History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery Part 5

Prof. Petrie, however, who examined the Griza pyramids in 1881, and carefully measured them all up and finally settled their trigonometrical relation, came to the conclusion that Lepsius's theory was entirely erroneous, and that every pyramid was built and now stands as it was originally planned. Dr.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 111.jpg THE PYRAMIDS OF GIZA DURING THE INUNDATION.]

Borchardt, however, who is an architect by profession, has examined the pyramids again, and has come to the conclusion that Prof. Petrie's statement is not correct, and that there is an element of truth in Lepsius's hypothesis. He has shown that several of the pyramids, notably the First and Second at Giza, show unmistakable signs of a modified, altered, and enlarged plan; in fact, long-lived kings like Khufu seem to have added considerably to their pyramids and even to have entirely remodelled them on a larger scale. This has certainly been the case with the Great Pyramid. We can, then, accept Lepsius's theory as modified by Dr. Borchardt.

Another interesting point has arisen in connection with the Great Pyramid. Considerable difference of opinion has always existed between Egyptologists and the professors of European archaeology with regard to the antiquity of the knowledge of iron in Egypt. The majority of the Egyptologists have always maintained, on the authority of the inscriptions, that iron was known to the ancient Egyptians from the earliest period. They argued that the word for a certain metal in old Egyptian was the same as the Coptic word for "iron." They stated that in the most ancient religious texts the Egyptians spoke of the firmament of heaven as made of this metal, and they came to the conclusion that it was because this metal was blue in colour, the hue of iron or steel; and they further pointed out that some of the weapons in the tomb-paintings were painted blue and others red, some being of iron, that is to say, others of copper or bronze. Finally they brought forward as incontrovertible evidence an actual fragment of worked iron, which had been found between two of the inner blocks, down one of the air-shafts, in the Great Pyramid. Here was an actual piece of iron of the time of the IVth Dynasty, about 3500 B.C.

This conclusion was never accepted by the students of the development of the use of metal in prehistoric Europe, when they came to know of it.

No doubt their incredulity was partly due to want of appreciation of the Egyptological evidence, partly to disinclination to accept a conclusion which did not at all agree with the knowledge they had derived from their own study of prehistoric Europe. In Southern Europe it was quite certain that iron did not come into use till about 1000 B.C.; in Central Europe, where the discoveries at Hallstatt in the Salzkammergut exhibit the transition from the Age of Bronze to that of Iron, about 800 B.C.

The exclusively Iron Age culture of La Tene cannot be dated earlier than the eighth century, if as early as that. How then was it possible that, if iron had been known to the Egyptians as early as 3500 B.C., its knowledge should not have been communicated to the Europeans until over two thousand years later? No; iron could not have been really known to the Egyptians much before 1000 B.C. and the Egyptological evidence was all wrong. This line of argument was taken by the distinguished Swedish archaeologist, Prof. Oscar Montelius, of Upsala, whose previous experience in dealing with the antiquities of Northern Europe, great as it was, was hardly sufficient to enable him to p.r.o.nounce with authority on a point affecting far-away African Egypt. And when dealing with Greek prehistoric antiquities Prof. Montelius's views have hardly met with that ready agreement which all acknowledge to be his due when he is giving us the results of his ripe knowledge of Northern antiquities. He has, in fact, forgotten, as most "prehistoric" archaeologists do forget, that the antiquities of Scandinavia, Greece, Egypt, the Semites, the bronze-workers of Benin, the miners of Zimbabwe, and the Ohio mound-builders are not to be treated all together as a whole, and that hard and fast lines of development cannot be laid down for them, based on the experience of Scandinavia.

We may perhaps trace this misleading habit of thought to the influence of the professors of natural science over the students of Stone Age and Bronze Age antiquities. Because nature moves by steady progression and develops on even lines--_nihil facit per sal-tum_--it seems to have been a.s.sumed that the works of man's hands have developed in the same way, in a regular and even scheme all over the world. On this supposition it would be impossible for the great discovery of the use of iron to have been known in Egypt as early as 3500 B.C. for this knowledge to have remained dormant there for two thousand years, and then to have been suddenly communicated about 1000 B.C. to Greece, spreading with lightning-like rapidity over Europe and displacing the use of bronze everywhere. Yet, as a matter of fact, the work of man does develop in exactly this haphazard way, by fits and starts and sudden leaps of progress after millennia of stagnation. Throwsback to barbarism are just as frequent. The a.n.a.logy of natural evolution is completely inapplicable and misleading.

Prof. Montelius, however, following the "evolutionary" line of thought, believed that because iron was not known in Europe till about 1000 B.C.

it could not have been known in Egypt much earlier; and in an important article which appeared in the Swedish ethnological journal _Ymer_ in 1883, ent.i.tled _Bronsaldrn i Egypten_ ("The Bronze Age in Egypt"), he essayed to prove the contrary arguments of the Egyptologists wrong. His main points were that the colour of the weapons in the frescoes was of no importance, as it was purely conventional and arbitrary, and that the evidence of the piece of iron from the Great Pyramid was insufficiently authenticated, and therefore valueless, in the absence of other definite archaeological evidence in the shape of iron of supposed early date. To this article the Swedish Egyptologist, Dr. Piehl, replied in the same periodical, in an article ent.i.tled _Bronsaldem i Egypten_, in which he traversed Prof. Montelius's conclusions from the Egyptological point of view, and adduced other instances of the use of iron in Egypt, all, it is true, later than the time of the IVth Dynasty. But this protest received little notice, owing to the fact that it remained buried in a Swedish periodical, while Prof. Montelius's original article was translated into French, and so became well-known.

For the time Prof. Montelius's conclusions were generally accepted, and when the discoveries of the prehistoric antiquities were made by M. de Morgan, it seemed more probable than ever that Egypt had gone through a regular progressive development from the Age of Stone through those of copper and bronze to that of iron, which was reached about 1100 or 1000 B.C. The evidence of the iron fragment from the Great Pyramid was put on one side, in spite of the circ.u.mstantial account of its discovery which had been given by its finders. Even Prof. Petrie, who in 1881 had accepted the pyramid fragment as undoubtedly contemporary with that building, and had gone so far as to adduce additional evidence for its authenticity, gave way, and accepted Montelius's view, which held its own until in 1902 it was directly controverted by a discovery of Prof.

Petrie at Abydos. This discovery consisted of an undoubted fragment of iron found in conjunction with bronze tools of VIth Dynasty date; and it settled the matter.* The VIth Dynasty date of this piece of iron, which was more probably worked than not (since it was buried with tools), was held to be undoubted by its discoverer and by everybody else, and, if this were undoubted, the IVth Dynasty date of the Great Pyramid fragment was also fully established. The discoverers of the earlier fragment had no doubt whatever as to its being contemporary with the pyramid, and were supported in this by Prof. Petrie in 1881. Therefore it is now known to be the fact that iron was used by the Egyptians as early as 3500 B.C.**

* See H. R. Hall's note on "The Early Use of Iron in Egypt,"

in _Man_ (the organ of the Anthropological Society of London), iii (1903), No. 86.

** Prof. Montelius objected to these conclusions in a review of the British Museum "Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age," which was published in Man, 1005 (Jan.), No 7.

For an answer to these objections, see Hall, ibid., No. 40.

It would thus appear that though the Egyptians cannot be said to have used iron generally and so to have entered the "Iron Age" before about 1300 B.C. (reign of Ramses II), yet iron was well known to them and had been used more than occasionally by them for tools and building purposes as early as the time of the IVth Dynasty, about 3500 B.C. Certainly dated examples of its use occur under the IVth, VIth, and XIIIth Dynasties. Why this knowledge was not communicated to Europe before about 1000 B.C. we cannot say, nor are Egyptologists called upon to find the reason. So the Great Pyramid has played an interesting part in the settlement of a very important question.

It was supposed by Prof. Petrie that the piece of iron from the Great Pyramid had been part of some arrangement employed for raising the stones into position. Herodotus speaks of the machines, which were used to raise the stones, as made of little pieces of wood. The generally accepted explanation of his meaning used to be that a small crane or similar wooden machine was used for hoisting the stone by means of pulley and rope; but M. Legrain, the director of the works of restoration in the Great Temple of Karnak, has explained it differently.

Among the "foundation deposits" of the XVIIIth Dynasty at Der el-Bahari and elsewhere, beside the little plaques with the king's name and the model hoes and vases, was usually found an enigmatic wooden object like a small cradle, with two sides made of semicircular pieces of wood, joined along the curved portion by round wooden bars. M. Legrain has now explained this as a model of the machine used to raise heavy stones from tier to tier of a pyramid or other building, and ill.u.s.trations of the method of its use may be found in Choisy's _Art de Batir chez les anciens Egyptiens_. There is little doubt that this primitive machine is that to which Herodotus refers as having been used in the erection of the pyramids.

The later historian, Diodorus, also tells us that great mounds or ramps of earth were used as well, and that the stones were dragged up these to the requisite height. There is no doubt that this statement also is correct. We know that the Egyptians did build in this very way, and the system has been revived by M. Legrain for his work at Karnak, where still exist the remains of the actual mounds and ramps by which the great western pylon was erected in Ptolemac times. Work carried on in this way is slow and expensive, but it is eminently suited to the country and understood by the people. If they wish to put a great stone architrave weighing many tons across the top of two columns, they do not hoist it up into position; they rear a great ramp or embankment of earth against the two pillars, half-burying them in the process, then drag the architrave up the ramp by means of ropes and men, and put it into position. Then the ramp is cleared away. This is the ancient system which is now followed at Karnak, and it is the system by which, with the further aid of the wooden machines, the Great Pyramid and its compeers were erected in the days of the IVth Dynasty. _Plus cela change, plus c'est la meme chose_.

The brick pyramids of the XIIth Dynasty were erected in the same way, for the Egyptians had no knowledge of the modern combination of wooden scaffolding and ladders. There was originally a small stone pyramid of the same dynasty at Dashr, half-way between the two brick ones, but this has now almost disappeared. It belonged to the king Amenemhat II, while the others belonged, the northern to Usertsen (Sen-usret) III, the southern to Amenemhat III. Both these latter monarchs had other tombs elsewhere, Usertsen a great rock-cut gallery and chamber in the cliff at Abydos, Amenemhat a pyramid not very far to the south, at Hawara, close to the Fayym. It is uncertain whether the Hawara pyramid or that of Dashr was the real burial-place of the king, as at neither place is his name found alone. At Hawara it is found in conjunction with that of his daughter, the queen-regnant Se-bekneferura (Skemiophris), at Dashr with that of a king Auabra Hor, who was buried in a small tomb near that of the king, and adjoining the tombs of the king's children. Who King Hor was we do not quite know. His name is not given in the lists, and was unknown until M. de Morgan's discoveries at Dashr. It is most probable that he was a prince who was given royal honours during the lifetime of Amenemhat III, whom he predeceased.* In the beautiful wooden statue of him found in his tomb, which is now in the Cairo Museum, he is represented as quite a youth. Amenemhat III was certainly succeeded by Amenemhat IV, and it is impossible to intercalate Hor between them.

* See below, p. 121. Possibly he was a son of Amenemhat III.

The identification of the owners of the three western pyramids of Dashr is due to M. de Morgan and his a.s.sistants, Messrs. Legrain and Jequier, who excavated them from 1894 till 1896. The northern pyramid, that of Usertsen (Senusret) III, is not so well preserved as the southern. It is more worn away, and does not present so imposing an appearance. In both pyramids the outer casing of white stone has entirely disappeared, leaving only the bare black bricks. Each stood in the midst of a great necropolis of dignitaries of the period, as was usually the case.

Many of the mastabas were excavated by M. de Morgan. Some are of older periods than the XIIth Dynasty, one belonging to a priest of King Snefru, Aha-f-ka ("Ghost-fighter"), who bore the additional t.i.tles of "director of prophets and general of infantry." There were pluralists even in those days. And the distinction between the privy councillor (Geheimrat) and real privy councillor (Wirk-licher-Greheimrat) was quite familiar; for we find it actually made, many an old Egyptian officially priding himself in his tomb on having been a real privy councillor! The Egyptian bureaucracy was already ancient and had its survivals and its anomalies even as early as the time of the pyramid-builders.

In front of the pyramid of Usertsen (Senusret) III at one time stood the usual funerary temple, but it has been totally destroyed. By the side of the pyramid were buried some of the princesses of the royal family, in a series of tombs opening out of a subterranean gallery, and in this gallery were found the wonderful jewels of the princesses Sit-hathor and Merit, which are among the greatest treasures of the Cairo Museum. Those who have not seen them can obtain a perfect idea of their appearance from the beautiful water-colour paintings of them by M. Legrain, which are published in M. de Morgan's work on the "Fouilles a Dahchour"

(Vienna, 1895). Altogether one hundred and seven objects were recovered, consisting of all kinds of jewelry in gold and coloured stones. Among the most beautiful are the great "pectorals," or breast-ornaments, in the shape of pylons, with the names of Usertsen II, Usertsen III, and Amenemhat III; the names are surrounded by hawks standing on the sign for gold, gryphons, figures of the king striking down enemies, etc., all in _cloisonne_ work, with beautiful stones such as lapis lazuli, green felspar, and carnelian taking the place of coloured enamels. The ma.s.sive chains of golden beads and cowries are also very remarkable. These treasures had been buried in boxes in the floor of the subterranean gallery, and had luckily escaped the notice of plunderers, and so by a fortunate chance have survived to tell us what the Egyptian jewellers could do in the days of the XIIth Dynasty. Here also were found two great Nile barges, full-sized boats, with their oars and other gear complete. They also may be seen in the Museum of Cairo. It can only be supposed that they had served as the biers of the royal mummies, and had been brought up in state on sledges. The actual royal chamber was not found, although a subterranean gallery was driven beneath the centre of the pyramid.

The southern brick pyramid was constructed in the same way as the northern one. At the side of it were also found the tombs of members of the royal house, including that of the king Hor, already mentioned, with its interesting contents. The remains of the mummy of this ephemeral monarch, known only from his tomb, were also found. The entrails of the king were placed in the usual "canopic jars," which were sealed with the seal of Amenemhat III; it is thus that we know that Hor died before him.

In many of the inscriptions of this king, on his coffin and stelo, a peculiarly affected manner of writing the hieroglyphs is found,--the birds are without their legs, the snake has no tail, the bee no head.

Birds are found without their legs in other inscriptions of this period; it was a temporary fas.h.i.+on and soon discarded.

In the tomb of a princess named Nubhetep, near at hand, were found more jewels of the same style as those of Sit-hathor and Merit. The pyramid itself contained the usual pa.s.sages and chambers, which were reached with much difficulty and considerable tunnelling by M. de Morgan. In fact, the search for the royal death-chambers lasted from December 5, 1894, till March 17, 1895, when the excavators' gallery finally struck one of the ancient pa.s.sages, which were found to be unusually extensive, contrasting in this respect with the northern pyramid. The royal tomb-chamber had, of course, been emptied of what it contained. It must be remembered that, in any case, it is probable that the king was not actually buried here, but in the pyramid of Hawara.

The pyramid of Amenemhat II, which lies between the two brick pyramids, was built entirely of stone. Nothing of it remains above ground, but the investigation of the subterranean portions showed that it was remarkable for the ma.s.siveness of its stones and the care with which the masonry was executed. The same characteristics are found in the dependent tombs of the princesses Ha and Khnumet, in which more jewelry was found. This splendid stonework is characteristic of the Middle Kingdom; we find it also in the temple of Mentuhetep III at Thebes.

Some distance south of Dashr is Medm, where the pyramid of Sneferu reigns in solitude, and beyond this again is Lisht, where in the years 1894-6 MM. Gautier and Jequier excavated the pyramid of Usertsen (Sen-usret) I. The most remarkable find was a cache of the seated statues of the king in white limestone, in absolutely perfect condition.

They were found lying on their sides, just as they had been hidden. Six figures of the king in the form of Osiris, with the face painted red, were also found. Such figures seem to have been regularly set up in front of a royal sepulchre; several were found in front of the funerary temple of Mentu-hetep III, Thebes, which we shall describe later. A fine altar of gray granite, with representations in relief of the nomes bringing offerings, was also recovered. The pyramid of Lisht itself is not built of bricks, like those of Dashr, but of stone. It was not, however, erected in so solid a fas.h.i.+on as those of earlier days at Giza or Abusir, and nothing is left of it now but a heap of debris. The XIIth Dynasty architects built walls of magnificent masonry, as we have seen, and there is no doubt that the stone casing of their pyramids was originally very fine, but the interior is of brick or rubble; the wonderful system of building employed by kings of the IVth Dynasty at Giza was not practised.

South of Lisht is Illahun, and at the entrance to the province of the Fayym, and west of this, nearer the Fayym, is Hawara, where Prof.

Petrie excavated the pyramids of Usertsen (Senusret) II and Amenem-hat III. His discoveries have already been described by Prof. Maspero in his history, so that it will suffice here merely to compare them with the results of M. de Morgan's later work at Dashr and that of MM. Gautier and Jequier at Lisht, to note recent conclusions in connection with them, and to describe the newest discoveries in the same region.

Both pyramids are of brick, lined with stone, like those of Dashr, with some differences of internal construction, since stone walls exist in the interior. The central chambers and pa.s.sages leading to them were discovered; and in both cases the pa.s.sages are peculiarly complex, with dumb chambers, great stone portcullises, etc., in order to mislead and block the way to possible plunderers. The extraordinary sepulchral chamber of the Hawara pyramid, which, though it is over twenty-two feet long by ten feet wide over all, is hewn out of one solid block of hard yellow quartzite, gives some idea of the remarkable facility of dealing with huge stones and the love of utilizing them which is especially characteristic of the XIIth Dynasty. The pyramid of Hawara was provided with a funerary temple the like of which had never been known in Egypt before and was never known afterwards. It was a huge building far larger than the pyramid itself, and built of fine limestone and crystalline white quartzite, in a style eminently characteristic of the XIIth Dynasty. In actual superficies this temple covered an extent of ground within which the temples of Karnak, Luxor, and the Ramesseum, at Thebes, could have stood, but has now almost entirely disappeared, having been used as a quarry for two thousand years. In Roman times this destroying process had already begun, but even then the building was still magnificent, and had been noted with wonder by all the Greek visitors to Egypt from the time of Herodotus downwards. Even before his day it had received the name of the "Labyrinth," on account of its supposed resemblance to the original labyrinth in Crete.

That the Hawara temple was the Egyptian labyrinth was pointed out by Lepsius in the 'forties of the last century. Within the last two or three years attention has again been drawn to it by Mr. Arthur Evans's discovery of the Cretan labyrinth itself in the shape of the Minoan or early Mycenaean palace of Knossos, near Candia in Crete. It is impossible to enter here into all the arguments by which it has been proved that the Knossian palace is the veritable labyrinth of the Minotaur legend, nor would it be strictly germane to our subject were we to do so; but it may suffice to say here that the word

[Ill.u.s.tration: 125.jpg (Greek word)]

has been proved to be of Greek-or rather of pre-h.e.l.lenic-origin, and would mean in Karian "Place of the Double-Axe," like La-braunda in Karia, where Zeus was depicted with a double axe (labrys) in his hand.

The non-Aryan, "Asianic," group of languages, to which certainly Lycian and probably Karian belong, has been shown by the German philologer Kretschmer to have spread over Greece into Italy in the period before the Aryan Greeks entered h.e.l.las, and to have left undoubted traces of its presence in Greek place-names and in the Greek language itself.

Before the true h.e.l.lenes reached Crete, an Asianic dialect must have been spoken there, and to this language the word "labyrinth" must originally have belonged. The cla.s.sical labyrinth was "in the Knossian territory." The palace of Knossos was emphatically the chief seat of the wors.h.i.+p of a G.o.d whose emblem was the double-axe; it was the Knossian "Place of the Double-Axe," the Cretan "Labyrinth."

It used to be supposed that the Cretan labyrinth had taken its name from the Egyptian one, and the, word itself was supposed to be of Egyptian origin. An Egyptian etymology was found for it as "_Ro-pi-ro-henet_,"

"Temple-mouth-ca.n.a.l," which might be interpreted, with some violence to Egyptian construction, as "The temple at the mouth of the ca.n.a.l," i.e.

the Bahr Yusuf, which enters the Fayym at Hawara. But unluckily this word would have been p.r.o.nounced by the natives of the vicinity as "Elphilahune," which is not very much like

[Ill.u.s.tration: 126.jpg (Greek word)]

"_Ro-pi-ro-henet_" is, in fact, a mere figment of the philological imagination, and cannot be proved ever to have existed. The element _Ro-henet_, "ca.n.a.l-mouth" (according to the local p.r.o.nunciation of the Fayym and Middle Egypt, called _La-hune_), is genuine; it is the origin of the modern Illahun (_el-Lahun_), which is situated at the "ca.n.a.l-mouth." However, now that we know that the word labyrinth can be explained satisfactorily with the help of Karian, as evidently of Greek (pre-Aryan) origin, and as evidently the original name of the Knossian labyrinth, it is obvious that there is no need to seek a far-fetched explanation of the word in Egypt, and to suppose that the Greeks called the Cretan labyrinth after the Egyptian one.

The contrary is evidently the case. Greek visitors to Egypt found a resemblance between the great Egyptian building, with its numerous halls and corridors, vast in extent, and the Knossian palace. Even if very little of the latter was visible in the cla.s.sical period, as seems possible, yet the site seems always to have been kept holy and free from later building till Roman times, and we know that the tradition of the mazy halls and corridors of the labyrinth was always clear, and was evidently based on a vivid reminiscence. Actually, one of the most prominent characteristics of the Knossian palace is its mazy and labyrinthine system of pa.s.sages and chambers. The parallel between the two buildings, which originally caused the Greek visitors to give the pyramid-temple of Hawara the name of "labyrinth," has been traced still further. The white limestone walls and the s.h.i.+ning portals of "Parian marble," described by Strabo as characteristic of the Egyptian labyrinth, have been compared with the s.h.i.+ning white selenite or gypsum used at Knossos, and certain general resemblances between the Greek architecture of the Minoan age and the almost contemporary Egyptian architecture of the XIIth Dynasty have been pointed out.* Such resemblances may go to swell the amount of evidence already known, which tells us that there was a close connection between Egyptian and Minoan art and civilization, established at least as early as 2500 B.C.

* See H. R. Hall, Journal of h.e.l.lenic Studies, 1905 (Pt.

ii). The Temple of the Sphinx at Giza may also be compared with those of Hawara and Knossos. It seems most probable that the Temple of the Sphinx is a XIIth Dynasty building.

For it must be remembered that within the last few years we have learned from the excavations in Crete a new chapter of ancient history, which, it might almost seem, shows us Greece and Egypt in regular communication from nearly the beginnings of Egyptian history. As the excavations which have told us this were carried on in Crete, not in Egypt, to describe them does not lie within the scope of this book, though a short sketch of their results, so far as they affect Egyptian history in later days, is given in Chapter VII. Here it may suffice to say that, as far as the early period is concerned, Egypt and Crete were certainly in communication in the time of the XIIth Dynasty, and quite possibly in that of the VIth or still earlier. We have IIId Dynasty Egyptian vases from Knossos, which were certainly not imported in later days, for no ancient nation had antiquarian tastes till the time of the Sates in Egypt and of the Romans still later. In fact, this communication seems to go so far back in time that we are gradually being led to perceive the possibility that the Minoan culture of Greece was in its origin an offshoot from that of primeval Egypt, probably in early Neolithic times.

That is to say, the Neolithic Greeks and Neolithic Egyptians were both members of the same "Mediterranean" stock, which quite possibly may have had its origin in Africa, and a portion of which may have crossed the sea to Europe in very early times, taking with it the seeds of culture which in Egypt developed in the Egyptian way, in Greece in the Greek way. Actual communication and connection may not have been maintained at first, and probably they were not. Prof. Petrie thinks otherwise, and would see in the boats painted on the predynastic Egyptian vases (see Chapter I) the identical galleys by which, in late Neolithic times, commerce between Crete and Egypt was carried on across the Mediterranean. It is certain, however, that these boats are ordinary little river craft, the usual Nile _felkas_ and _gya.s.sas_ of the time; they are depicted together with emblems of the desert and cultivated land,-ostriches, antelopes, hills, and palm-trees,-and the thoroughly inland and Upper Egyptian character of the whole design springs to the eye. There can be no doubt whatever that the predynastic boats were not seagoing galleys.

It was probably not till the time of the pyramid-builders that connection between the Greek Mediterraneans and the Nilotes was re-established. Thence-forward it increased, and in the time of the XIIth Dynasty, when the labyrinth of Amenemhat III was built, there seems to have been some kind of more or less regular communication between the two countries.

It is certain that artistic ideas were exchanged between them at this period. How communication was carried on we do not know, but it was probably rather by way of Cyprus and the Syrian coast than directly across the open sea. We shall revert to this point when we come to describe the connection between Crete and Egypt in the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty, when Cretan amba.s.sadors visited the Egyptian court and were depicted in tomb paintings at Thebes. Between the time of the XIIth Dynasty and that of the XVIIIth this connection seems to have been very considerably strengthened; for at Knossos have been found an Egyptian statuette of an Egyptian named Abnub, who from his name must have lived about the end of the XIIIth Dynasty, and the top of an alabastron with the royal name of Khian, one of the Hyksos kings.

Quite close to Hawara, at Illahun, in the ruins of the town which was built by Usertsen's workmen when they were building his pyramid, Prof.

Petrie found fragments of pottery of types which we now know well from excavations in Crete and Cyprus, though they were then unknown. They are fragments of the polychrome Cretan ware called, after the name of the place where it was first found in Crete, Kamares ware, and of a black ware ornamented with small punctures, which are often filled up with white. This latter ware has been found elsewhere a.s.sociated with XIIIth Dynasty antiquities. The former is known to belong in Crete to the "early Minoan" period, long anterior to the "late Minoan" or "Palace"

period, which was contemporary with the Egyptian XVIIIth Dynasty.

We have here another interesting proof of a connection between XIIth Dynasty Egypt and early Minoan Crete. The later connection, under the XVIIIth and following dynasties, is also ill.u.s.trated in the same reign by Prof. Petrie's finds of late Mycenaean objects and foreign graves at Medinet Gurob.*

* One man who was buried here bore the name An-Tursha, "Pillar of the Tursha." The Tursha were a people of the Mediterranean, possibly Tylissians of Crete.

These excavations at Hawara, Illahun, Kahun, and Gurob were carried out in the years 1887-9. Since then Prof. Petrie and his co-workers have revisited the same district, and Gurob has been re-examined (in 1904) by Messrs. Loat and Ayrton, who discovered there a shrine devoted to the wors.h.i.+p of fish. This work was carried on at the same time as Prof.

Petrie's main excavation for the Egypt Exploration Fund at Annas, or Ahnas-yet el-Medina, the site of the ancient Henensu, the Herakleopolis of the Greeks. Prof. Naville had excavated there for the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1892, but had not completely cleared the temple.

This work was now taken up by Prof. Petrie, who laid the whole building bare. It is dedicated to Hershefi, the local deity of Herakleopolis.

This G.o.d, who was called Ar-saphes by the Greeks, and identified with Herakles, was in fact a form of Horus with the head of a ram; his name means "Terrible-Face." The greater part of the temple dates to the time of the XIXth Dynasty, and nothing of the early period is left. We know, however, that the Middle Kingdom was the flouris.h.i.+ng period of the city of Hershefi. For a comparatively brief period, between the age of Memphite hegemony and that of Theban dominion, Herakleopolis was the capital city of Egypt. The kings of the IXth and Xth Dynasties were Herakleopolites, though we know little of them. One, Kheti, is said to have been a great tyrant. Another, Nebkaura, is known only as a figure in the "Legend of the Eloquent Peasant," a cla.s.sical story much in vogue in later days. Another, Merikara, is a more real personage, for we have contemporary records of his days in the inscriptions of the tombs at Asyt, from which we see that the princes of Thebes were already wearing down the Northerners, in spite of the resistance of the adherents of Herakleopolis, among whom the most valiant were the chiefs of Asyt. The civil war eventuated in favour of Thebes, and the Theban XIth Dynasty a.s.sumed the double crown. The sceptre pa.s.sed from Memphis and the North, and Thebes enters upon the scene of Egyptian history.

With this event the Nile-land also entered upon a new era of development. The metropolis of the kingdom was once more s.h.i.+fted to the South, and, although the kings of the XIIth Dynasty actually resided in the North, their Theban origin was never forgotten, and Thebes was regarded as the chief city of the country. The XIth Dynasty kings actually reigned at Thebes, and there the later kings of the XIIIth Dynasty retired after the conquest of the Hyksos. The fact that with Thebes were a.s.sociated all the heroic traditions of the struggle against the Hyksos ensured the final stability of the capital there when the hated Semites were finally driven out, and the national kingdom was re-established in its full extent from north to south. But for occasional intervals, as when Akhunaten held his court at Tell el-Amarna and Ramses II at Tanis, Thebes remained the national capital for six hundred years, till the time of the XXIId Dynasty.