Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken at Medinet-
Habu.
The campaign of the XIth year brought to an end the great military expeditions of Ramses III. Henceforward he never took the lead in any more serious military enterprise than that of repressing the Bedawin of Seîr for acts of brigandage,* or the Ethiopians for some similar reason. He confined his attention to the maintenance of commercial and industrial relations with manufacturing countries, and with the markets of Asia and Africa. He strengthened the garrisons of Sinai, and encouraged the working of the ancient mines in that region. He sent a colony of quarry-men and of smelters to the land of Atika, in order to work the veins of silver which were alleged to exist there.**
*The Sâîrû of the Egyptian texts have been identified with
the Bedawin of Seîr.
** This is the Gebel-Ataka of our day. All this district is
imperfectly explored, but we know that it contains mines and
quarries some of which were worked as late as in the time of
the Mameluk Sultans.
He launched a fleet on the Red Sea, and sent it to the countries of fragrant spices. “The captains of the sailors were there, together with the chiefs of the corvée and accountants, to provide provision” for the people of the Divine Lands “from the innumerable products of Egypt; and these products were counted by myriads. Sailing through the great sea of Qodi, they arrived at Pûântt without mishap, and there collected cargoes for their galleys and ships, consisting of all the unknown marvels of Tonûtir, as well as considerable quantities of the perfumes of Pûâtîn, which they stowed on board by tens of thousands without number. The sons of the princes of Tonûtir came themselves into Qîmit with their tributes. They reached the region of Coptos safe and sound, and disembarked there in peace with their riches.” It was somewhere about Sau and Tuau that the merchants and royal officers landed, following the example of the expeditions of the XIIth and XVIIIth dynasties. Here they organised caravans of asses and slaves, which taking the shortest route across the mountain—that of the valley of Rahanû—carried the precious commodities to Coptos, whence they were transferred to boats and distributed along the river. The erection of public buildings, which had been interrupted since the time of Mînephtah, began again with renewed activity. The captives in the recent victories furnished the requisite labour, while the mines, the voyages to the Somali coast, and the tributes of vassals provided the necessary money. Syria was not lost sight of in this resumption of peaceful occupations. The overthrow of the Khâti secured Egyptian rule in this region, and promised a long tranquillity within its borders. One temple at least was erected in the country—that of Pa-kanâna—where the princes of Kharu were to assemble to offer worship to the Pharaoh, and to pay each one his quota of the general tribute. The Pulasati were employed to protect the caravan routes, and a vast reservoir was erected near Aîna to provide a store of water for the irrigation of the neighbouring country. The Delta absorbed the greater part of the royal subsidies; it had suffered so much from the Libyan incursions, that the majority of the towns within it had fallen into a condition as miserable as that in which they were at the time of the expulsion of the Shepherds. Heliopolis, Bubastis, Thmuis, Amû, and Tanis still preserved some remains of the buildings which had already been erected in them by Ramses; he constructed also, at the place at present called Tel el-Yahûdîyeh, a royal palace of limestone, granite, and alabaster, of which the type is unique amongst all the structures hitherto discovered. Its walls and columns were not ornamented with the usual sculptures incised in stone, but the whole of the decorations—scenes as well as inscriptions—consisted of plaques of enamelled terra-cotta set in cement. The forms of men and animals and the lines of hieroglyphs, standing out in slight relief from a glazed and warm-coloured background, constitute an immense mosaic-work of many hues. The few remains of the work show great purity of design and an extraordinary delicacy of tone.
All the knowledge of the Egyptian painters, and all the technical skill of their artificers in ceramic, must have been employed to compose such harmoniously balanced decorations, with their free handling of line and colour, and their thousands of rosettes, squares, stars, and buttons of varicoloured pastes.*
* This temple has been known since the beginning of the
nineteenth century, and the Louvre is in possession of some
fragments from it which came from Salt’s collection; it was
rediscovered in 1870, and some portions of it were
transferred by Mariette to the Boulaq Museum. The remainder
was destroyed by the fellahîn, at the instigation of the
enlightened amateurs of Cairo, and fragments of it have
passed into various private collections. The decoration has
been attributed to Chaldoan influence, but it is a work
purely Egyptian, both in style and in technique.