The Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotos E-Book

A. H. Sayce

• Herausgeber: A. H. Sayce
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

A few words of preface are needful to justify the addition of another contribution to the over-abundant mass of literature of which Egypt is the subject. It is intended to supplement the books already in the hands of tourists and students, and to put before them just that information which either is not readily accessible or else forms part of larger and cumbrous works. The travels of Herodotos in Egypt are followed for the first time in the light of recent discoveries, and the history of the intercourse between the Egyptians and the Jews is brought down to the age of the Roman Empire. As the ordinary histories of Egypt used by travellers end with the extinction of the native Pharaohs, I have further given a sketch of the Ptolemaic period. I have moreover specially noted the results of the recent excavations and discoveries made by the Egypt Exploration Fund and by Professor Flinders Petrie, at all events where they bear upon the subject-matter of the book. Those who have not the publications of the Fund or of Professor Petrie, or who do not care to carry them into Egypt, will, I believe, be glad to have the essence of them thus extracted in a convenient shape. Lastly, in the Appendices I have put together information which the visitor to the Nile often wishes to obtain, but which he can find in none of his guide-books.

Leseprobe

A. H. Sayce

The Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotos

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Table of contents

Preface

Chapter I. The Patriarchal Age.

Chapter II. The Age Of Moses.

Chapter III. The Exodus And The Hebrew Settlement In Canaan.

Chapter IV. The Age Of The Israelitish Monarchies.

Chapter V. The Age Of The Ptolemies.

Chapter VI. Herodotos In Egypt.

Chapter VII. In The Steps Of Herodotos.

Chapter VIII. Memphis And The Fayyûm.

Appendices.

Footnotes

Preface

A few words of preface are needful to justify the addition of another contribution to the over-abundant mass of literature of which Egypt is the subject. It is intended to supplement the books already in the hands of tourists and students, and to put before them just that information which either is not readily accessible or else forms part of larger and cumbrous works. The travels of Herodotos in Egypt are followed for the first time in the light of recent discoveries, and the history of the intercourse between the Egyptians and the Jews is brought down to the age of the Roman Empire. As the ordinary histories of Egypt used by travellers end with the extinction of the native Pharaohs, I have further given a sketch of the Ptolemaic period. I have moreover specially noted the results of the recent excavations and discoveries made by the Egypt Exploration Fund and by Professor Flinders Petrie, at all events where they bear upon the subject-matter of the book. Those who have not the publications of the Fund or of Professor Petrie, or who do not care to carry them into Egypt, will, I believe, be glad to have the essence of them thus extracted in a convenient shape. Lastly, in the Appendices I have put together information which the visitor to the Nile often wishes to obtain, but which he can find in none of his guide-books. The Appendix on the nomes embodies the results of the latest researches, and the list will therefore be found to differ here and there from the lists which have been published elsewhere. Those who desire the assistance of maps should procure the very handy and complete Atlas of Ancient Egypt, published by the Egypt Exploration Fund (price 3s. 6d.). It makes the addition of maps to this or any future work on Ancient Egypt superfluous.Discoveries follow so thickly one upon the other in these days of active exploration that it is impossible for an author to keep pace with them. Since my manuscript was ready for the press Dr. Naville, on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund, has practically cleared the magnificent temple of Queen Hatshepsu at Dêr el-Bâhari, and has discovered beneath it the unfinished sepulchre in which the queen fondly hoped that her body would be laid; Professor Petrie has excavated in the desert behind Zawêdeh and opposite Qoft the tombs of barbarous tribes, probably of Libyan origin, who settled in the valley of the Nile between the fall of the sixth and the rise of the eleventh dynasty; Mr. de Morgan has disinterred more jewellery of exquisite workmanship from the tombs of the princesses of the twelfth dynasty at Dahshûr; and Dr. Botti has discovered the site of the Serapeum at Alexandria, thus obtaining for the first time a point of importance for determining the topography of the ancient city.The people whose remains have been found by Professor Petrie buried their dead in open situated in the central court. But his most interesting discovery is that of long subterranean passages, once faced with masonry, and furnished with niches for lamps, where the mysteries of Serapis were celebrated. At the entrance of one of them pious visitors to the shrine have scratched their vows on the wall of rock. Those who are interested in the discovery should consult Dr. Botti's memoir on L'Acropole d'Alexandrie et le Sérapeum, presented to the Archæological Society of Alexandria, 17th August 1895.Two or three other recent discoveries may also find mention here. A Babylonian seal-cylinder now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art at New York has at last given me a clue to the native home of the Hyksos leaders. This was in the mountains of Elam, on the eastern frontier of Chaldæa. It was from these mountains that the Kassi descended upon Babylonia and founded a dynasty there which lasted for nearly 600 years, and the same movement which brought them into Babylonia may have sent other bands of them across Western Asia into Egypt. At all events, the inscription upon the seal shows that it belonged to a certain Uzi-Sutakh, “the son of the Kassite,” and “the servant of Burna-buryas,” who was the Kassite king of Babylonia in the age of the Tel el-Amarna correspondence. As the name of Sutakh is preceded by the determinative of divinity, it is clear that we have in it the name of the Hyksos deity Sutekh.In a hieroglyphic stela lately discovered at Saqqârah, and now in the Gizeh Museum, we read of an earlier parallel to the Tyrian Camp at Memphis seen by Herodotos. We learn from the stela that, in the time of King Ai, in the closing days of the eighteenth dynasty, there was already a similar “Camp” or quarter at Memphis which was assigned to the Hittites. The inscription is further interesting as showing that the authority of Ai was acknowledged at Memphis, the capital of Northern Egypt, as well as in the Thebaid.Lastly, Professor Hommel seems to have found the name of the Zakkur or Zakkal, the kinsfolk and associates of the Philistines, in a broken cuneiform text which relates to one of the Kassite kings of Babylonia not long before the epoch of Khu-n-Aten. Here mention is made not only of the city of Arka in Phœnicia, but also of the city of Zaqqalû. In Zaqqalû we must recognise the Zakkur of Egyptian history. I may add that Khar or Khal, the name given by the Egyptians to the southern portion of Palestine, is identified by Professor Maspero with the Horites of the Old Testament.By way of conclusion, I have only to say that those who wish to read a detailed account of the manner in which the great colossus of Ramses ii. at Memphis was raised and its companion statue disinterred must refer to the Paper published by Major Arthur H. Bagnold himself in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology for June 1888.

Chapter I. The Patriarchal Age.

“Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there.” When he entered the country the civilisation and monarchy of Egypt were already very old. The pyramids had been built hundreds of years before, and the origin of the Sphinx was already a mystery. Even the great obelisk of Heliopolis, which is still the object of an afternoon drive to the tourist at Cairo, had long been standing in front of the temple of the Sun-god.The monuments of Babylonia enable us to fix the age to which Abraham belongs. Arioch of Ellasar has left memorials of himself on the bricks of Chaldæa, and we now know when he and his Elamite allies were driven out of Babylonia and the Babylonian states were united into a single monarchy. This was 2350 b.c.The united monarchy of Egypt went back to a far earlier date. Menes, its founder, had been king of This (or Girgeh) in Upper Egypt, and starting from his ancestral dominions had succeeded in bringing all Egypt under his rule. But the memory of an earlier time, when the valley of the Nile was divided into two separate sovereignties, survived to the latest age of the monarchy. Up to the last the Pharaohs of Egypt called themselves “kings of the two lands,” and wore on their heads the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. The crown of Upper Egypt was a tiara of white linen, that of Lower Egypt a throne-like head-dress of red. The double crown was a symbol of the imperial power.To Menes is ascribed the building of Memphis, the capital of the united kingdom. He is said to have raised the great dyke which Linant de Bellefonds identifies with that of Kosheish near Kafr el-Ayyât, and thereby to have diverted the Nile from its ancient channel under the Libyan plain. On the ground that he thus added to the western bank of the river his new capital was erected.Memphis is the Greek form of the old Egyptian Men-nefer or “Good Place.” The final r was dropped in Egyptian pronunciation at an early date, and thus arose the Hebrew forms of the name, Moph and Noph, which we find in the Old Testament,1 while “Memphis” itself—Mimpi in the cuneiform inscriptions of Assyria—has the same origin. Another name by which it went in old Egyptian times was Anbu-hez, “the white wall,” from the great wall of brick, covered with white stucco, which surrounded it, and of which traces still remain on the northern side of the old site. Here a fragment of the ancient fortification still rises above the mounds of the city; the wall is many feet thick, and the sun-dried bricks of which it is formed are bonded together with the stems of palms. “ “