Amenemhat III

“ Amenemhat, the founder of the XIIth Dynasty, about 2000 B.C., was thus obliged to reconquer the country; but his expedition seems to have travelled up the Nile and not across the desert. A few reigns later a fortress was built at the modern Anâybeh, in the land of Arthet, some miles above the terminus of the highway from Elephantine; and the road must now have been used continuously as the express route from the city to the fortress. This stronghold is so much ruined and sand-covered that it has escaped observation until now, although its position has been ascertained from inscriptions. ”

“ Amenemhat, who has already virtually associated Usertesen with himself in the kingdom, determines in consequence of a plot against his life to insure his son's succession by announcing it in a formal manner. He has labored strenuously and successfully for his own glory and for the good of his people, but in return he is scarcely saved from ignominious dethronement or assassination through a conspiracy formed in his own household. ”

“ Power is transferred to Thebes, and Ammon becomes the embodiment of the monotheistic conception, the supreme deity.
The Theban ruling-house gradually extended its supremacy over the land. The kings of the twelfth dynasty have left their inscriptions everywhere, and of several of them gigantic portrait-statues remain. Amenemhat I. and his successors are prosperous sovereigns. They carry on a lively intercourse of trade with the small states of Syria, reaching possibly to Babylon. Under the twelfth dynasty, the valley of the upper Nile was conquered. ”

“ Amenemhat, having reigned as sole king for twenty years, was induced to raise his eldest son, Usurtasen, to the royal dignity, and associate him with himself in the government of the empire. Usurtasen was a prince of much promise, He "brought prosperity to the affairs of his father. He was, as a god, without fears; before him was never one like to him. Most skilful in affairs, beneficent in his mandates, both in his going out and in his coming in he made Egypt flourish." ”

“ Compare the story of Sanehat (above, p. 5237 seq.) for an indication of the place which Amenemhat retained for himself in the government of the kingdom during the joint rule. "He [Usertesen] curbs the nations while his father remains in his palace, and he [Usertesen] accomplisheth for him what is commanded him."
[245] Compare 2 Timothy ii. 15.
[246] "To exist" often means to have a solid position. ”

“ The Arabs broke the bodies up. With unhallowed hands they tore the holy Amenemhat and the frame of her who had, as it is written, been filled with the spirit of the Hathors—tore them limb from limb, searching for treasure amidst their bones—perhaps, as is their custom, selling the very bones for a few piastres to the last ignorant tourist who came their way, seeking what he might destroy. ”

“ The great obelisk of Usurtasen I., which still stands at Heliopolis, was not overthrown. The humbler tombs at Ghizeh, so precious to the antiquary, were for the most part untouched. Amenemhat's buildings in the Fayoum may have been damaged, but they were not demolished. Though Egyptian civilization received a rude shock from the invasion, it was not altogether swallowed up or destroyed ”

“ They patronized art, employing themselves in building temples rather than tombs, and adorned their temples not only with reliefs and statues, but also with the novel architectural embellishment of the obelisk, a delicate form, and one especially suited to the country.
The founder of the "twelfth dynasty," Amenemhat I., deserves a few words of description. He found Thebes in a state of anarchy; civil war raged on every side; all the traditions of the past were forgotten; noble fought against noble; the poor were oppressed; life and property were alike insecure ”

“ Then the guards cried that they were on Pharaoh's business, and still the people would not, asking what was their business. Whereon a eunuch among them who had made himself drunk in his fear, told them that they came to slay the child of Amenemhat, the High Priest, of whom it was prophesied that he should be Pharaoh and sweep the Greeks from Egypt. And then the people feared to stand longer in doubt, but brought boats, not knowing what might be meant by the man's words. ”

“ But there is not a man of valor at night; there is no fighting single-handed; there happens not a successful bout in ignorance. Behold thou me. [250]
8. [Usertesen's association the only safeguard. Amenemhat is not stern enough to rule Egypt longer, but he offers to assist with his counsel.] ”

“ They were hereditary governors of the district, or nome, and their power was very great. Under the firm controlling hand of the sovereigns of this great dynasty, the power and ambition of the prince-governors, which had once split up and half ruined Egypt, were turned into nobler channels, and [Pg 67] sought after more peaceful honours. The Maxims of Amenemhat I. seem to awaken a response and to find an echo in the memorials left by some of the powerful governors, who were now serving loyally under the crown. ”

“ Come, Harmachis; let me kiss thee! It is not for a woman to be hard on a man because he loved our sex too much. Why, that is but nature; and Nature knows her business, else she had made us otherwise. But here is an evil case. Knowest thou that this Macedonian Queen of thine hath seized the temple lands and revenues, and driven away the priests—all, save the holy Amenemhat, who lies here, and whom she left, I know not why; ay, and caused the worship of the Gods to cease within these walls. Well, he’s gone!—he’s gone! and indeed he is better with Osiris, for his life was a sore burden to him. ”

“ Asiatics were from time to time received within the barrier of Amenemhat I., some to sojourn and some to dwell. The eastern Delta was more or less Asiaticized; and a large portion of its inhabitants was inclined to welcome a further influx from Asia.
We have one account only of the circumstances of the great invasion by which Egypt fell under a foreign yoke. It purports to come from the native historian, Manetho ”

“ In the Delta alone could he come into contact with either the Mazyes or the Sakti, and a king of Thebes could not hold the Delta without being master also of the lower Nile valley from Coptos to Memphis. We must regard Egypt, then, under the "twelfth dynasty." as once more consolidated into a single state--a state ruled, however, not from Memphis, but from Thebes, a decidedly inferior position.
Amenemhat I. is the only Egyptian king who makes a boast of his hunting prowess. "I hunted the lion," he says, "and brought back the crocodile a prisoner." ”

“ On his return to Egypt at the close of his Mesopotamian campaign, he engaged in the peaceful work of adorning and beautifying his capital cities. At Thebes he greatly enlarged the temple of Ammon, begun by Amenemhat I., and continued under his son, the first Usurtasen, by adding to it the cloistered court in front of the central cell—a court two hundred and forty feet long by sixty-two broad, surrounded by a colonnade, of which the supports were Osirid pillars, or square piers with a statue of Osiris in front. ”

“ Egypt had often maintained a severe conflict on her southern frontier, where the boundary line was now marked by grim fortresses; but if trouble should ever overwhelm the land the storm would assuredly gather in the north-east. Fortresses had been erected there also, and [Pg 78] Amenemhat’s wall of defence was still standing, but there was no absolute line of demarcation. The north-east of Egypt was inhabited by many settlers, aliens, who were allied more or less closely in blood to restless and warlike peoples beyond the frontier. ”

“ Women in Egypt had been, it is true, from very early times held in high estimation, were their husbands' companions, not their playthings or their slaves, appeared freely in public, and enjoyed much liberty of action. One of the ancient mythical monarchs, of the time before Sneferu, is said to have passed a law permitting them to exercise the sovereign authority. Nitocris of the sixth dynasty of Manetho ruled, apparently, as sole queen; and Sabak-nefru-ra of the twelfth, the wife of Amenemhat IV., reigned for some years conjointly with her husband. ”

“ The wicked will wait on his judgments, the rebels on his [pg 095] power. The royal serpent on his brow will pacify the revolted. A wall shall be built, even that of the prince, so that the Asiatics may no more enter into Egypt.” In this Ameni we should probably see the Amenôphis of the Manethonian story.
Against the identification of Meneptah with the Pharaoh of the Exodus it has, however, been urged that he seems on the whole to have been a successful prince. ”

“ It is remarkable that a religious reformation at the end of the 18th dynasty in behalf of one god, spent its special wrath upon the name of Amon. The king whose title would under ordinary circumstances have been Amenhotep IV., set up the worship of a single god whose symbol was the sun-disk; he caused the names of other gods, particularly that of Amon, to be hammered out of inscriptions even when it only occurred in proper names, as in his own, which he changed into Chut en Aten, "Glory of the Sun-disk." ”

“ Phtah, Hâpi, Khnûmû, Râ,—all the gods, in fact,—were blended with each other, and formed but one deity—a unique existence, multiple in his names, and mighty according to the importance of the city in which he was worshipped. Hence Amon, lord of the capital and patron of the dynasty, having more partisans, enjoyed more respect, and, in a word, felt himself possessed of more claims to be the sole god of Egypt than his brethren, who could not claim so many worshippers. He did not at the outset arrogate to himself the same empire over the dead as he exercised over the living ”

“ Unfortunately the international tensions of the day were such that Egypt needed a warrior rather than a philosopher king. The idealism of Amenhotep IV was largely lost on his own generation, and entirely lost on the generation that followed him.
Nofretete was devoted both to her husband and to the religious reforms to which he dedicated his life. She bore him six daughters and appears to have been her husband’s constant companion and confidant. Nofretete was, understandably, a favored subject in Amarna art. ”

“ Gilukhîpa, however, bore Dushratta no ill-will, and the latter’s anxieties were allayed. The so-called expeditions of Amenôthes to the Syrian provinces must constantly have been merely visits of inspection, during which amusements, and especially the chase, occupied nearly as important a place as war and politics. Amenôthes III. took to heart that pre-eminently royal duty of ridding the country of wild beasts, and fulfilled it more conscientiously than any of his predecessors. ”

“ During the early years of his reign, Amenhotep IV clearly favored the god Aton, but he was tolerant of the various deities worshiped in Egypt. In this he continued the policy of his father, Amenhotep III, and his mother, Queen Tiy. The preference for the god Aton is evident in the name of the first child of Amenhotep IV, Merit-aton (“Beloved of Aton”) .
The priests of Amon in Thebes must have looked with apprehension upon the youthful Pharaoh whose devotion to the chief god of Egypt seemed to be compromised by religious innovation. ”

“ Far more credible is the tradition of the Hebrews that the army of the Pharaoh met with a heavy reverse in the attempt to check the exodus of the Hebrews, and their union with the hostile tribes of the desert. It is possible that, in consequence of this disaster, a king was set up in opposition to Menephta, and that Menephta retired before him to Ethiopia, from whence he afterwards recovered Egypt. In the excerpt of Eusebius we find, after the name Menephta, a king Amenemes, and on the monuments Amenemessu, whose shields, though chiselled out, can still be recognised. ”

“ Men shrank from them, so that they walked straight up to the throne, nor did even the guards strive to bar their way. What they said there I could not hear, but I believe that they demanded that their people should be allowed to go to worship their god in their own fashion, and that Amenmeses refused as Meneptah had done.
Then one of them cast down a rod and it turned to a snake which hissed at Pharaoh, whereon the Kherheb Ki and his company also cast down rods that turned to snakes, though I could only hear the hissing. ”

“ The other gods of Egypt were proscribed, and the name and head of Amon, the patron god of Thebes, to whom his ancestors had ascribed their power and victories, were erased from the monuments wherever they occurred. Even his own father's name was not spared, and the emissaries of the king, from one end of the country to the other, defaced that portion of it which contained the name of the god. His own name was next changed, and Amenophis IV. became Khu-n-Aten, "the splendour of the solar disk." ”

“ The two celebrated Colossi of Memnon (statues of himself) , many great buildings, the important part played by his favourite wife Teye, the well-filled harem, the cultivation of “wisdom” [pg 015] (which practically, no doubt, was tantamount to what we should call “preciosity”) ; last, but not least, the solemn adoration of his own divine image—all these facts combine to indicate the altered condition of things which came about under Amenophis III. He reigned thirty-six years, long enough to allow the movement introduced by him to run its course. ”

“ As Amenhotep cast out Amon, the god of his father, and transferred his reverence to Aton on whom he conferred a might and majesty hitherto unknown to the gods of Egypt, so Mohammed cast out the gods of his father, Al-lat, Al-Uzza and Manah, who were worshipped as angels under femalenames, and preached the worship of the Jevohah of the Hebrews, modified to fit the demands of his phantasy. Thus:
"They do not call besides Him on any thing but inanimate objects, and they do not call on any thing but a devil devoid of all good," (Koran, Chapter IV, v. 117) and again ”