ARCHÆOLOGY AND THE BIBLE
CHAPTER I
EGYPT
The Land. The Preservation of Antiquities. Egyptian Discoveries. Decipherment. Chronology. Outline of the History: The pre-dynastic period. The archaic period. The old kingdom. The first period of disintegration. The middle kingdom. Second period of disintegration. The empire period. The period of foreign dynasties. The lower empire. The Persian period. The Ptolemaic period. The Roman period. Egyptian Discoveries Which Bear on the Bible: Texts bearing on the story of Joseph. The Invasion of Egypt by the Hyksos. The El-Amarna letters. Period of the Oppression and the Exodus. Campaign of Sheshonk I. Papyri discovered at Elephantine. The palace of Hophra. The castle at Tahpanhes. The Jewish temple at Leontopolis. Papyri from Oxyrhynchus. Discoveries in Nubia.
1. The Land.—Egypt is in many ways unique among the countries of the world. One of these unique features is its form. If we omit the Delta, it has but one dimension,—length. From Cairo to the First Cataract is a distance of 583 miles, while the breadth of the valley, including the barren lands on each side of it, varies from 12½ to 31 miles. If we include Nubia to the Fourth Cataract, which the Egyptians ultimately conquered, the length is much greater, being about 1,100 miles. In Nubia the banks are much more precipitous, the valley varying from 5 to 9½ miles. The verdant portion is, however, often not more than a mile in width.
This land is flanked on each side by extensive barren deserts on which there is almost no rainfall. Egypt itself would be a part of this desert, were it not for the overflow of the Nile. This overflow is caused by the peculiar formation of this marvelous river.
The upper part of the Nile consists of two main branches, called, respectively, the White and the Blue Nile. The White Nile rises 3 degrees south of the equator, some 4,000 miles south of the Mediterranean, to the south of Lake Victoria Nyanza. This region is watered by tropical rains, which fall almost daily. This steady water supply gives to the Nile its constant volume. At Khartum, 1,350 miles from the Mediterranean in a direct line, and 1,650 miles as the river winds, the White Nile is joined by the Blue Nile. This branch of the river drains a large part of Abyssinia, an upland and mountainous region which has a dry and a rainy season. In the dry season this stream dwindles almost to nothing; in the rainy season it is a turbid mountain torrent, which rushes impetuously onward, laden with loose soil from all the land which it drains. For this reason it is called the Blue, i. e., the Dark or Turbid, Nile.
At a distance of 140 miles north of the union of the two Niles the river receives its only other tributary, the Atbara, which also flows in from the eastern side. The Atbara, like the Blue Nile, is an insignificant stream except in the rainy season, when it is a torrent.