With regard to the seven years of famine, it is true that Egypt was less likely to suffer in this way than the countries round about; yet still, when the inundation of the Nile fell below the average, it was liable to this scourge. History tells of numerous cases in which the inhabitants have suffered terribly from want, and several famines are even mentioned on the monuments. Professor Rawlinson refers us to a case which furnishes a near parallel to the famine of Joseph. In A.D. 1064 a famine began in Egypt which lasted seven years, and was so severe that dogs and cats, and even human flesh, were eaten; nearly all the horses of the Caliph perished, and his family had to fly into Syria.
When Jacob goes down into Egypt, he is advised to tell Pharaoh that he and his sons are keepers of cattle, so that the land of Goshen may be assigned to them, shepherds being an abomination unto the Egyptians. The Egyptian contempt for herdsmen appears plainly on the monuments, where they are commonly represented as dirty and unshaven, and are sometimes even caricatured as a deformed and unseemly race. When Jacob dies, his body is embalmed by the physicians, forty days being taken up with the processes, and seventy days being spent in mourning. The methods of embalming are described by Herodotus and Diodorus, and it is stated that in preparing the body according to the first method the operators commenced by extracting the brain and pouring in certain drugs. Then they made an incision in the side of the body with a sharp Ethiopian stone, and drew out the intestines, filling the cavity with powder of pure myrrh, cassia, and other fragrant substances, and sewing up the aperture. This being done, they salted the body, “keeping it in natron during seventy days,” after which they washed it and wrapped it up in bands of fine linen smeared on their inner side with gum. Remarking upon the number of days, seventy or seventy-two, mentioned by the two historians, Sir Gardner Wilkinson says there is reason to believe it comprehended the whole period of the mourning, and that the embalming process only occupied a portion of it.
Subsequently to the burial of his father, Joseph himself died, and his body also was embalmed. At some later period there arose a king who knew not Joseph. This monarch is generally supposed to be Rameses II., and if the identification were correct, the indications of his character afforded by the Book of Exodus agree exactly with what the monuments reveal concerning that haughty oppressor; but, as already stated, the reference is probably to Rameses I. The slavery of the Israelites was of a kind to which all hostile or conquered people were reduced by the Egyptians. Thothmes III., during his many campaigns, brought to Egypt unnumbered prisoners of every race, and made them labour like convicts on the public works, under the superintendence of architects and overseers. On the walls of a chamber in a tomb at Thebes there is a very instructive pictorial representation of such forced labour, and the Asiatic countenances of the workers strongly resemble those of the Hebrew race. The date is too early, and we may suppose them to belong to some other nation of the Semitic family; but the picture none the less shows the method of working under taskmasters. Some carry water in jugs from the tank hard by; others knead and cut up the loamy earth; others, again, by the help of a wooden form, make the bricks, or place them carefully in long rows to dry; while the more intelligent among them carry out the work of building the walls. The hieroglyphic explanations inform as that the labourers are captives whom Thothmes III. has carried away to build the temple of his father Amon. They explain that the baking of the bricks is a work for the new building of the provision house of the god Amon of Apet (the east side of Thebes), and they finally declare the strict superintendence of the steward over the foreigners. The words are—(Here are seen) the prisoners which have been carried away as living prisoners in very great numbers; they work at the building with active fingers; their overseers show themselves in sight, these insist with vehemence, obeying the orders of the great skilled lord [the head architect] who prescribes to them the works, and gives directions to the masters; (they are rewarded), with wine and all kinds of good dishes; they perform their service with a mind full of love for the king; they build for Thothmes III. a holy of holies for (the gods), may it be rewarded to him through a range of many years.
The overseer speaks thus to the labourers at the building: “The stick is in my hand, be not idle.”
Some of the captives thus set to labour by Thothmes belonged to a people called the Aperiu; and in the days of Rameses II. they are mentioned as still in a condition of servitude, quarrying and transporting stone for the great fortress of the city of Paramessu or Tanis.
Diodorus tells us that Rameses II. put up an inscription in each of his buildings, saying that it had been erected by captives, and that not a single native Egyptian was employed on the work. Again, this king manufactured bricks for sale, and, by employing the labour of captives, was enabled to under-sell other makers. The use of crude bricks baked in the sun was universal throughout the country for private and for many public buildings, and the dry climate of Egypt was peculiarly suited to those simple materials. They had the recommendation of cheapness, and those made three thousand years ago, whether with or without straw, are even now as firm and fit for use as when first put up. When made of the Nile mud or alluvial deposit they required straw to prevent their cracking; but those formed of clay taken from the torrent beds on the edge of the desert held together without straw; and crude brick walls frequently had the additional security of a layer of reeds or sticks placed at intervals to act as binders.
[Authorities and Sources:—Brugsch’s “Egypt under the Pharaohs.” Wilkinson’s “Ancient Egyptians.” Birch’s “Egypt” (Series, Ancient History from the Monuments). G. Rawlinson’s “Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament.” E. A. Wallis Budge, “Dwellers on the Nile.” M. E. Harkness, “Egyptian Life and History.”]
7. Buried Cities of the East—Preliminary.
If the buried cities of the East had been altogether destroyed and lost, and we possessed only a brief record of their disappearance, the subject might not possess much interest for us, and there would be no material for writing a book. But we are now witnessing a resurrection of some of them, and are recovering a story of the past, such as revived Egyptian mummies might be able to tell. Nay, not only Egyptians who walked about—