Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/765

741 TUS EXODUS.] EGYPT 741 The name of the Aperiu, if certainly that of the Hebrews, would bo decisive, but it is not a proper Egyptian equivalent, and so exact are the transcriptions of Semitic geographical names into Egyptian, that upon them mainly depends the theory of the sounds of the Egyptian alphabet developed by M. de Rouge&quot; and adopted by Dr Brugsch. Here, again, the evidence is inconclusive. The arguments which would place the Exodus in any other period of Egyptian history are but slight. There is indeed the remarkable occurrence of a name similar to that of Jacob, or identical with it, in a record^ the conquests of Thothmes III. 1 This may only be a reminiscence of Jacob, as M. de Rouge&quot; suggests, but it would be more natural to take it to indicate that the Exodus was anterior to the time of Thothmes, and there are other names in the list which may possibly point to the same conclusion. 1 Yet the preponderance of evidence is at present greatly in favour of the occurrence of the Exodus towards the close of Dynasty XIX. It is not, however, necessary to accept the date of Prof. Lepsius, in our present state of un certainty as to the chronology of Dynasty XIX. It is also not a necessary consequence of accepting this historical synchronism, that we should take Manetho a narrative of the Exodus as more than his identification with it of an event of the same period. These may seem but unsatis factory results of the great erudition which has been bestowed on this question. We refrain from speaking more positively when a discovery may at any moment render speculation needless. If the Exodus took place towards the close of Dynasty XIX., when did the period of oppression and the govern ment of Joseph fall ? The reckoning by generations would place Joseph in the later part of Dynasty XVIII., and the oppression under Ramses II. downwards. It is, however, very generally acknowledged that this method of computa tion is not consistent with the growth of the Israelites from a family to a nation during the sojourn in Egypt. Scholars are therefore disposed to choose a reckoning by years. Here the Biblical data give either 430 years exactly for the sojourn and 400 for the oppression, or else 215 years for the sojourn. The longer periods are those generally pre ferred. If we reckon by them, the government of Joseph would have fallen under the last Shepherd king, and the oppression would have probably begun under Aahmes, to be greatly increased in intensity under Ramses II. Set-nekht, a chief probably of the line of Ramses II., overthrew the Syrian intruder and again restored the Egyptian monarchy. His short reign, which begins Dynasty XX., 2 was probably entirely occupied in reorganiz ing the administration of Egypt. Ramses III., whom his father had already made his colleague (Maspero, Hist. Anc., 262), succeeded to a united Egypt but a distracted Empire. Evidently in the time of anarchy every province and tributary state had fallen away. The new king was equal to the effort of repelling invasion at home and reconquering lost territory abroad. In his fifth year he defeated the Libyan tribes who had invaded the west of Lower Egypt. 1 In this list lakab-aar is read by M. de Rouge as representing Jacob- el, a form like Nathaniel for Nathan (Rev. Arch., n.s. iv., 370). 2 The chronology of Dynasties XX. and XXI. is extremely obscure. We know that Ramses III. reigned 32 years, and Ramses XL or XII. upwards of 32 years. The six successors of Ramses III. probably had very short reigns, as all but the second and sixth were certainly sons of that king, and the sixth probably. The other kings are represented by few monuments. Her-har, however, may have had a longer reign, the sculptures of the temple of Khons at Thebes giving this impression. There does not seem, however, to be any ground for a duration of more than a century until the Tanites of Dynasty XXI. rose into power. The latest Theban kings probably held a local and con- Jtantly diminishing authority for part of the time of the Tanites, of whom the records are extremely scanty and the chronology consequently obscure. Two centuries is a probable measure of the whole interval. Ill his eighth, he met another attack from the opposite quar ter. The Taanau(Danail) and the Takkaru (Teucrians), who now first appear, forming with the Tuirsha (Tyrseni), Wa- shasha (Oscans 1 ?), Shakalasha (Sikels), Leka (Lycians), and Pelesta (Philistines), a great confederation, which attacked the east of Egypt by sea and land. Their army conquered and carried with it the Kheta and neighbouring tribes. Their ileet, manned by the Takkaru and Shardana, reached Egypt at the same time, The Egyptian army and fleet encountered and defeated them. This campaign, and parti cularly the sea-fight, form the subjects of interesting reliefs in the great sepulchral temple built by Ramses III. in western Thebes. In his eleventh year a second invasion- of the west of Egypt, by the Libyans, aided by the Tuirsha and the Leka, was equally unsuccessful. The eastern provinces and tributary states were recovered, and an expedition was sent to the Somalee country on the eastern coast of Africa or Arabia Felix. This last great conqueror finally preserved Egypt from the maritime nations. The course of their migrations seems to have been changed. All that remained of their invasions were the Philistine settle ment in Palestine and one of the Mashuasha, a Libyan tribe, in the Delta, from whose race the Egyptians drew mercenaries (Maspero, Hist. Anc., 266). The importance of these forces is evident in the Biblical notices of Egypt of the time of the Hebrew kings. The historical value of the Egyptian notices of the primi tive populations of the Mediterranean is being more and more perceived. It is at first perplexing that we find the nations afterwards settled in well-known seats either far to the east or in constant movement. Yet the key thus afforded to the earliest Greek colonization is most valuable, and it is significant of the historical character of the documents that new names appear, as we should expect, in such a manner as to explain the confusion of the Greek terms, which speak of Achreans and Danai, Dardans and Teucri, at the same time indifferently, whereas the Egyptian documents show that they are not interchangeable. Ramses III., besides constructing the magnificent temple at Medeenet Haboo, enriched the temples of Egypt with splendid gifts, during a prosperous reign of thirty-two years. The later kings of the dynasty do not appear to have achieved any thing remarkable. They maintained the Empire, but their authority at home waned, while that of the high-priests of Amen grew until, towards the close of the dynasty, Her- har, one of these high-priests, gained the royal power. Probably the close of the dynasty was occupied by a struggle between the last Ramesside kings and the high- priests, as well as by the additional distraction caused by the rise of another line, Dynasty XXL, of Tanite kings. Probably the Tanites ultimately gained the sole authority. The high-priests of Amen-ra, about this time, certainly not later than the rise of Dynasty XXII. , retreated to Ethiopia, where they founded a kingdom, of which the capital was Napata. The Pharaoh whose daughter Solomon married was, if Manetho s numbers are correct, Psusennes II., Har- Psiunkha, last king of Dynasty XXI. He seems to have endeavoured to restore the military power of Egypt, for he made an expedition into Canaan and captured the town of Gezer, which he gave to his daughter, Solomon s queen. During the later period of the Empire, partly through marriages of the Pharaohs, partly in consequence of the large employment of mercenaries, chiefly Libyans, great settlements of foreigners, Asiatic as well as African, were established in Egypt. So far from the Shemites being then disliked, a multitude of Semitic words were introduced into Egyptian, and it even became the fashion to give a Semitic form to native words (Maspero, Hist. Anc., 337, 338). A Shemite family, settled at Bubastis, or in the Bubastite