[80] This invaluable record is sculptured on a piece of wall built out, apparently, for the purpose, at right angles to the south wall of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. The treaty faces to the west, and is situated about half-way between the famous bas-relief of Sheshonk and his captives and the Karnak version of the poem of Pentaur. The former lies to the west of the southern portal; the latter to the east. The wall of the treaty juts out about sixty feet to the east of the portal. This south wall and its adjunct, a length of about two hundred feet in all, is perhaps the most precious and interesting piece of sculptured surface in the world.
[81] See “Treaty of Peace Between Rameses II and the Hittites,” translated by C. W. Goodwin, M. A. “ Records of the Past,” vol. iv, p. 25.
[82] Since this book was written, a further study of the subject has led me to conjecture that not Seti I, but Queen Hatshepsu (Hatasu) of the eighteenth dynasty, was the actual originator of the canal which connected the Nile with the Red Sea. The inscriptions engraved upon the walls of her great temple at Dayr-el-Baharî expressly state that her squadron sailed from Thebes to the land of Punt and returned from Punt to Thebes, laden with the products of that mysterious country which Mariette and Maspero have conclusively shown to have been situated on the Somali coast-line between Bab-el-Mandeb and Cape Guardafui. Unless, therefore, some water-way existed at that time between the Nile and the Red Sea, it follows that Queen Hatshepsu’s squadron of discovery must have sailed northward from Thebes, descended the Nile to one of its mouths, traversed the whole length of the Mediterranean sea, gone out through the pillars of Hercules, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived at the Somali coast by way of the Mozambique Channel and the shores of Zanzibar. In other words, the Egyptian galleys would twice have made the almost complete circuit of the African continent. This is obviously an untenable hypothesis; and there remains no alternative route except that of a canal, or chain of canals, connecting the Nile with the Red Sea. The old Wady Tûmilât canal has hitherto been universally ascribed to Seti I, for no other reason than that a canal leading from the Nile to the ocean is represented on a bas-relief of his reign on the north outer wall of the great temple of Karnak; but this canal may undoubtedly have been made under the preceding dynasty, and it is not only probable, but most likely, that the great woman-Pharaoh, who first conceived the notion of venturing her ships upon an unknown sea, may also have organized the channel of communication by which those ships went forth. According to the second edition of Sir J. W. Dawson’s “Egypt and Syria,” the recent surveys conducted by Lieut.-Col. Ardagh, Maj. Spaight and Lieut. Burton, all of the royal engineers, “render it certain that this valley [i. e. the Wady Tûmilât] once carried a branch up the Nile which discharged its waters into the Red Sea” (see chap. iii. p. 55); and in such case, if that branch were not already navigable, Queen Hatshepsu would only have needed to canalize it, which is what she probably did. [Note to second edition.]
[83] “Les circonstances de l’histoire hebraïque s’appliquent ici d’une manière on ne peut plus satisfaisante. Les Hébreux opprimés batissaient une ville du nom de Ramsès. Ce récit ne peut donc s’appliquer qu’à l’époque où la famille de Ramsès était sur le trône. Moïse, contraint de fuir la colère du rois après le meurtre d’un Égyptien, subit un long exil, parceque le roi ne mourut qu’après un temps fort long; Ramsès II regna en effet plus de 67 ans. Aussitôt après le retour de Moïse commença la lutte qui se termina par le célèbre passage de la Mer Rouge. Cet événement eut donc lieu sous le fils de Ramsès II, ou tout au plus tard pendant l’époque de troubles quit suivit son règne. Ajoutons que la rapidité des derniers événements ne permet pas de supposer que le roi eût sa résidence à Thèbes dans cet instant. Or, Merenptah a précisément laissé dans la Basse-Egypte, et spécialement à Tanis, des preuves importantes de son séjour.”—De Rougé, “Notice des Monuments Égyptiennes du Rez de Chaussée du Musée du Louvre,” Paris, 1857, p. 22.
“Il est impossible d’attribuer ni à Meneptah I, ni à Seti II, ni à Siptah, ni à Amonmesès, un règne même de vingt années; à plus forte raison de cinquante ou soixante Seul le règne de Ramsès II remplit les conditions indispensables. Lors même que nous ne saurions pas que ce souverain a occupé les Hébreux à la construction de la ville de Ramsès, nous serions dans l’impossibilité de placer Moïse à une autre époque, à moins de faire table rase des renseignements bibliques.”—“Recherches pour servir à l’Histoire de la XIX dynastie.” F. Chabas, Paris, 1873, p. 148.
[84] The Bible narrative, it has often been observed, invariably designates the king by this title, than which none, unfortunately, can be more vague for purposes of identification. “Plus généralement,” says Brugsch, writing of the royal titles, “sa personne se cache sous une série d’expressions qui toutes ont le sens de la ‘grande maison’ ou du ‘grand palais,’ quelquefois au duel, des ‘deux grandes maisons,’ par rapport à la division de l’Égypte en deux parties. C’est du titre très frequent Per-aa, ‘la grande maison,’ ‘la haute porte,’ qu’on a heureusement dérivé le nom biblique Pharao donné aux rois d’Égypte.”—“Histoire d’Égypte,” Brugsch, second edition, Part I, p. 35; Leipzig, 1875.
This probably is the only title under which it was permissible for the plebeian class to speak or write of the sovereign. It can scarcely have escaped Herr Brugsch’s notice that we even find it literally translated in Genesis, 1. 4, where it is said that “when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying: ‘If now I have found grace in your eyes,’” etc. etc. If Moses, however, had but once recorded the cartouche name of either of his three Pharaohs, archæologists and commentators would have been spared a great deal of trouble.
[85] This remarkable manuscript relates the journey made by a female pilgrim of French birth, circa A.D. 370, to Egypt, Mesopotamia and the holy land. The manuscript is copied from an older original and dates from the tenth or eleventh century. Much of the work is lost, but those parts are yet perfect which describe the pilgrim’s progress through Goshen to Tanis and thence to Jerusalem, Edessa and the Haran. Of Pithom it is said: “Pithona etiam civitas quam œdificaverunt filii Israel ostensa est nubis in ipso itinere; in eo tamen loco ubi jam fines Egypti intravimus, religentes jam terras Saracenorum. Nam et ipsud nunc Pithona castrum est. Heroun autem civitas quæ fuit illo tempere, id est ubi occurit Joseph patri suo venienti, sicut scriptum est in libro Genesis nunc est comes sed grandis quod nos dicimus vicus ... nam ipse vicus nunc appellatur Hero.” See a letter on “Pithom-Heroöpolis” communicated to “The Academy” by M. Naville, March 22, 1884. See also M. Naville’s memoir, entitled “The Store-City of Pithom and the Route of the Exodus” (third edition); published by order of the committee of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1888.
[86] See M. Naville’s memoir, entitled “Goshen and the Shrine of Saft-el-Henneh,” published by order of the committee of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1887.
[87] Kadesh, otherwise Katesh or Kades. A town on the Orontes. See a paper entitled “The Campaign of Ramesis II in His Fifth Year Against Kadesh on the Orontes,” by the Rev. G. H. Tomkins, in the “Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology,” 1881, 1882; also in the “Transactions” of the society, vol. viii.