Manetho tells us they came from the East, but fearing the then rising power of the Assyrians, they fortified Avaris as a bulwark against them, and used it during their sojourn in Egypt to keep up their communications with their original seat. Recent explorations have enabled M. Mariette to identify San, Zoan, or Tanis, a well-known site on the Bubastite branch of the Nile, with this Avaris. And already he has disinterred a sphinx and two seated statues which certainly belong to the reign of the Shepherd king Apophis.[[53]]
The character of these differs widely from anything hitherto found in Egypt. They present a physiognomy strongly marked with an Asiatic type—an arched nose, rude bushy hair, and great muscular development; altogether something wholly different from everything else found in Egypt either before or afterwards.
This is not much, but it is an earnest that more remains to be discovered, and adds another to the proofs that are daily accumulating, how implicitly Manetho may be relied upon when we only read him correctly, and how satisfactory it is to find that every discovery that is made confirms the conclusions we had hesitatingly been adopting.
It appears from such fragmentary evidence as has hitherto been gleaned from the monuments, that the Shepherds’ invasion was neither sudden nor at once completely successful, if indeed it ever was so, for it is certain that Theban and Xoite dynasties co-existed with the Shepherds during the whole period of their stay, either from policy, like the protected princes under our sway in India, or because their conquest was not so complete as to enable them to suppress the national dynasties altogether.
Like the Tartars in China they seem to have governed the country by means of the original inhabitants, but for their own purposes; tolerating their religion and institutions, but ruling by the superior energy of their race the peace-loving semi-Semitic inhabitants of the Delta, till they were in their turn overthrown and expelled by the more warlike but more purely African races of the southern division of the Egyptian valley.
CHAPTER IV.
PHARAONIC KINGDOM.
PRINCIPAL KINGS OF THE GREAT THEBAN PERIOD.
| XVIIIth Dynasty. | B.C. 1830 | |||
| Amenhotep I. | reigned | 25 | years. | |
| Thothmes I. | reigned | 13 | years. | |
| Amenhotep II. | reigned | 20 | years. | |
| Hatshepsu (Queen) | reigned | 21 | years. | |
| Thothmes II. | reigned | 12 | years. | |
| Thothmes III. | reigned | 26 | years. | |
| Thothmes IV. | reigned | 10 | years. | |
| Amenhotep III. | reigned | 21 | years. | |
| Interregnum of Sun-worshipping Kings. | ||||
| Horemheb (Horus) | reigned | 36 | years. | |
| XIXth Dynasty. | ||||
| Rameses I. | reigned | 12 | years. | |
| Meneptah I. | reigned | 32 | years. | |
| Rameses II. | reigned | 68 | years. | |
| Meneptah II. | reigned | 5 | years. | |
| Exode | B.C. 1312 | |||
| XXth Dynasty. | ||||
| Rhampsinitus-Rameses | reigned | 55 | years. | |
| Ramessidæ | reigned | 66 | years. | |
| Amenophis | reigned | 20 | years. | |
The five centuries[[54]] which elapsed between the expulsion of the Shepherds and Exode of the Jews comprise the culminating period of the greatness and greatest artistic development of the Egyptians. It is practically within this period that all the great buildings of the “Hundred pyloned city of Thebes” were erected. Memphis was adorned within its limits with buildings as magnificent as those of the southern capital, though subsequently less fortunate in escaping the hand of the spoiler; and in every city of the Delta wherever an obelisk or sculptured stone is found, there we find almost invariably the name of one of the kings of the 18th or 19th dynasties. In Arabia, too, and above the cataracts of the far-off Meroë, everywhere their works and names are found. At Arban,[[55]] on the Khabour, we find the name of the third Thothmes; and there seems little doubt but that the Naharaina or Mesopotamia was one of the provinces conquered by them, and that all Western Asia was more or less subject to their sway.