* Sharûhana, which is mentioned again under Thûtmosis III.
is not the plain of Sharon, as Birch imagined, but the
Sharuhen of the Biblical texts, in the tribe of Simeon
(Josh. xix. 6), as Brugsch recognised it to be. It is
probably identical with the modern Tell-esh-Sheriâh, which
lies north-west of Beersheba.
** Ahmosi Pannekhabit lay in tomb No. 2, at El-Kab. His
history is briefly told on one of the walls, and on two
sides of the pedestal of his statues. We have one of these,
or rather two plates from the pedestal of one of them, in
the Louvre; the other is in a good state of preservation,
and belongs to Mr. Finlay. The inscription is found in a
mutilated condition on the wall of the tomb, but the three
monuments which have come down to us are sufficiently
complementary to one another to enable us to restore nearly
the whole of the original text.
The expedition having accomplished its purpose, the Egyptians returned home with their spoil, and did not revisit Asia for a long period. If the Hyksôs generals had fostered in their minds the idea that they could recover their lost ground, and easily re-enter upon the possession of their African domain, this reverse must have cruelly disillusioned them. They must have been forced to acknowledge that their power was at an end, and to renounce all hope of returning to the country which had so summarily ejected them. The majority of their own people did not follow them into exile, but remained attached to the soil on which they lived, and the tribes which had successively settled down beside them—including the Beni-Israel themselves—no longer dreamed of a return to their fatherland. The condition of these people varied according to their locality. Those who had taken up a position in the plain of the Delta were subjected to actual slavery. Ahmosis destroyed the camp at Avails, quartered his officers in the towns, and constructed forts at strategic points, or rebuilt the ancient citadels to resist the incursions of the Bedouin. The vanquished people in the Delta, hemmed in as they were by a network of fortresses, were thus reduced to a rabble of serfs, to be taxed and subjected to the corvée without mercy. But further north, the fluctuating population which roamed between the Sebennytic and Pelusiac branches of the Nile were not exposed to such rough treatment. The marshes of the coast-line afforded them a safe retreat, in which they could take refuge at the first threat of exactions on the part of the royal emissaries. Secure within dense thickets, upon islands approached by interminable causeways, often covered with water, or by long tortuous canals concealed in the thick growth of reeds, they were able to defy with impunity the efforts of the most disciplined troops, and treason alone could put them at the mercy of their foes. Most of the Pharaohs felt that the advantages to be gained by conquering them would be outweighed by the difficulty of the enterprise; all that could result from a campaign would be the destruction of one or two villages, the acquisition of a few hundred refractory captives, of some ill-favoured cattle, and a trophy of nets and worm-eaten boats. The kings, therefore, preferred to keep a close watch over these undisciplined hordes, and as long as their depredations were kept within reasonable limits, they were left unmolested to their wild and precarious life.
The Asiatic invasion had put a sudden stop to the advance of Egyptian rule in the vast plains of the Upper Nile. The Theban princes, to whom Nubia was directly subject, had been too completely engrossed in the wars against their hereditary enemy, to devote much time to the continuation of that work of colonization in the south which had been carried on so vigorously by their forefathers of the XIIth and XIIIth dynasties. The inhabitants of the Nile valley, as far as the second cataract, rendered them obedience, but without any change in the conditions and mode of their daily life, which appear to have remained unaltered for centuries. The temples of Usirtasen and Amenemhaît were allowed to fall into decay one after another, the towns waned in prosperity, and were unable to keep their buildings and monuments in repair; the inundation continued to bring with it periodically its fleet of boats, which the sailors of Kûsh had laden with timber, gum, elephants’ tusks, and gold dust: from time to time a band of Bedouin from Uaûaît or Mazaiû would suddenly bear down upon some village and carry off its spoils; the nearest garrison would be called to its aid, or, on critical occasions, the king himself, at the head of his guards, would fall on the marauders and drive them back into the mountains. Ahrnosis, being greeted on his return from Syria by the news of such an outbreak, thought it a favourable moment to impress upon the nomadic tribes of Nubia the greatness of his conquest. On this occasion it was the people of Khonthanûnofir, settled in the wadys east of the Nile, above Semneh, which required a lesson. The army which had just expelled the Hyksôs was rapidly conveyed to the opposite borders of the country by the fleet, the two Ahmosi of Nekhabît occupying the highest posts. The Egyptians, as was customary, landed at the nearest point to the enemy’s territory, and succeeded in killing a few of the rebels. Ahmosi-si-Abîna brought back two prisoners and three hands, for which he was rewarded by a gift of two female Bedouin slaves, besides the “gold of valour.” This victory in the south following on such decisive success in the north, filled the heart of the Pharaoh with pride, and the view taken of it by those who surrounded him is evident even in the brief sentences of the narrative. He is described as descending the river on the royal galley, elated in spirit and flushed by his triumph in Nubia, which had followed so closely on the deliverance of the Delta. But scarcely had he reached Thebes, when an unforeseen catastrophe turned his confidence into alarm, and compelled him to retrace his steps. It would appear that at the very moment when he was priding himself on the successful issue of his Ethiopian expedition, one of the sudden outbreaks, which frequently occurred in those regions, had culminated in a Sudanese invasion of Egypt. We are not told the name of the rebel leader, nor those of the tribes who took part in it. The Egyptian people, threatened in a moment of such apparent security by this inroad of barbarians, regarded them as a fresh incursion of the Hyksôs, and applied to these southerners the opprobrious term of “Fever-stricken,” already used to denote their Asiatic conquerors. The enemy descended the Nile, committing terrible atrocities, and polluting every sanctuary of the Theban gods which came within their reach. They had reached a spot called Tentoâ,* before they fell in with the Egyptian troops. Ahmosi-si-Abîna again distinguished himself in the engagement. The vessel which he commanded, probably the Rising in Memphis, ran alongside the chief galliot of the Sudanese fleet, and took possession of it after a struggle, in which Ahmosi made two of the enemy’s sailors prisoners with his own hand. The king generously rewarded those whose valour had thus turned the day in his favour, for the danger had appeared to him critical; he allotted to every man on board the victorious vessel five slaves, and five ancra of land situated in his native province of each respectively. The invasion was not without its natural consequences to Egypt itself.
* The name of this locality does not occur elsewhere; it
would seem to refer, not to a village, but rather to a
canal, or the branch of a river, or a harbour somewhere
along the Nile. I am unable to locate it definitely, but am
inclined to think we ought to look for it, if not in Egypt
itself, at any rate in that part of Nubia which is nearest
to Egypt. M. Revillout, taking up a theory which had been
abandoned by Chabas, recognising in this expedition an
offensive incursion of the Shepherds, suggests that Tantoâ
may be the modern Tantah in the Delta.
A certain Titiânu, who appears to have been at the head of a powerful faction, rose in rebellion at some place not named in the narrative, but in the rear of the army. The rapidity with which Ahmosis repulsed the Nubians, and turned upon his new enemy, completely baffled the latter’s plans, and he and his followers were cut to pieces, but the danger had for the moment been serious.* It was, if not the last expedition undertaken in this reign, at least the last commanded by the Pharaoh in person. By his activity and courage Ahmosis had well earned the right to pass the remainder of his days in peace.
* The wording of the text is so much condensed that it is
difficult to be sure of its moaning. Modern scholars agree
with Brugsch that Titiânu is the name of a man, but several
Egyptologists believe its bearer to have been chief of the
Ethiopian tribes, while others think him to have been a
rebellious Egyptian prince, or a king of the Shepherds, or
give up the task of identification in despair. The tortuous
wording of the text, and the expressions which occur in it,
seem to indicate that the rebel was a prince of the royal
blood, and even that the name he bears was not his real one.
Later on we shall find that, on a similar occasion, the
official documents refer to a prince who took part in a plot
against Ramses III. by the fictitious name of Pentauîrît;
Titiânu was probably a nickname of the same kind inserted in
place of the real name. It seems that, in cases of high
treason, the criminal not only lost his life, but his name
was proscribed both in this world and in the next.
A revival of military greatness always entailed a renaissance in art, followed by an age of building activity. The claims of the gods upon the spoils of war must be satisfied before those of men, because the victory and the booty obtained through it were alike owing to the divine help given in battle. A tenth, therefore, of the slaves, cattle, and precious metals was set apart for the service of the gods, and even fields, towns, and provinces were allotted to them, the produce of which was applied to enhance the importance of their cult or to repair and enlarge their temples. The main body of the building was strengthened, halls and pylons were added to the original plan, and the impulse once given to architectural work, the co-operation of other artificers soon followed. Sculptors and painters whose art had been at a standstill for generations during the centuries of Egypt’s humiliation, and whose hands had lost their cunning for want of practice, were now once more in demand. They had probably never completely lost the technical knowledge of their calling, and the ancient buildings furnished them with various types of models, which they had but to copy faithfully in order to revive their old traditions. A few years after this revival a new school sprang up, whose originality became daily more patent, and whose leaders soon showed themselves to be in no way inferior to the masters of the older schools. Ahmosis could not be accused of ingratitude to the gods; as soon as his wars allowed him the necessary leisure, he began his work of temple-building. The accession to power of the great Theban families had been of little advantage to Thebes itself. Its Pharaohs, on assuming the sovereignty of the whole valley, had not hesitated to abandon their native city, and had made Heracleopolis, the Fayum or even Memphis, their seat of government, only returning to Thebes in the time of the XIIIth dynasty, when the decadence of their power had set in. The honour of furnishing rulers for its country had often devolved on Thebes, but the city had reaped but little benefit from the fact; this time, however, the tide of fortune was to be turned. The other cities of Egypt had come to regard Thebes as their metropolis from the time when they had temples. The main body of the building was strengthened, halls and pylons were added to the original plan, and the impulse once given to architectural work, the co-operation of other artificers soon followed. Sculptors and painters whose art had been at a standstill for generations during the centuries of Egypt’s humiliation, and whose hands had lost their cunning for want of practice, were now once more in demand. They had probably never completely lost the technical knowledge of their calling, and the ancient buildings furnished them with various types of models, which they had but to copy faithfully in order to revive their old traditions. A few years after this revival a new school sprang up, whose originality became daily more patent, and whose leaders soon showed themselves to be in no way inferior to the masters of the older schools. Ahmosis could not be accused of ingratitude to the gods; as soon as his wars allowed him the necessary leisure, he began his work of temple-building. The accession to power of the great Theban families had been of little advantage to Thebes itself. Its Pharaohs, on assuming the sovereignty of the whole valley, had not hesitated to abandon their native city, and had made Heracleopolis, the Fayum or even Memphis, their seat of government, only returning to Thebes in the time of the XIIIth dynasty, when the decadence of their power had set in. The honour of furnishing rulers for its country had often devolved on Thebes, but the city had reaped but little benefit from the fact; this time, however, the tide of fortune was to be turned.
The other cities of Egypt had come to regard Thebes as their metropolis from the time when they had learned to rally round its princes to wage war against the Hyksôs. It had been the last town to lay down arms at the time of the invasion, and the first to take them up again in the struggle for liberty. Thus the Egypt which vindicated her position among the nations of the world was not the Egypt of the Memphite dynasties. It was the great Egypt of the Amenemhâîts and the Usirtasens, still further aggrandised by recent victories. Thebes was her natural capital, and its kings could not have chosen a more suitable position from whence to command effectually the whole empire. Situated at an equal distance from both frontiers, the Pharaoh residing there, on the outbreak of a war either in the north or south, had but half the length of the country to traverse in order to reach the scene of action. Ahmosis spared no pains to improve the city, but his resources did not allow of his embarking on any very extensive schemes; he did not touch the temple of Amon, and if he undertook any buildings in its neighbourhood, they must have been minor edifices. He could, indeed, have had but little leisure to attempt much else, for it was not till the XXIInd year of his reign that he was able to set seriously to work.*