat, as that of the Egyptian to his (Fig. 10).

The pyramid of King Usertsen II. was identified by Petrie at Illahun. The red granite sarcophagus which it contains gives proof that the technical skill of the

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Egyptian workman had not deteriorated, 'the errors of flatness and straightness being matters of thousandths of an inch.' At Kahun, close to the pyramid, Petrie also discovered the remains of the town 'Hat-hetep Usertsen ' (Usertsen is content), which had been occupied by the workmen and overseers and their families during the construction of the pyramid and its temple. The remains still surviving covered an area of 18 acres, within

FIG. 11.-CHILDREN'S TOYS.

which about 2,000 rooms were traced and examined. In fact, the whole remaining part of the town has been planned so that the outline of a practically unaltered Twelfth-Dynasty town can be seen, with its larger houses for the officials and its crowded alleys of little dwellings for the workmen. The papyri found at Kahun were of considerable importance, one of them containing the hymn of praise to Usertsen III. to be referred to later. But perhaps the most human interest attached to the children's toys-the tops and dolls, the clay crocodiles and hippopotami, and the model boats-which pathetically

suggested that feature of human life which is the same in all the ages, in the masons' quarters at Hetep-Usertsen 4,000 years ago as in our own homes to-day.

With the accession of Usertsen III. the land entered upon a more active and aggressive period, and it is to this monarch, ever afterwards regarded as one of the great heroes of Egyptian history, that the first steps were due which resulted in the firm establishment of Egyptian dominion in the land between the first and second cataracts of the Nile. In his eighth year Usertsen passed up the river on his first Ethiopian campaign. Arriving at the first cataract, he gave orders for his engineers to cut a canal through the granite barrier which impeded the passage of his war-galleys. Such a canal had already been in existence in the days of Una, in the Sixth Dynasty, but had probably since then been choked or destroyed by the scour of the powerful current. At all events, 'His Majesty ordered to be made a canal anew; the name of this canal is "the most excellent of ways of Kha-kau-ra [Usertsen] III., ever living." Then His Majesty sailed southward to crush Ethiopia the vile. Length of this canal, 150 cubits; breadth, 20 cubits; depth, 14 cubits.' A thousand years later the canal was used by Tahutmes I., and later was cleared and reopened by the great soldier Tahutmes III., who gave order: 'The fishers of Elephantine shall cut this canal every year.'

Other campaigns followed in Ethiopia, by which the southern boundary of Egypt was advanced as far as the second cataract. At a point about thirty miles above the second cataract the king built, on the hills of Semneh and Kummeh, two forts commanding the passage of the river. The ruins of these strongholds still survive, and reveal a knowledge of the art of constructing fortifications quite unexpected at such a period, the skill with which their flanking towers are disposed, and the arrangement

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