save in fragments which only suggest how much has been lost, and that in this respect any comparison with the Eighteenth or Nineteenth Dynasties is totally unfair to the earlier period. Yet, even so, the impression left from the fragments which time and war and the usurpations of subsequent generations have allowed to survive is one of a period of firm, capable, and beneficent government, of trade established on a sound basis, and of considerable and meritorious activity in art and literature. The sculptors of the Twelfth Dynasty have indeed lost some of the spontaneity which characterized the earlier work of the Old Kingdom; but, in spite of a more mannered style, such works as the Koptos sculptures of Amenemhat I. ⚫ and Usertsen I., the statues of the latter king, and the fine statue of Amenemhat III., now at St. Petersburg, are second only to the very best, while in mechanical accuracy of workmanship the sarcophagus of Usertsen II. and the tomb-chamber of Amenemhat III. are unsurpassed.

4

In this period the ancient mode of burial in mastabas passed entirely out of fashion, and the great nobles hollowed their tombs in the rocks bordering the Nile. The most notable examples of this style of burial are the tombs at Beni-Hasan, (Plate XXXI.), famous as presenting early specimens of that form of column known as ProtoDoric.

The minor arts and crafts had reached a high level of skill. It is difficult to imagine any product of the goldsmith's craft more artistic in design or more delicate in execution than the diadems of the Twelfth Dynasty princesses found at Dahshur.

It was, perhaps, in literature that the most distinct advance was made. The language had now reached a definite stage of settlement, and the style of this period was considered in later days to be the standard. The first attempts at a literature of entertainment, as distinct

from historical and 'Wisdom' compositions, are now to be traced. The story of Sanehat, already mentioned, maintained its popularity for many generations, while its probably genuine autobiographical interest was rivalled by a marvellous account of the haps and mishaps of a sailor shipwrecked on a voyage to Punt, which reads like an anticipation of the adventures of Sinbad. In a more serious vein, the Instructions of Amenemhat' have already been alluded to, and the curious composition, 'The Praise of Learning,' though somewhat bourgeois in its smug contempt for all other callings save that of the scribe, is yet of interest, as showing the esteem in which learning was held. In poetry, the most remarkable relic is the Hymn to Usertsen III.,' of which a few lines have been quoted. However lacking in true poetic fire, it is, at all events, a notable example of careful poetic form. 'The Song of the House of the blessed King Antef that is written before the Harper,' which must have dated originally from the period of the Middle Kingdom, survives in two versions of about the Eighteenth Dynasty. Its tone of sombre moralizing on the shortness of life and its carpe diem philosophy remind the reader forcibly of 'the words of the Preacher, the Son of David, King in Jerusalem,' and scarcely suffer by comparison with the bitter philosophy of Ecclesiastes. In religious literature, that version of the Book of the Dead' was now in use which was afterwards the base of the Eighteenth Dynasty Theban recension of this great collection of funerary texts. To this age also belongs the earliest gathering of the folktales of old Egypt, including the story of King Khufu and the magician, which has been alluded to in a previous chapter.

Thus, at the close of the Twelfth Dynasty we are presented with the picture of a nation raised to the

summit of prosperity, strong both materially and mentally, and fully conscious of its strength. There is no warning of the catastrophe which lay ahead, and which was destined to lay all these glories in the dust, and to change the triumphs of the Amenemhats and Usertsens into mere far-off memories of a lost golden age.

CHAPTER V

THE HYKSÔS

THE period which lies between the close of the Twelfth Dynasty and the rise of the Eighteenth is the most confused and obscure in the long history of Egypt. Even its duration is not settled, one school of Egyptologists placing it at no more than 208 years, while another assigns to it more than 1,600—a divergence which is obviously hopeless. In presence of such a conflict of authority, the matter of duration can only be settled by fresh information arising from new discoveries.

Nor is the confusion of kings less than that of dates. For the Thirteenth Dynasty, Manetho's History gives no fewer than sixty kings, and for the Fourteenth seventy-six ; while the Turin Papyrus gives the names, or spaces for the names, of at least fifty-five kings of the Thirteenth. It is manifestly impossible that all, or anything like all, of this enormous multitude can have really been kings of Egypt in the full sense of the term. Probably what we must picture to ourselves is a long period of miserable strife, in which pretender after pretender rises for a little while to lordship over a section of the country, only to be thrust down from his position by another with no truer title than his own.

Here and there in the lists there occur names which plainly suggest that this process was going on. The fifth

3246-1580

name in the Turin list of the Thirteenth Dynasty is that of one Aufni, a title which is quite unusual in its form, and from which we may conclude that at this point the succession was broken and a usurper thrust himself to the front either by force or by treachery. Further down in the list occurs another king, who took as his second title the name Mermeshau, or 'General of the Soldiery,' which at once suggests that here was another break into which some soldier of fortune thrust himself. It would appear that this free-lance had more force and attained to a more stable power than most of his predecessors or successors, for there remain at Tanis two fine grey granite statues bearing his name. Strangest of all appears the fact that towards the end of the Thirteenth Dynasty in the Turin Papyrus occurs the name of one 'Nehesi' (the Negro).

It would seem very remarkable if, within so comparatively short a period from the time when Usertsen III. conquered Nubia and set up his contemptuous denial of the right of any negro to enter the sacred territory of Egypt, a Nubian conqueror should be found sitting upon the throne of the Pharaohs; and perhaps this is scarcely likely, for the relics of Nehesi are found, not in Upper Egypt, where a southern conqueror's power would naturally be greatest, but in the far north, at Bubastis and Tanis. Probably he may have been some Nubian mercenary in the army of the Pharaohs, who, like Mermeshau, reached out a rough hand and snatched the sceptre from the feeble fingers which held it.

For a little space there is the appearance of a settled rule, when Sebek-hotep III.-whose name, compounded with the title of the crocodile god of the Fayum, suggests that he belonged to this district-holds the throne, probably as coregent in part of his reign with his brother Nefer-hotep. Sebek-hotep has left relics of his power, in the shape of fine granite statues of himself, as far north as Tanis and as far