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A few Remarks on the Monuments.

§ 551. It will have been remarked that in these disquisitions I have appealed but sparingly to the Egyptian monuments and the labours of hieroglyphical scholars. My acquaintance with these researches is so very limited and uncritical, that I cannot venture to rest any of my positions upon this kind of information. Neither may I take upon me to offer any opinion as to the value of the results-often, it seems, very conflicting of the labours of Champollion and Rosellini, Bankes and Salt, Wilkinson and Lepsius. I shall therefore content myself with a few extracts which have a direct bearing upon the matter of the preceding enquiry.

1. Epoch of Sesostris, or Rameses the Great.

$552. "On the ceiling of the Memnonium at Thebes erected by Rameses the Great is an astronomical subject, where the heliacal rising of Sothis (= Sirius) is found to coincide with the beginning of Thoth, which could happen only in the year 1322 B. c." Wilkinson, Antiq. of Egypt, i. 137. This agrees very well with the time of Maris, the predecessor of Sesostris, reported by Herodotus ii. 13, viz. "not quite 900 years before Herodotus's visit to Egypt." Suppose the date of the visit to be about 440 B.C., which cannot be far from the truth, then 900 years lead to 1340

is Proteus: Remphis: Seven kings, one of whom is Nileus." Now the date assigned (by Dicæarchus ap. Schol. in Apoll. Rh. iv. 272) to Nileus is 1212 B. C. Seven generations, or about 200 years, ascend to 1412 B. C., as the date of Rhemphis, who is therefore the Rameses of the other lists, i. e. in truth Sesostris, so that the date agrees with that of the Old Chronicle and Eratosthenes. Five or six generations more, about 150 years, lead to 1560 as the date of Mendes, whose name connects him with the Mendesian Ram deified along with Apis in the reign of Asseth the last Shepherd king, see § 547, and infra § 563 ff. Hence it seems likely that the story of Actisanes the Ethiopian driving out Amasis relates in a confused way to the 'expulsion of the Shepherds' by the king who returned from Ethiopia. Now observe what is told of this Actisanes;-that he gathered together all the robbers (λησταί) and drove them to the desert on the confines

of Egypt and Syria: where, being left to themselves in a barren land and destitute of all provisions, they nevertheless contrived to find a subsistence. For they made nets of rushes, which they stretched along the shore, many stadia in length, and so caught quails, which fly in large flocks from the sea: of these they took a multitude sufficient for their subsistence.

The portion of the list, next after Nileus, begins with the triplet of the Pyramid-builders, and therefore is in fact not continuous with the former portion, but parallel with it, which Diodorus did not understand. Their names are Chembres, Chephren, and Mycerinus or Cherinus. Then Tnephachthus, then Bocchoris the Wise, his son. Now in the story of Lysimachus § 524, it is Bocchoris who expels the lepers, and here we find him third from Mycerinus (the king of the Exode), just as in Manetho the king who expels the Shepherds is third from the Pharaoh of the Exode.

B.C. Hence it seems likely that in the view of Herodotus's informants the epoch of the Sothiac cycle coincided with that of Sesostris, or at all events lay in his reign. The same may be inferred from the well-known passage of Tacitus Ann. vi. 28, about the Phoenix: de numero annorum varia traduntur; maxime vulgatum quingentorum spatium; sunt qui asseverent mille quadrigentos sexaginta unum (1461) interjici, prioresque alites Sesostride primum, post Amaside dominantibus, dein Ptolemæo qui ex Macedonibus tertius regnavit. The reckoning is confused; but it implies plainly enough that the Sothiac cycle was held to begin in the reign of Sesostris. And I should suppose that prior to the formation of the Old Chronicle, i.e. before the Ptolemies, the Canon of Kings placed the epoch of the 18th dynasty at a year equivalent to B. c. 1667, and the epoch of the 19th and of Sesostris at 1322 B. C., 345 years later. From this more ancient form of the Canon, S. Clement of Alexandria would derive his statements, where, as we have seen, he places the Exode and epoch of the 18th dynasty 345 years before the lapse of the Sothiac cycle (which 345 years it is hardly possible not to identify with the 348 years of the 18th dynasty assigned by the Old Chron.), and withal by a reckoning independent of this, (§ 515) makes the epoch of the 18th dynasty = 1667 B. c. The Canon being in this state, the framers of the Old Chronicle began to adjust it to a pre-conceived period of 10 x 216 years, beginning at Menes, ending at Alexander, and exactly bisected at Sesostris. The consequence, which either was not perceived or was disregarded, was, that the epoch of Sesostris became detached from that of the cycle, and was thrown upwards 82 years to 1404 B. C., and by consequence the epoch of the 18th dynasty was displaced to the same extent. Then came Manetho, or whoever else was the framer of the scheme which we find in Africanus, and expanded the 10x 216 years of the Old Chronicle into 25 x 216, so distributed that 20 x 216 reach from Menes to Sethos = Sesostris 1404 B. c. and 5× 216 from thence to Alexander. Yet this scheme retains the ancient epoch of the 18th dynasty, and consequently reduces its length 82 years, from 345 to 263. But then, whereas the Old Chronicle reckons 6 x 216 from the demigods to Sesostris 1404, Manetho makes the same period reach from Salatis to the close of the cycle 1322 B. C. Hence it seems to follow that he contemplated the year 1322 B. c. as the epoch of Sesostris, though he was not able to make it square with the partition of his scheme as a whole.

2. The Genealogical Table of Abydos.

§ 553. Of all the ancient monuments, that which seems likely to cast most light on the ancient history or tradition of the regal succession, is the Table which bears this name. "This interesting monument was discovered in 1818 by Mr. Bankes....It is composed of three rows of royal names, each row containing 26, and the two upper rows arranged in the immediate order of succession, to perform a propitiatory act in favour of Ramses III., whose name and prænomen repeated occupy the whole of

the last row....With the 41st scroll commences the series of kings belonging to the 18th dynasty....This monument has suffered severe injury from time. In the first or uppermost compartment 12 scrolls have been entirely and 2 partially effaced in the second, 8 have been totally obliterated: and in the third, 3 have been destroyed, 4 rendered illegible, and one partially injured." Enc. Brit. Vol. xi. p. 354. In the third row, it seems, the name and prænomen of Amun-mai-Ramses are repeated each thirteen times. Whether the Table has yet been fairly deciphered I am unable to say1; the following however is Mr. Wilkinson's list which seems to be derived from this monument:

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3. The Servitude of the Israelites in Egypt.

§ 554. In Rosellini's great work, 1. ii. p. 254-270, and the Atlas, Monumenti Civili, No. 49, is a description and representation of a sepulchral painting in Thebes, which he supposes to relate to the labours of the Israelites in the making of bricks. Not having access to these volumes, I must content myself with giving the substance of Rosellini's remarks as I find it reported by Hengstenberg, Moses und Aegypten, p. 79. "Of the workmen some are employed in transporting the clay in vessels, others working it with tools, others drawing the bricks out of the moulds and spreading them in rows, while others again are carrying the burnt or dried bricks on a piece of wood attached to their shoulders. The difference of these persons from the Egyptians is manifest at a glance; complexion, physiognomy, beard, are Hebrew traits not to be mistaken....Among the Hebrews are four Egyptians well distinguished from them by bearing, figure and complexion. Two of them carry the stick in their hands, the one sitting, the

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1 In a recent work on Egyptian Antiquities, published by the Religious Tract Society," it is affirmed that the Table of Abydos when complete exhibited the names of seventy-seven predecessors of Sesostris. In the same work is mentioned a similar series extant in the palace of Karnak, in which "Thothmosis III. or Maris, does homage to the

whole line of his predecessors arrayed in three rows. The number is fifty-eight (down to this king, who is the fifth of 18th dynasty, which makes Sesostris sixty-sixth)." Hence this writer supposes that the Series of Abydos began with the three Gods and eight Demigods; which eleven added to the sixty-five would make Sesostris seventy-seventh.

other standing, in act to strike two other Egyptians who are employed in the same drudgery with the Israelites, the one having a vessel full of clay on his shoulders, while the other is returning from transporting the bricks, and bringing the empty vessel for a fresh load. The sepulchre belongs to a high official of the king, by name Roschscere and is of the age of Thutmes IV. fifth king of the 18th dynasty." Wilkinson, 11. 98, does not admit that the Israelites are the persons here represented, while he allows that this monument affords a striking illustration of the description given in Exodus. If the name has been truly deciphered, and if this Thutmes IV. be really the fifth king of the dynasty, the coincidence is truly striking: for the fifth king, called Miphres in Manetho, began to reign at the very year of the Exode 1586 B. C.

4. The Pyramid-Builders.

§ 555. I learn from Hengstenberg, Moses u. Aegypten, p. 252, that Rosellini considers himself to have identified the name Suphis = Cheops in a sepulchral inscription near the pyramids, which he renders, SUTEN OVEB SCIUFO "il re puro, o propheta, Sciufo," p. 126. ff. comp. ii. 1. p. 36. iii. 1. p. 2. ff. In the sepulchres of Djizeh, he thinks he has found the name SENSCIUF, the Sensaophis or Saophis II. of Eratosthenes, which, according to Rosellini, means "brother of Suphis." The same name (Suphis), written Kourou, is said to have been since found on the stones of the great Pyramid at Memphis, comp. Lepsius, Eclaircissemens sur le Cercueil du roi Mycerinus, traduits de l'Anglais par Lenormant, Paris 1839, p. 44. ff. It is also thought that the name MENKARE, the Mycerinus of Herodot, Mencheres of Manetho, Moscheres of Eratosthenes, appears on the sarcophagus in the third Pyramid of Memphis, Lenormant, u. s. p. 11. ff. I regret that my limited opportunities of access to books will not allow me to offer a critical opinion on the value of these statements. The name KoUFOU may be compared with Chous (Manetho ii. 1.) O-chthov-is (ix).

On the Connexion of the Egyptian Mythus of Osiris and Typhon with the History of Joseph and the Exode.

$556. Many significant circumstances lead me to think that the calamities which came on Egypt through the Israelites, are the true original subject of commemoration in one, and that the most prominent portion of Egyptian religious mythology. It is inconceivable that those calamities should have left no impress at all on the national mythology, and on the following grounds I think that impress may be traced here.

In the first place, we have the religious mythus of Typhon, in which, by various significant hints, Typhon is set forth as somehow connected

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with the Jews, by name. In the next place, we have sundry historical mythi relating to the Israelites, which are curiously mixed up with matters relating to Typhon, Isis, Osiris, and Horus.

§ 557. Take the mythus of Typhon as it is related by Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride. "Osiris, born king of the Earth, civilized the people with music and song. Typhon conspired against him in his absence, aided by Aso an Ethiopian queen and seventy-two chosen men: he prepared a chest into which he induced Osiris to enter, closed it with lead, and sent it down to the sea by the Tanite mouth of the Nile. Hence this mouth of the Nile is so detested by the Egyptians, that they abominate its very name. This happened on the 17th of Athyr when the Sun passes through Scorpio, in the 28th year of Osiris, some say of his life, some of his reign. Isis after long wandering found the chest. While she stood gazing upon the remains of her husband, a boy approached from behind to spy upon the object of her contemplation; she turned round, and the boy perished at her look. His name, say some, was Palæstinus, or Pelusius, whence Pelusium. She hid the chest, but Typhon hunting a sow at the full of the moon, discovered it, dismembered the body into fourteen parts, and scattered them asunder of these Isis recovered thirteen...After a while, Orus, son of Isis and Osiris, made war upon Typhon and overcame him: Isis, however, set him at liberty. Then he fled upon an ass seven days journey to Palestine, and there begat sons, Judæus and Hierosolymus."

The latter part of the story Warburton pronounces to be "a ridiculous fable told of Typhon in hatred and contempt of the Jews," Div. Leg. ii. 190. That remains to be proved, and hard it will be to prove that the ridiculous fable was of modern growth. What Egyptian was likely to invent it at a time when it was a main object of national malice to make it appear that the Jews were originally a race of native lepers, cast out of the land many centuries later than the time assigned to Typhon? For that the expulsion of the Jews was at one time assigned to the æra of Typhon, Osiris and Isis, may be gathered from the remarkable statement of Tacitus above quoted, Quidam REGNANTE ISIDE exundantem per Egyptum multitudinem ducibus HIEROSOLYMO ET JUDA proximas in terras exoneratam. Hist. v. 21.

§ 558. Come now to the historical mythus concerning the Shepherds. Here, in the first place, the city of the Shepherds, Avapıs, is said in connexion with a story about the Gods to be Typhonian. Look at the names of the Shepherd kings. As-seth, the name of him who stands last at the very close of the 259 years, reminds one of ΣHO, the principal name of Typhon (Plutarch, u. s. § 41): Beon, of Bebon or Bebæon, another name

To the Greeks this fable came under the form of the mythus concerning Typhoëus or Typhon and the Wars of the Gods. Even here, the locality assigned to the vanquished Typhon is in strict

keeping with the Egyptian mythi both of Typhon and of the Hyksos: it is in Aram, i. e. Syria, that Typhon's body lies: είν Ἀριμοῖς ὅθι φασὶ Τυφώτος ἔμμεναι εύνας.

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