REMARKS 129
point of doubt, I shall here treat it as seriously as the biographical inscriptions of the early tombs. Possibly some day the tomb of Sanehat may be found, and the whole inscription be read complete upon the walls. The name Sa-nehat means "son of the sycamore," probably from his having been born, or living, at some place where was a celebrated sacred sycamore. This was a common tree in ancient, as in modern, Egypt; but an allusion in the tale, to Sanehat turning his back on the sycamore, when he was fleeing apparently up the west side of the Delta, makes it probable that the sycamore was that of Aa-tenen, now Batnun, at the middle of the west side of the Delta. The titles given to Sanehat at the opening are of a very high rank, and imply that he was the son either of the king or of a great noble. And his position in the queen's household shows him to have been of importance; the manner in which he is received 10
130 THE ADVENTURES OF SANEHAT
by the royal family at the end implying that he was quite familiar with them in early days. But the great difficulty in the account has been the sudden panic of Sanehat on hearing of the death of Amenemhat, and no explanation of this has yet been brought forward. It seems not unlikely that he was a son of Amenemhat by some concubine. This would at once account for his high titles—for his belonging to the royal household—for his fear of his elder brother Usertesen, who might see in him a rival, and try to slay him after his father's death—for the command to him to leave all his possessions and family behind him in Syria, as the condition of his being allowed to return to end his days in Egypt—for his familiar reception by the royal family, and for the property given to him on his return. The date recorded for the death of Sehote-pabra—Amenemhat I., the founder of the XIIth Dynasty—agrees with the limit of his reign on the monuments. And the expres-