The Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotos

by A. H. Sayce

The Syrian conquests, however, could never have been long in the Pharaoh's possession. Between them and Palestine lay the southern outposts of the Hittite race. In the troublous times which followed the death of Khu-n-Aten, the Hittites had overrun “the land of the Amorites” to the north of Canaan, and fixed their southern capital in the holy city of Kadesh, on the Orontes. It was a stronghold against which the forces of Ramses were hurled in vain. For twenty years did the struggle continue between the Pharaoh of Egypt and “the great king of the Hittites,” and at last, exhausted by the long conflict, in which neither party had gained the advantage, the two enemies agreed upon peace. A treaty was signed on the twenty-first of the month Tybi, in the twenty-first year of the reign of Ramses (b.c. 1327), “in the city of Ramses,” to which the Hittite [pg 083] ambassadors had come. Ramses, on the one side, and Khita-sir, the son of Mul-sir, the Hittite prince, on the other, bound themselves in it to eternal friendship and alliance. In case of war they were to send troops to one another's help, and they agreed to put to death any criminals who might fly from the one country to the other. Political offenders, however, who had taken refuge in the territory of one or other of the two contracting parties, were not to be injured. It was of course the Canaanitish subjects of the Pharaoh, who adjoined the Hittite kingdom, that were principally affected by these stipulations. It was further determined that on no pretext whatever should any change be made in the boundaries of the two monarchies. The treaty was placed under the protection of the deities of Egypt and the Hittites, and a Hittite copy of it was engraved on a silver plate. The agreement was cemented by the marriage of Ramses to a daughter of the Hittite king, who thereupon assumed an Egyptian name.

Northern Syria was thus formally conceded to the powerful conquerors who had descended from the mountains of Kappadokia, while Palestine remained under Egyptian dominion. But it was not destined to do so long. Ramses was succeeded by Meneptah, the fourteenth of his many sons, who had reigned only four years when the very existence of [pg 084] his kingdom was threatened by a formidable invasion from the west and north. “The peoples of the north” swarmed out of their coasts and islands, and a great fleet descended upon Egypt, in conjunction with the Libyans and Maxyes of northern Africa. Aqaiush or Achæans, Shardana or Sardinians, Tursha or Tyrsenians appear among them, as well as Leku from Asia Minor, and Zakkur, who a little later are the colleagues and brethren of the Philistines. Part of the Delta was overrun and devastated before the Pharaoh could make head against his foes. But a decisive battle was at length fought at Pa-Alu-sheps, not far from Heliopolis, which ended in the complete overthrow of the invading hordes. Egypt was saved from the danger which had threatened it, but it seems never to have recovered from the shock. The power of the government was weakened in the valley of the Nile itself, and one by one the foreign conquests passed out of its grasp. The sceptre of Seti ii., who followed Meneptah, seems to have dropped into the hands of a usurper, Amon-messu by name: the history of the period is, however, involved in obscurity, and all that is certain is that the empire of Ramses ii. was lost, and that Egypt itself fell into a state of decadence. With Si-Ptah the nineteenth dynasty came to an inglorious end.

Its fall was the signal for internal confusion and civil war. A Syrian foreigner, Arisu by name, possessed himself of the throne of the Pharaohs, and Egypt for a while was compelled to submit to Canaanitish rule. Its leading nobles were in banishment, its gods were deprived of their customary offerings, and famine was added to the horrors of war. A deliverer came in the person of Set-nekht, the founder of the twentieth dynasty. He drove the stranger out the country, and restored it again to peace and prosperity. Hardly had his task been completed when he died, and was succeeded by his son, Ramses iii. Under him a transient gleam of victory and conquest visited once more the valley of the Nile.

It was well for Egypt that she possessed an energetic general and king. The same hordes which had threatened her in the reign of Meneptah now again attacked her with increased numbers and greater chances of success. In the fifth year of Ramses iii., the fair-skinned tribes of the western desert poured into the Delta. The Maxyes, under their chieftains Mdidi, Mâshakanu, and Mâraiu, and the Libyans, under Ur-mâr and Zut-mâr, met the Pharaoh in battle at a place which ever afterwards bore a name commemorative of their defeat. The victory of the Egyptians was, in fact, decisive. As [pg 086] many as 12,535 slain were counted on the field of battle, and captives and spoil innumerable fell into the hands of the victors.

But Ramses was allowed only a short breathing-space. Three years after the Libyan invasion, and doubtless in connection with it, came a still more formidable invasion on the part of the barbarians of the north. This time they came partly by land, partly by sea. Vast hordes of them had marched out of Asia Minor, overrunning the kingdoms of the Hittites, of Naharaim, of Carchemish, and of Arvad, and carrying with them adventurers and recruits from the countries through which they passed. First they pitched their camp in “the land of the Amorites,” and then marched southward towards the frontiers of Egypt. The place of the Aqaiush was taken by the Daanau or Danaans, but the Zakkur again formed part of the invading host, this time accompanied by Pulsata or Philistines, and Shakalsh or Siculians. By the side of the land army moved a fleet of ships, and fleet and army arrived together at the mouths of the Nile. The cities in the extreme south of Palestine, once occupied by Egyptian garrisons, were captured by the Philistines, and became henceforward their assured possession.

But the main body of the invaders were not so fortunate. The Egyptian forces were ready to [pg 087] receive them, and their ships had scarcely entered the mouth of the Nile before they were attacked by the Egyptian fleet. The battle ended in the complete annihilation of the attacking host. A picture of it is sculptured on the walls of Medînet Habu at Thebes, the temple-palace which Ramses built to commemorate his victories, and we can there study the ships of the European barbarians and the features and dress of the barbarians themselves. In the expressive words of the Egyptian scribe, “they never reaped a harvest any more.”

Ramses, however, was even now not left at rest. Three years later the Maxyes again assailed Egypt under Mashashal, the son of Kapur, but once more unsuccessfully. Cattle, horses, asses, chariots and weapons of war in large quantities fell into the hands of the Egyptians, as well as 2052 captives, while 2175 men were slain. From this time forward Egypt was secure from attack on its western border.

Freed from the necessity of defending his own territories, Ramses now carried the war into Asia. What in later days was the land of Judah was overrun by his forces; Gaza and the districts round Hebron and Salem or Jerusalem were occupied, and the name of the Dead Sea appears on the walls of Medînet Habu for the first time in Egyptian history. The Egyptian army even crossed to the [pg 088] eastern side of the Jordan and captured the Moabite capital.

Another campaign led it along the Phœnician coast into northern Syria. Hamath was taken, and Ramses seems to have penetrated as far as the slopes of the Taurus. He even claims to have defeated the people of Mitanni or Aram-Naharaim on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. The kings of the Hittites and the Amorites, like the chiefs of the Zakkur and the Philistines, were already prisoners in his hands.

But the northern campaigns of Ramses were intended to strike terror rather than to re-establish the Asiatic empire of Egypt. No attempt was made to hold the cities and districts which had been overrun. Though a temple was erected to Amon on the frontiers of the later Judæa, even Gaza was given up, and the fortress which had so long defended the road from Canaan into Egypt was allowed to pass into Philistine hands. It was the same with the campaign which the Pharaoh conducted at a later date against the “Shasu” or Bedouin of Edom. For the first time an Egyptian army succeeded in making its way into the fastnesses of Mount Seir, slaying the warriors of Edom, and plundering their “tents.” The Edomite chief himself was made a prisoner. The expedition [pg 089] had the effect of protecting the Egyptian mining establishments in the Sinaitic peninsula as well as the maritime trade with southern Arabia. Large quantities of malachite were brought year by year from the Egyptian province of Mafka or Sinai, and the merchant-vessels of Ramses coasted along the Red Sea, bringing back with them the precious spices of Yemen and Hadhramaut.