Lastly, Professor Hommel seems to have [pg xii] found the name of the Zakkur or Zakkal, the kinsfolk and associates of the Philistines, in a broken cuneiform text which relates to one of the Kassite kings of Babylonia not long before the epoch of Khu-n-Aten. Here mention is made not only of the city of Arka in Phœnicia, but also of the city of Zaqqalû. In Zaqqalû we must recognise the Zakkur of Egyptian history. I may add that Khar or Khal, the name given by the Egyptians to the southern portion of Palestine, is identified by Professor Maspero with the Horites of the Old Testament.
By way of conclusion, I have only to say that those who wish to read a detailed account of the manner in which the great colossus of Ramses ii. at Memphis was raised and its companion statue disinterred must refer to the Paper published by Major Arthur H. Bagnold himself in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology for June 1888.
A. H. Sayce.
October 1895.
Chapter I. The Patriarchal Age.
“Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there.” When he entered the country the civilisation and monarchy of Egypt were already very old. The pyramids had been built hundreds of years before, and the origin of the Sphinx was already a mystery. Even the great obelisk of Heliopolis, which is still the object of an afternoon drive to the tourist at Cairo, had long been standing in front of the temple of the Sun-god.
The monuments of Babylonia enable us to fix the age to which Abraham belongs. Arioch of Ellasar has left memorials of himself on the bricks of Chaldæa, and we now know when he and his Elamite allies were driven out of Babylonia and the [pg 002] Babylonian states were united into a single monarchy. This was 2350 b.c.
The united monarchy of Egypt went back to a far earlier date. Menes, its founder, had been king of This (or Girgeh) in Upper Egypt, and starting from his ancestral dominions had succeeded in bringing all Egypt under his rule. But the memory of an earlier time, when the valley of the Nile was divided into two separate sovereignties, survived to the latest age of the monarchy. Up to the last the Pharaohs of Egypt called themselves “kings of the two lands,” and wore on their heads the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. The crown of Upper Egypt was a tiara of white linen, that of Lower Egypt a throne-like head-dress of red. The double crown was a symbol of the imperial power.