Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/813

* EGYPT. 705 conquered by a foreign nation, whose rulers Manetho calls Hyksiis, i.e. sheplierd (or foreign?) kings. We know nothing about the origin of these foreigners (they are usually taken for C'anaanites or Turanians, though both theories lack proof) e.xccpt that they had first conquered Syria. In Egypt they soon became Kg>-ptianizeil. They kept only the Uelta under Ihoir direct administration, leaving L pper Kgjpt to tributary native princes. The viceroys of 'I'bebes ( Dynasty Seventeen ) finally threw off the yoke of the foreign sover- eign Apoph (is). After a long struggle, during wliicii the Thebans SeknenrO 111. and his suc- cessor Kames died, Amasis I. (Aahnies or Ahmose) put an end to the rule of the Ilyksos by conquering their capital and chief fortress Avaris (or Bat-iiarcl) on the northeastern frontier (c. 1600). Pursuing thein into Palestine, .masis, the first ruler of Dynasty Eighteen, inaugurated the period of comiuests in Asia. His unlimited power (the dominion of the many nomarchs had been wiped out during the long Ilyksos war) and his army, disciplined and trained in the war of independence, enaliled him to conquer Palestine and Phoenicia. His son Amenophis (Amenhotep) I., dying after a brief reign, became the patron saint of the Thcban necropolis, Thutmosis (Thothmes or Dhutmose) I. penetrated into Xubia beyond the third cataract, and into Syria as far as the Euphrates. His son, Thutmosis II,, had to share his power with his energetic sister and wife Hatshepsut (Hatasu), who also kept his minor successor Thutmosis III, (her nephew?) under her control for twenty-two years. In one of the finest buildings of Egypt, her temple at Deir el-bahri, is depicted as the most remarkable event of her reign the equipment of a whole fleet to sail to the Abyssinian and Somali coast, called Punt {Fhtit in" the Bible), in order to bring back gold, rare animals, and, above all, incense, to- gether with some living incense-trees to be planted at Thebes. Formerly only single ships had been sent to Punt. After Thutmosis III. had come to power by Hatshepusut's death (c. 1500), he showed himself the greatest conqueror among the Pharaohs. In at least sixteen campaigns, he conquered Pales- tine, Phoenicia, and Syria as far as the Lower Orontcs, and penetrated victoriously as far as northern Mesopotamia (ilitanni), storming Karkemish on the Euphrates, and hunting ele- phants in that region. With his rich booty he embellished the temples of Egypt in a manner uneqvialed by any of his predecessors, though they Lad all been great builders. The gigantic Temple of Ammon at Kamak is chiefly his work. His son Amenophis (Amenhotep) II. (c. 1480) main- tained the Eg}-ptian possessions in Asia, and so did Thutmosis IV., but Amenophis II. gradually lost the northern regions. He lived on good terms with Mitanni. and married the sister of its King Dushra'ta. For an account of the cuneiform dis- patches received from Asia during the reign of this King and that of his son. which were found near Tell el-.marna, see Am.rx. I.etter.s. His son. by the beautiful and influential Queen Teye. .Amenophis IV. (about 1410), caused a great revolution by trj-ing to replace the old re- ligion with a solar cult, approaching monotheism. He perseoited the worship of the supreme god Ammon with special vehemence, carrying his ani- mosity so far as to obliterate the name of the EGYPT. god from earlier monuments, and to change his own name, which contained that of Ammon, to "The Splendor of the Sun" (Akhunaten). He removed his residence from Amnion's city, Thebes, and built a new capital at Tell elAmarna in -Middle Kgypt. After his death (about 13115 ), the new religion, which had previously met with great opposition, was destroyed together with its temples under the following ephemeral kings: Snienkh-ka-rO, TutankhamOn, and Ay. King llaremheb (about 1380) completed the restora- tion of the old creed. With the short-lived Rameses I., Dynasty Nine- teen (about 1350) begins. Sethos (Sety, Seti, or vSetoy) I„ his successor, a great warrior, whose tomb in BibSn el-Moluk is the finest of all the royal tombs there, attempted to win back the parts of Jliddle Syria which had been lost, and was there entangled in a war with the Khela or Hittites, whose kingdom seems to have had its original centre in Cappadoeia. His son Rameses II., or Sesostris (c. 1330 B.C.), continued this war for twenty years with varying success. Finally at the peace concluded with the Hittites, and sealed by a marriage between Rameses and the daughter of their King, Syria was divided, and Egypt re- tained Palestine and the southern half of Phoe- nicia, The numerous representations of a few modest victories (chiefly that near Kadesh on the Orontes, later Laodieea and Libanum) made the Greeks believe that Rameses 11. had been the conqueror of half the world. However, his activity as a builder during his reign of sixty-seven years was beyond comparison, though he usurped man}' monuments, replacing earlier names by his own. Perhaps two-thirds of all the monuments bear his cartouche. As he colonized Goshen ( the modern Wadi Tumilat) and built there the cities of Pithom and Rameses, he has been pointed out as the Pharaoh who oppressed the Israelites, and his son has been deemed the Pharaoh of the Exodus. But an inscription, found in ISOt), shows that, in the fifth year of his son Mernejihtah, Israel was already settled in Palestine, and that an earlier date must be sought for the Exodus, On the other hand, it is clear from the Amarna Letters (q.v. ). written about B,c, 1400, that at that time Israel had not yet entered the Promised Land. The date of the Exodus must, therefore, be placed in the interval between these two extreme limits, or, in round numbers, between B.c, 1400 and 1250. The theory is sometimes advanced that the ancestors of Israel settled in Egypt under the Hyksos kings, but there is no evidence in support of this view. In fact, with the single exception of Mernephtah's inscription, there is no mention of Israel in the Egyptian records, and nothing is known in re- gard to the date of the chosen people's settlement in Egj-pt or the length of their sojourn there. All theories upon this subject are based upon little more than pure conjecture. Under Mer- nephtah, the Libyans devastated the Western Delta, and jiiralcs from Asia Minor and Europe ravaged its shores_ — the Akav^vash (.-Veha^ans ?), Tursh (Tyrsenians?), Shardin (Sardinians) and Lflk(Lycians), These enemies joined their forces, and had almost reached Memphis when they were met by the Egyptian army and utterly annihi- lated. Dynasty Nineteen ends ingloriously with three kings (of whom one is said to have been a Syrian usurper) and a queen.