raelitish history, the era from which it dated. Down to the last the kingdom of the Pharaohs exercised upon it an influence more or less profound; the extravagant splendour of Solomon was modelled aft

The defeat of Necho at Carchemish handed Palestine over to the Babylonians, and indirectly brought about the destruction of Jerusalem; even in the age of the Ptolemies Egypt still influenced the history of Israel, and the Jews of Alexandria prepa

y plain, out of which emerge the villages and towns and the raised banks which serve as roads. For more than 1600 miles the Nile flows without an affluent; in the spring it falls so low that its channel becomes almost unnavigable;

e-historic. Its burial-places are met with in various localities in Upper Egypt. The members of the race were not acquainted with the use of metals, but they were expert artificers in stone and clay. Stone was skilfully carved into vessels of different forms, and vases of clay were fashioned, with brightly polished s

dge of working in metals. These were the Pharaonic Egyptians, who seem to have come from Babylonia and the coasts of southern Arabia. Cities were built and kingdoms were founded on the banks of the Nile, and the older populatio

flesh formed an integral part of it; hence came the practice of embalming the body that it might be preserved to the day of resurrection; hence too the doctrine of the dead man's justification, not only through his own good works, but through the intercession of the Sun-god Horus as well. Horus was addressed as "the Redeemer;" he had avenged the death of his father Osiris upon his enemy Set, the lord of evil, and through faith in him his followers were delivered from the powers of darkness. Horus, however, and Osiris were but forms of the same

stitions of the aboriginal tribes of India and identified the idols of the populace with its own gods, so too in ancient Egypt a fusion of race must have brought about a fusion of ideas. The sacred animals of the older cult were associated with the deities of the new-comers; in the eyes of the upper classes they were but symbols; the lower classes co

longed to the white race, but his hair and eyes were black, the hair being also straight. His artistic and intellectual faculties were highly developed, he was singularly good-tempered and light-hearted, averse to cruelty, though subject at times to fits of fanatical excitement

"Shêkh el-Beled," may be taken as an illustration. Here the skull is round instead of long, the lips and nostrils are thick and fleshy, the expression good-humoured rather than intellectual. The type is that of a por

ied into two only, those of the north and the south. The northern kingdom was symbolised by the snake and papyrus, the southern kingdom by the vulture and aloe. The vulture was the emblem of Nekheb, the goddess of the great fortress whose ruins are now called El-Kab; and it is probable that the cit

w channel to the east. The dyke which forced the river from its old course still remains, and two or three thousand years before the bed of the valley had risen to its present level the destruction of the dyke would have meant the return of the Nile to its former path.

os, "the Temple of the Double of Ptah." On the north side of it, in fact, stood the temple of Ptah, the local god, the scanty remains of which are still visited by

was heaped about the walls and the whole set on fire, so that the royal body and the objects that were buried with it were half consumed by the heat. The mode of burial was peculiar to Babylonia. Here, in an alluvial plain, where stone was not procurable, and where the cemeteries of the dead adjoined the houses of the living, brick was needful instead of stone, and sanitary considerations made cremation necessary. But in

e was slain by a hippopotamus, the Egyptian symbol of a foe. It may be, therefore, that he fell fighting in battle, and that his sepulchre was erected near the scen

vory were engraved with high artistic finish, and even obsidian was worked into vases by means of the lathe. As the nearest source of obsidian to Egypt that is known are the islands of Santorin and Melos in the ?gean Sea, there must have already been a maritime trade with the Greek seas. Art had already reached maturity; a sm

xactitude, and, according to Professor Flinders Petrie, have been worked by means of tubular drills fitted with the points of emeralds or some equally hard stone. It was left for the nineteenth century to re-discover the instrument when the Mont Cenis tunnel was half completed.

it was, therefore, perhaps natural that they should take an interest in the country to the south. One expedition made its way into the land of Punt, to the north of Abyssinia, and brought back

he power of the kings diminished, that of the great landowners and nobles increased; a feudal aristocracy grew up, which divided Egypt between its members, and treated the royal authority with only nominal respect. Memphis ceased to be the capital, and a new dynasty, the Ninth, was founded by the feudal prince of Herakleopolis, now Ahnas, south of t

it. The depression west of the Nile, now known as the Fayy?m, was drained of its waters, and by means of embankments transformed from a pestiferous marsh into fertile fields. The Nile was brought to it by a river-like canal, and the supply of water regulated by locks. Fresh exploring expeditions were sent to the S

d the valley of the Nile in three dynasties, and the recollection of their hated sway never faded from the Egyptian mind. At first they burned and plundered, then they established themselves in Memphis and Zoan, and from thence governed the rest of the country. But they soon submitted to the influence of Egyptian culture. The conquered people took their conquerors captive, and the Hyksos kings became veritable Pharaohs. The m

of the stranger. Apophis III., of the Seventeenth dynasty, sent messengers to Skenen-Ra, the prince of Thebes, bidding him renounce Amon of Thebes for the god of his suzerain. Skenen-Ra resisted, and a long war followed,

ch served at once to bar the way from Asia and to overawe the conquered Egyptians. The Pharaoh of Joseph was probably Apophis III. If so, the Hebrew vizier would have witnessed the outbreak of the war of inde

ntry east of the Jordan equally obeyed Egyptian rule. The plateau of Bashan was governed by a single prefect; Ammon and Moab were tributary; Edom alone retained its independence, thanks to its barren mountains, and inaccessible ravines. Thebes, the capital of the dynasty, was adorned with splendid buildings, and all the wealth and luxury of Asia was poured into it. Thothmes established zoological and botanical gardens, where the strange plants, birds, and animals he had collected

ed, and the Sudan was conquered as far south as Berber, if not Khart?m. Under Amen-hotep III., the grandson of Thothmes III., the empire underwent still farthe

ng, and even Babylonia had been forced to acquiesce sullenly in the annexation by Egypt of her old province of Canaan, and to beg for gifts of gold from the Egyptian mines. But Mitanni was too powerful to b

ism, the visible symbol of which was the solar disk. For the first time in history a religious persecution was entered on; the worship of Amon, the god of Thebes, was proscribed, and his very name erased from the monuments. Amen-hotep changed his own name to Khu-n-Aten, "the glory of the solar disk," and every effort was made to extirpate the state religion, of wh

are alike represented in them with a spirit and faithfulness to nature which is indeed astonishing. Like the houses of his followers, the palace of the king was adorned with similar frescoes. But it was also decorated with a lavish profusion of precious materials; its walls and columns were inlaid with gold and bronze and precious stone

western Asia. Throughout the civilised world of Asia the educated classes were compelled to learn a foreign writing and language, and when the empire passed from Babylonia to Egypt, Egypt itself, whose script and literature went back to immemorial times, was forced to do the same. The correspondence was active and far-reaching. There are letters in it from the kings of Babylonia and Assyria, of Mitanni and Cappadocia, as well as from the Egyptian governors in Canaan. Even Bedawin shêkhs ta

. The Pharaoh is entreated to send help speedily; if his troops do not come at once, it is reputed, they will come too late. But it would seem that the troops could not be spared at home. There, too, civil war was breaking out, and though Khu-n-Aten died before the end came, his sepulchre was profaned, his mummy rent to pieces, and the city he had built destroyed. The stones of the temple of his god were sent

C. 1348-1281), and whose mummy, like that of his father, is now in the Cairo Museum. He set himself to restore the Asiatic empire of Thothmes. But the Hittites barred his way. They had established themselves at Kadesh on the Orontes, and a long war of twenty-one years ended at last in a treaty of peace in

p. His architectural conceptions were colossal; the temple of Abu-Simbel, hewn out of a mountain, and the shattered image of himself at Thebes, are a proof of this. But he a

it lay at the eastern extremity of Qoshem or Goshen, in the district of Succoth. Like Ramses, it had been built by Israelitish labour, for the free-born Israelites of Goshen had bee

led to Asia, and it was near the Hyksos capital of Zoan. Meneptah, the son and successor of Ramses II., tells us that from of old it had been given by the Pharaohs to the nomad shepherds of Asia; and after the departure of the Israelitish tribes the sa

g their flocks and cattle on the royal demesne. During the reign of Khu-n-Aten, indeed, their own Semitic kinsmen from Canaan held the chief offices of state, and the Pharaoh was endeavouring to force upon his

weaker brethren, the Israelites in Goshen, were enslaved. Egypt became for them a house of bondage, and they had to toil under the lash of the taskmaster at the cities and temples which the Pharaoh built. Ramses held his court at Zoan, like the Hyksos of old days, but

Egypt itself. That their fears were justified is shown by what happened less than a century later. When the Nineteenth dynasty fell in the midst of civil war, a Canaanite, Arisu by name, seized the throne and made himself master

y addressed to Meneptah alludes to "the Israelites" to whom "no seed" had been left. But the policy was ineffectua

he west. The Delta was overrun by swarms of barbarians, who pitched their tents in front of Belbeis at the western end of the land of Goshen. Plague after plague descended upon the Egyptians, and the freedom of his serfs was wrung from the Pharaoh. They fled by night, carrying with them

them. While their pursuers were following in their footsteps, the dropping of the wind caused the waters to return upon them, and

the victorious Egyptians. Canaan, however, was lost, with the exception of Gaza, which defended the road from Egypt, and was still garrisoned by Egyptian troops. But Gaza, the Calais of Egypt, was not destined to remain long in their power. Already the coast-road was ma

e more the foreign invader was upon its soil. The nations of the north had again poured southward, partly by land, partly by sea, greedy for the wealth that was stored in the cultured lands of the Oriental world, and eager to find new settlements for an expanding population. Greek traditio

pt through western Asia, plundering and destroying as they marched, and bringing in their train contingents from the countries through which they passed. Hittites, Mitannians, and Amorites all followed with them, and the motley host of men and ships finally reached the Egyptian frontier. Here, however, they were met by

y across the Jordan into Moab. Another campaign carried the Egyptian troops into Edom, where they burned the "tents" of the Bedawin, and for the first and last time in history planted the Egyptian standard on the slopes of Mount Seir. Ramses now turned to the internal administration of his country, and the copper-mines o

y dispossessed the last of them of the throne. A new dynasty arose in the Delta. In the south the government wa

nst his enemies in Egypt by an alliance with his powerful neighbour. At all events, the King of Israel allowed his army to march through Palestine as far as Gezer. The Egyptians flattered themselves that they had thereby asser

, and the kingdom of David was sundered in twain. Shishak seized the opportunity of striking a blow at what remained of it. With contemptuous impartiality he overran the territories of both Judah and the revolted tribes, but it was Judah which suffered the most. The unfinished fortifications of Jerusalem were stormed, the treasures accumulated by Solomon carried to the Nile, and the King of Judah compelle

ch he had rescued it. The tribes of the S?dan could no longer be hindered from attacking the enfeebled land, and Ethiopian princes made their way to Memphis, carrying back with them to their capi

anaan, and Taharka was saved from invasion only by the disaster which befell Sennacherib during his siege of Jerusalem. But the respite was only momentary. Asia at last submitted to the dominion of Nineveh, the King of Judah became an Assyrian vassal, and Esar-haddon, the successor of Sennacherib, was now ready to march against the land of the Nile. In B.C. 674 he entered the Delta and scattered the forces of the Ethiopians. But two

of Sais, they invited the Ethiopians to return; but the plot was discovered, and Necho and his fellow-conspirators sent in chains to Nineveh. Sais, Mendes, and other cities of northern Egypt were sacked, and Taharka, who had advanced as far as Thebes and even Memphis, fled to Ethiopia and there died. Meanwhile Necho had been pardoned and loaded with honours by the Assyrian king; his son, who took an Assyrian name,

n and tradition with Ethiopia; on Thebes and its priesthood, therefore, the punishment had to fall. The Ethiopian army retreated to Nubia without striking a blow, and Egypt was left defenceless at the mercy of the Assyrian. The Assyrian army entered Thebes, the No or "City" of Amon, bent on the work of

tre and which had spread to its other provinces. For a time it was called on to struggle for bare existence. While the Assyrian armies were employed elsewhere, Psammetikhos shook himself free of its authority, and, with the help of Greek and Karian mercenaries from Lydia, overcame his rival satraps and mounted the throne of the Pharaohs. Once more, under the Twenty-sixth dynasty, Egypt enjoyed rest and prosp

successor of Psammetikhos, cleared out the old canal which united the Red Sea with the Nile, and did all that he could to encourage trade with the Mediterranean. An exploring fleet was even sent under Phoenician pilots to circumnavigate Africa. Three years were spent on the voyage, and the ships finally re

lecock between the kingdoms of the Nile and the Euphrates. Trusting to the support of Egypt, Zedekiah of Judah revolted from his Babylonian master. His policy at first seemed successful. The Babylonian army which was besieging Jerusalem retired on the approach of Psammetikhos II., who had succ

the Pharaoh had more than enough to do to defend himself against his own subjects. They saw with growing impatience that the power and wealth of the Greek mercenaries continually increased. The native army had already deserted to Ethiopia; now the priests complained that

me time overawe the native Egyptians, and Amasis himself married a Greek wife. The invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadrezzar in B.C. 567 showed that the policy of Amasis had been a wise one. The Baby

to remain at peace. Amasis prepared himself accordingly for the coming storm. Cyprus was occupied, and therewith the command of the sea was assured.

rch, and the task of opposing it fell to his young and inexperienced son. The Greek mercenaries fought bravely, but to no purpose: the battle of Pelusium

there was but little sympathy between the conquered and their conquerors. Time after time the Egyptians broke into revolt, once against Xerxes, once again against Artaxerxes I., and a third time against Artaxerxes II. The last insurrection was more successful than those which had preceded it, and Egypt rema

tian and the Greek had stood side by side against the common Persian foe. Greek troops had disputed the passage of Kambyses into Egypt. The first revolt of Egypt had saved Greece from the impending invasion of Darius, and postponed it

seum. An elaborate fiscal system was devised and carefully superintended, and enormous revenues poured into the treasury of the king. As time passed on, the Ptolemies identified themselves more and more with their subjects; the temples were rebuilt or restored, and the Greek king assumed the attributes of a Pharaoh. The Jews flocked into the country, where special privile

which largely influenced the writers of the New Testament; it gave it also a new Canon which was adopted by the early Christ

s received by a single Being in his various attributes and workings.... As the Eternal, who existed before all worlds, then as organiser of the universe, and finally as the Providence who each day watches over his work, he is always the same being, reuniting in his essence all the attributes of divinity." It was the hidden God who was adored under the na

cism. There was a sceptical as well as a believing school, such as finds its expression in the festal

ortune? sa

e the heart

s or thinks

tell u

ink in pea

o, your go

es the las

ot back

guments of a sceptical philosophy are urged with such force and sympathy as to show that they were the author's own. But such scepticism was confined to the few; t

ynasty onwards to preserve it by embalmment, and to place above the heart the scarab beetle, the symbol of evolution, which by its magical powers would cause it to beat again. Hence, too, the long texts from the Ri

. He will assume the crown of Upper Egypt, and will lift up the red crown of Lower Egypt.... The people of the age of the Son of Man will rejoice, and establish his name for

m in his divine form, so that she might bear a child at the sight of his divine beauty. His charms penetrated her flesh, filling it with the odours of Punt." And the god is finally made to declare to her: "Amen-hotep shall be the name of the son that is in thy wom

he was condemned to the fiery pains of hell. Each man, after death, was called upon to make the "Negative Confession," to prove that he had not sinned against his fellows, that he had not oppressed or taken bribes, had not judged wrongfully, had not injured a slave or overtasked the poor man, had not murdered or stolen, li

buried with the dead, and it was supposed that their "doubles" or shadows would assist him in his labours. The supposition rested on a theory which ascribed to all things, whether animate or inanimate, a

is true, but nevertheless one which had the same feelings, the same needs, and the same moral nature as himself. It thus differe

ty a "hieratic" or running hand had been formed out of it. The more cumbrous and picturesque hieroglyphics were reserved for engraving on wood or stone or metal, or for the sacred texts; the ordinary book was written in hieratic. The papyrus which grew in the marshes of the Delta was the writing material, and in spite of its apparently fragile character, it has been found to last as long as paper. When its use wa

es like the Proverbs of Solomon or the Discourses of Confucius. Ptah-hotep already laments that men were not as they had been. He had reached the age of a hundred and ten years, and had fallen upon degenerate days. Perhaps he was right, fo

pisode which closely resembles the history of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, and the reign of Ramses II. produced a sarcastic account of the misadventures of a tourist in Canaan, the object of which was to ridicule the style and matt

of which is known as the Ebers Papyrus. It shows that medicine has not advanced very rapidly since the age of the Eighteenth Egyptian dynasty. Diseases were already careful

ore serious drawings. It was in statuary, however, that the Egyptian artist was at his best. The hardest of stones were carved into living likenesses, or invested with a dignity and pathos which it is difficult to match. Such at least was the case with the statuary of the Old Empire, before the conventionalised art of a later day had placed restrictions on the sculptor and stifled his originality. The great statue of King Khaf-Ra of the Fourth dynasty, seated on his throne with the imperial hawk behind his head, is carved ou

eclaiming the criminal. Diodoros states that punishments were inflicted not merely as a deterrent, but also with a view towards reforming the evil-doer, and Wilkinson notices that at Medinet Habu, wh

wer, until under the kings of the Twentieth dynasty they were the virtual rulers of the state. They stood between the labouring classes and the great army of bureaucracy which from the days of the Eighteenth dynasty onward carried on the administration of the kingdom. The labouring classes, however, knew how to defend their own interests; the artisans formed

and carefully made. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the jewellery found at Dahshur, and belonging to princesses of the Twelfth dynasty. Precious stones are so exquisitely inlaid in gold as to look like enamel, and are formed into the most beautiful of designs; small forget-me-nots, for example, alternate with plain

playing at ball. Like his descendants to-day, he was an agriculturist at heart. The wealth and very existence of Egypt depended on its peasantry, and though the scribes professed to despise them and to hold the literary life alone worth living, the bulk of the nation was well aware of the fact. Even the walls of the tombs are covered with agricultural scenes. In one of them-that of Pa-heri, at El-Kab-the songs of the labourers have been preserved. Thus the ploughme

oxen, thresh

elves, and the grai

was necessary that they should turn them on Egyptian civilisation as well. Hence it was that intercourse with Egypt was forbidden, and the King of Israel who began by marrying an Egyptian princess and importing horses from the valley of the Nile, ended by building shrines to the gods of the heathen. Hence, too, it was that the distinctive beliefs and practices o

raoh and his court were Asiatic or of Asiatic descent. And in later days the rise of a purely native government meant for them a bitter bondage and the murder of their children. Between the Israelite and the Egyptian there was hostility from