Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/389

 EGYPT

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EGYPT

Sea to which they gave their name (PhcEnicians, ^olviKts, Pceni; Egyptian Puanit, Punt; Bible, Pliut). Others settled in the mountainous districts of Palestine (Canaan proper), where they resumed their nomadic life, and gradually developed into an agricultural race. Others, finally, shepherds also, probably prevented from taking a northern direction by the powerful and well-organized nation of the Hit- tites, turned to Egypt, where they settled as ex- plained above. Manetho assigns to them three dy- nasties, the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth, of which only the Sixteenth held sway over all EgjTJt. During the Fifteenth DjTiasty the princes of the southern homes, for a time at least, managed to retain a certain independence. They regained it under the Third Hyksos Dynasty, with which they share the honour of being recognized as the Seventeenth Dy- nasty. The last of them, Amosis, after a war of six years, finally succeeded in driving the intruders out of Egypt, pursuing the remnant of their army as far as Sharhuna (perhaps Sharukhen, Jos., xix, G) in South- ern Syria, where the last battle was fought and won by the Egyptians. From the monuments we know the names of at least four of the Hyksos kings, three of the ■lame of Apophi and one Khian. An alabaster vase bearing the names of the last has been found imder a wall of the palace of C'nossos in Crete, and a lion in Bagdad. Their capital seems to have been Avaris on the north-eastern border of the Delta. Some think that their rule extended over Palestine and Southern Sj'ria, which would explain the location of their capi- tal. The usage of carrj'ing on official correspondence with the local princes of SjTia and Palestine in the Babylonian language and script possibly dates from the period of the Hyksos. Few of the monuments of the Hyksos have been preserved, enough of them, however, to show us that as a rule the Shepherd kings conformed to the ancient culture of Egypt, adopting its language, art, religion (cf. however, Masp^ro, op. cit., 203), and political institutions. But they op- pressed their Egyptian subjects, and posterity held their memory in abomination.

It is in the Hyksos period that we must place the arrival of the Israelites in Egj-pt. The migration of the Terachites from Ur in Chaldea may have coin- ciiled with, or at all events was posterior to, that of the great Canaanitic family. Although of differ- ent stock, the two families had long been thrown to- gether in their former common home and spoke the same language; and this may partly explain the fa- vour which the children of Israel found at the hands of an Egyptian ruler, himself of Canaanitic, or possibly of Semitic, origin. "The scarabs of a Pharaoh who evidently belonged to the Hyksos time give his name as Jacob-her or possibly Jacob-El, and it is not impos- sible", remarks Professor Breasted, "that some chief of the Jacob-tribes of Israel for a time gained the lead- ership in this obscure age" (Hist, of Anc. Egypt, ISl).

Second Period: Eighteenth to Thirtieth Dynasty. — The second period is chiefly characterized by the Asiatic victories of the pharaohs with which it opens, and by the repeated invasions of Egyptian territory by Asiatic powers, which was the reaction of those victories. During the first period Egypt could be great at home, within her natural borders along the Nile valley; every page of her history is her own. During the second period her greatness is in propor- tion to her conquests abroad on another continent; almost every page of her history belongs to the history of the world.

The first ambition of the kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty, inaugurated by Ahmosis (1580-1557 B. c), was to secure their own borders against the Libyans, who had encroached upon the Delta during the period of confusion preceding the expulsion of the Hyksos, and, against the Nubians, who had availed themselves of the

same opportunity to shake off the yoke of Egyptian domination. The first point was achieved by Amen- hotep I, the second by Thotmes I, whose two succes- sive reigns lasted from 1557 to 1501 b. c. Not satis- fied with recovering and reorganizing the ancient province of Nubia, Thotmes I pushed more than 400 miles farther south to Napata, below the Fourth Cata- ract, where the southern frontier of Egypt remained fixed for the next eight hundred years or so. Both Amenhotep I and Thotmes I, and perhaps Ahmosis, too, had already undertaken the conquest of Syria. But it was reserved for Thotmes III (1501-1447 b. c.) to complete it and to organize the conquered territory as a permanent dependency of Egypt. Circum- stances were favourable. Both Assyria and Babylo- nia were in decline, and the powerful Hittites were restricted within their own borders beyond the Cilician Gates in Asia Minor. Nevertheless, the great confed- eration of the Canaanitic cities (perhaps to be identi- fied with the Hyksos), backed by the Phoenician cities, the State, or States, of Naharin (from the Mediterra- nean to the bend of the Euphrates), and the Aryan kingdom of Mitanni (between the Euphrates and the Belik), was not an enemy to be despised, and it cost the army and fleet of the pharaoh no less than seven- teen campaigns to achieve a permanent victory. The Kings of Assyria and Babylonia, and even the Hit- tites, sent presents which Thotmes took for tribute; but he does not seem to have invaded their territories; he probably never crossed the Belik nor the Cilician Gates, which mark the limits of the greatest extension of Egyptian control in Asia. The whole region con- quered was organized as a simple tributary territory under the supervision of a governor general backed by Egyptian garrisons in the chief cities. The local rulers were otherwise left unmolested except in case of rebel- lion, when the punishment was prompt and severe in the extreme. Their sons were educated in Egypt, and were generally appointed to succeed them at their death. The administration of this territory, which in- cluded also the island of Cyprus, and was, like Nubia, the source of immense wealth to Egypt, gave rise to a considerable correspondence between suzerain and vassals. On the part of the latter it was written on clay tablets in the Babylonian language and characters —at that time the official language and characters of Western Asia. From that correspondence (so-called Tell-Amarna tablets) we learn that under Amenhotep IV (1375-135S B. c.) the vigilance of the Egj-ptian coiu't had considerably relaxed; the local dynasties were constantly and vainly asking for Egyptian troops against the encroachments of the Hittites and the Khabiri. This led, towards the end of the dynasty, to a complete loss of the Asiatic territory conquered by Thotmes III.

The Eighteenth Dynasty was an era of great inter- national prosperity. With the single exception of Amenhotep IV, who allowed himself to be drawn into a scheme to reform the Egyptian religion, all its kings were wise and just rulers. They were also great builders, and devoted their vast resources in men — chiefly captives taken in war — in gold, and silver, de- rived from tribute, to the erection of magnificent tem- ples and temple-like mortuary chapels, all of which they richly endowed. The reform attempted by Amen- hotep IV consisted*in proclaiming Aton (an old form of Re, or Ra, the sun-god of Heliopolis) the sole god, and in enforcing his worship at the expense of others, particularly that of Anion for which the priesthood of Thebes claimed precedence over the others. He ordered the word god, as applied to the other dei- ties, to be chiselled out wherever it could be found on the temples and other monuments. He changed his own name to Ikhnnton, "Spirit of Aton", in honour of the new god, to whom he erected a temple at Thebes called Gem-Aton. Lastly, he changed his residence from Thebes to Akhetaton, "Horizon of Aton" (now