King Khufu (IV 2), in addition, is described as a smiter of the Anu; the word is written with the pillar sign. The word Anu was applied in Egypt to cave-dwellers generally, more especially to those of Nubia. The Anu are first mentioned on the Palermo Stone in connection with a king of the First Dynasty whose name is broken away, but who was probably King Den-Setui.
In the estimation of the historian Josephus (c. a.d. 60), the inhabitants of Sinai at the time of Moses were cave-dwellers, for he stated that Moses, in going to Sinai, went among the “troglodytes” (Antiq., ii. 11).
Among the early inhabitants of the peninsula were the Horites. The Babylonian kings who fought against the four kings of southern Syria who revolted in the time of Abraham, “smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh-Kiriathaim, and the Horites in their mount Seir unto El Paran, which is by the wilderness” (Gen. xiv. 5-6). This associates the Horites with Mount Seir, which extended along the depression between the head of the Gulf of Akaba and the Dead Sea.
In the estimation of Prof. Robertson Smith the Horites of the Bible were troglodytes, which would bring them into line with the Anu of the Egyptian inscriptions. These Horites were accounted of low stock by the Hebrews, and were probably in the stage through which the Israelites had passed before they formed a confederacy. Prof. Robertson Smith pointed out that the list of their so-called dukes (Gen. xxxvi. 20) is not a literal genealogy, but an account of their tribal and local division, since five of the names are animal or totem names.[59] The view that the Horites were cave-dwellers was based on the likeness between the name Horite and the Hebrew word hor, which signifies mountain. The connection between the names is now denied, and the Horites of the Bible are identified with the Kharu or Khalu of the Egyptian texts. The Kharu appear in the Annals of Tahutmes III (XVIII 6) and of Amen-hotep IV (XVIII 10), among the people against whom the Egyptians fought on the way to Naharain i.e. Mesopotamia.[60] But the word Kharu on the Egyptian side has been interpreted as “mixed multitude.”
The next people who are mentioned on the Egyptian monuments in Sinai are the Mentu. King Ra-en-user (V 6) was described as “great god of the smiting countries and raider of the Mentu.” Again, the tablet of Men-kau-hor, mentioned a royal expedition to the Mentu; and Ptahwer in Sinai of the Twelfth Dynasty was described as “bringing the Mentu to the king’s heels.”
The Mentu took part in the great Hyksos invasion of Egypt between the Twelfth and the Eighteenth Dynasties. For when the tide of foreign nations was rolled back, they were among the conquered. King Aahmes I (XVIII 1), after seizing the foreign stronghold Avaris, “made a slaughter of the Mentu of Setiu, and going south to Khent-hen-nefer, he destroyed the Anu-Khenti.”[61] Among the conquered people who were represented around the throne of Amen-hotep II (XVIII 7) are the Mentu, who have the appearance of true Asiatics. An Edfu inscription, as mentioned above, stated that the Mentu were thrown back with the help of the devotees of the god Sopd.
The people who figured most prominently in the Egyptian annals of Sinai were the Retennu, who were mentioned again and again on the steles which were set up at Serabit in the course of the Twelfth Dynasty. On three separate steles it says that the Egyptian expedition was sped across the desert by the brother of the sheykh (sen-heq-en) of the Retennu country, whose name was Khebdet or Khebtata, and who is represented riding on an ass which is led by a man in front, with a servant carrying his water flask behind him. On one stele six Retennu are named.[62]
These Retennu who figure in the annals of the Sinai in the Twelfth Dynasty are mentioned as dwelling in southern Syria in the Egyptian Tale of Sanehat, otherwise Sinuhe. This tale describes how a high-born Egyptian fled when news reached him of the death of King Amen-em-hat I (XII 1). He was at the time on the western Delta and by way of the Wadi Sneferu (unknown) reached the quarries of Khri Ahu (perhaps Cairo), crossed the Nile and passed the domain of the goddess Hirit, mistress of the Red Mountain (possibly Gebel Ahmar), and the wall which the prince had constructed. He reached Keduma (or Aduma) where Amu-anshi, sheykh of the Upper Tennu, took him for a sojourner or son-in-law, and settled him in the adjoining Ya-a country, a land of honey and figs, where wine was commoner than water. Sanehat remained here many years till the death of the Pharaoh caused him to petition his successor Sen-usert I (XII 2) for return to Egypt.[63] The name of the land to which Sanehat fled was read either as Aduma which would be the equivalent of Edom, but more probably (cf. Maspero and Dr. Alan Gardiner) as Keduma, and is probably the land Kedem, i.e. the east country, to which Abraham sent the sons of his concubines (Gen. xxv. 6). But the Retennu, who were peaceful neighbours of the Egyptians during the Twelfth Dynasty, were among the peoples against whom they afterwards waged war. Tahutmes I (XVIII 3) fought the Retennu on his way from Egypt to Naharain, i.e. Mesopotamia; Tahutmes III (XVIII 6) again and again ravaged their country; and Sety I (XIX 2), whose objective was Kadesh on the Orontes, was represented in his temple at Karnak dragging after him the great sheykhs of the Retennu, whom he is shown holding by the hair of their heads.[64] Again, Ramessu III (XX 1) mentioned the tribute which was brought by the Retennu, in the great inscription of his temple at Medinet Habu.[65]
The Retennu and their name survived in Sinai, for Ptolemy, the geographer, named as its inhabitants the Pharanites, the Raithenoi and the Munichiates. Again, in the year 1816 the traveller Burckhardt noted that, attached to the mosque that stood inside the convent precincts, there were certain poor Bedawyn “called Retheny,” whose duty it was to clean the mosque. One of them had the dignity of imam, a leader in prayer, and was supported by offerings.[66]
And not only did the Retennu continue, the language which they spoke seems to have continued likewise. The sheykh who befriended Sanehat about two thousand years before our era, was named Amu-anshi, as recorded in the Tale of Sanehat. About the year a.d. 440 the Christian community of Pharan in Sinai, in consequence of outrages committed by the Arabs, lodged a complaint with their sheykh who stood in the relation of phylarch to the Romans, and who dwelt at a place described as twelve days’ journey from Pharan. The sequel of the account makes it probable that it was Petra. The name of the sheykh was Ammanus, which is the Latinised equivalent of Amu-anshi.