Francis Llewellyn Griffith

“ So far as is known no Egyptian king penetrated a day’s journey beyond the Euphrates or into Asia Minor, or touched the continent of Europe. The kings of the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties were the greatest conquerors that Egypt ever produced, and their records are clear on this point. Senwosri III. raided south Palestine and Ethiopia, and at Semna beyond the second cataract set up, a stela of conquest that in its expressions recalls the stelae of Sesostris in Herodotus: Sesostris may, therefore, be the highly magnified portrait of this Pharaoh. ”

“ When we recollect that the Ethiopian Tearchus (Tirhaka) of the 7th century B.C., who was hopelessly worsted by the Assyrians and scarcely ventured outside the Nile valley, was credited by Megasthenes (4th century) and Strabo with having extended his conquests as far as India and the pillars of Hercules, it is not surprising if the dim figures of antiquity were magnified to a less degree. ”