NOTES FOR TRAVELLERS IN EGYPT.

EGYPTIAN HISTORY,

THE history of Egypt is the oldest history known to us. It is true that the earliest of the Babylonian kings whose names are known lived very little later than the earliest kings of Egypt, nevertheless our knowledge of the early Egyptian is greater than of the early Babylonian kings. A large portion of Egyptian history can be constructed. from the native records of the Egyptians, and it is now possible to correct and modify many of the statements upon this subject made by Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus. and other classical authors. The native and other documents from which Egyptian history is obtained are :—

I. Lists of Kings found in the Turin Papyrus, the Tablet of Abydos, the Tablet of Sakkarah, and the Tablet of Karnak. The Turin papyrus contained a complete list of kings, beginning with the god-kings and continuing down to the end of the rule of the Hyksos, about B.C. 1700. The name of each king during this period, together with the length of his reign in years, months and days, was given, and it would have been, beyond all doubt, the most valuable of all documents for the chronology of the oldest period of Egyptian history, if scholars had been able to make use of it in the perfect condition in which it was

B

discovered. When it arrived in Turin, however, it was found to be broken into more than one hundred and fifty fragments. So far back as 1824, Champollion recognized the true value of the fragments, and placed some of them in their chronological order. Its evidence is of the greatest importance for the history of the XIIIth and XIVth dynasties, because in this section the papyrus is tolerably perfect; for the earlier dynasties it is of very little use.

On the monuments each Egyptian king has usually two names, the prenomen and the nomen; each of these is contained in a cartouche.* Thus the prenomen of

Thothmes III. is

Rā-men-cheper, and his

nomen is Teḥuti-mes. Rā-men-cheper means something like "Rā (the Sun-god) establishes becoming or existence;" Teḥuti-mes means "born of Thoth," or "Thoth's son." These names are quite distinct from 2102 Before the prenomen comes the title

his titles.

suten net, † "King of the North and South," and after it

comes

nomen.

ぷ

se Ra, "son of the Sun," preceding the

Each prenomen has a meaning, but it is at times

difficult to render it exactly in English. Every king styled himself king of "the North and South," and "son of the Sun." The first title is sometimes varied by "Beautiful

* Cartouche is the name which is usually given to the oval which the name of a royal person is enclosed.

The ordinary word for "king" is

in

suten. The word

Pharaoh,, which the Hebrews called the kings of Egypt, is

derived from the Egyptian

or

per aa, otherwise written

66

god, lord of the two earths."* In the earliest times the kings were named after some attribute possessed by them; thus Menȧ, the first king of Egypt, is the "firm" or established." In the Turin papyrus only the prenomens of the kings are given, but its statements are confirmed and amplified by the other lists.

The Tablet of Abydos† was discovered by Dümichen in the temple of Osiris at Abydos, during M. Mariette's excavations there in 1864. This list gives us the names of seventy-five kings, beginning with Menȧ or Menes, and ending with Seti I., the father of Rameses II.; it is not a complete list, and it would seem as if the scribe who drew up the list only inserted such names as he considered worthy of living for ever. The Tablet of Sakkârah‡ was discovered at Sakkârah by Mariette, in the grave of a dignitary who lived during the reign of Rameses II. In spite of a break in it, and some orthographical errors, it is a valuable list; it gives the names of forty-seven kings, and it agrees very closely with the Abydos list. It is a curious fact that it begins with the name of Mer-ba-pen, the sixth king of the Ist dynasty. The Tablet of Karnak was discovered at Karnak by Burton, and was taken to Paris by Prisse. It

*

Some kings had a large number of titles. Thus Thothmes III. is

styled "Horus, mighty bull, diademed with law, the lord,

maker of things, Ra-men-cheper," etc., etc. He is also called :

啞口

"King of the North and

South, mighty of terror in all lands";

Δ

"God, exalted one of the white crown, beloved of Rä";

mighty of valour, smiter of the Nine Bows," etc.

was drawn up in the time of Thothmes III., and contains the names of sixty-one of his ancestors. They are not arranged in any chronological order, but the tablet is of the highest historical importance, for it records the names of some of the rulers from the XIIIth to the XVIIth dynasties, and gives the names of those of the XIth dynasty more completely than any other list.

II. Annals of Egyptian Kings inscribed upon the walls of temples, obelisks, and buildings. The narrative of such inscriptions is very simple, and practically these records merely represent itineraries in which the names of conquered and tributary lands and people are given; incidentally facts of interest are noted down. As the day and month and regnal years of the king by whom these expeditions were undertaken are generally given, these inscriptions throw much light on history. The lists of tribute are also useful, for they show what the products of the various countries The poetical version* of the history of the famous battle of Rameses II. against the Cheta by the poet Pen-ta-urt is a pleasant variety of historical narrative. The inscription on the stelef of Pianchi, the Ethiopian conqueror of Egypt, is decidedly remarkable for the minute details of his fights, the speeches made by himself and his conquered foes, and the mention of many facts which are not commonly noticed by Egyptian annalists. The vigour and poetical nature of the narrative are also very striking.

were.

* See the notice of the official Egyptian account on page 306 f. + Preserved at Gîzeh. See page 157.

For example, it is stated that when Pianchi had taken possession of the storehouses and treasury of Nimrod his foe, he went afterwards into the stables, and found that the horses there had been kept short of food. Bursting into a rage he turned to Nimrod and said, "By my life, by my darling Rā, who revives my nostrils with life, to have kept my horses hungry is more heinous in my sight than any other offence which thou hast committed against me." Mariette, Monuments Divers, pl. 3, 11. 65, 66.

III. Historical Stelæ and Papyri, which briefly relate in chronological order the various expeditions undertaken by the king for whom they were made. Egyptian kings occasionally caused summaries of their principal conquests and of the chief events of their reign to be drawn up; examples of these are (a) the stele of Thothmes III.,* and (b) the last section of the great Harris Papyrus, in which Rameses III. reviews all the good works which he has brought to a successful issue to the glory of the gods of Egypt and for the benefit of her inhabitants. This wonderful papyrus measures 135 feet by 17 inches, and was found in a box in the temple at Medînet Habû, built by Rameses III.; it is now in the British Museum.

IV. Decrees, Scarabs, Statues of Kings and Private Persons are fruitful sources of information about historical, religious, and chronological subjects.

V. Biblical notices about Egypt and allusions to events of Egyptian history.

VI. The Cuneiform Inscriptions. In 1887 a number of tablets+ inscribed in cuneiform were found at Tell el-Amarna. The inscriptions relate to a period of Egyptian history which falls in the fifteenth century B.C., and they are letters from the kings of Babylon, and cities of Mesopotamia and Phoenicia relating to marriages, offensive and defensive alliances, military matters, etc., etc., and reports on the rebellions and wars which took place at that time, addressed to Amenophis III. and to his son Chut-enåten or Amenophis IV. The Babylonian king who writes. is called Kurigalzu. Thothmes III. had carried his victorious arms into Mesopotamia, and one of his successors, Amenophis III., delighted to go there and shoot the lions with which the country abounded. During one of these

hunting expeditions he fell in love with the lady (115)

* Preserved at Gîzeh; see page 154.

† See the description of the Gîzeh Museum, page 168.