Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt

“ It was the real cause of the empire. A national war of independence formed the military qualities that, when the country was free, could no longer resist the desire to carry the national arms into the enemy's land. The Egypt of the empire is no longer the Egypt of the old Memphite and Theban kings: extension of territory is desired, not only for purposes of commerce, but also for the gratification of ambition. A material aid to these designs was afforded by the introduction of the horse and the war-chariot. Both are unknown in Egypt before the eighteenth dynasty ”

“ Memphis and Zoan had to make way for Thebes, and it is probable that the monarchs of the eighteenth dynasty, under whom Egypt recovered its independence, had Nubian blood in their veins. A new life was breathed into the ancient kingdom of Menes, and for the first time in its history Egypt became a great military power. The war was transferred from the Delta to Asia itself; [pg 051] Canaan and Syria were conquered, and an Egyptian empire established, which extended as far as the Euphrates. With this empire in Asia, however, came Asiatic influences, ideas, and beliefs. ”

“ The broad outline of the history of Egypt is simpler than the history of Mesopotamia. It has long been the custom to divide the rulers of Egypt into a succession of Dynasties, and in speaking of the periods of Egyptian history it is usual to speak of the first, fourth, fourteenth, and so on, Dynasty. The Egyptians were ultimately conquered by the Persians after their establishment in Babylon, and when finally Egypt fell to Alexander the Great in 332 B.C., it was Dynasty XXXI that came to an end. ”

“ They constructed magnificent tombs for their eternal rest, and the land blossomed culturally under their dominion.
These conditions prevailed until the coming of the Hyksos dynasty. These conquering kings were of Semitic origin and they seem to have come from the region of Ur. After this conquest, Egypt suddenly became an unlimited monarchy. The great lords became landless, stripped of their power and robbed of all authority. The people literally passed into the possession of the crown, and Egypt became a nation of slaves who owed their very existence to the royal head of the government. ”

“ During the Thirteenth dynasty art and everything else in Egypt were fairly prosperous, but wealth exercised an injurious effect on artistic taste. During this dynasty we hear nothing of the inhabitants of the Sinaitic Peninsula to the east, or of the Libyans to the west; it was in the south, in Ethiopia, that the Pharaohs expended all their superfluous energy. The middle basin of the Nile as far as Gebel-Barkal was soon incorporated with Egypt, and the population became quickly assimilated. ”

“ Antiquity of the Egyptian People.—An Egyptian priest said to Herodotus, "You Greeks are only children." The Egyptians considered themselves the oldest people of the world. Down to the Persian conquest (520 [9] B.C.) there were twenty-six dynasties of kings. The first ran back 4,000 years, [10] and during these forty centuries Egypt had been an empire. The capital down to the tenth dynasty (the period of the Old Empire) was at Memphis in Lower Egypt, later, in the New Empire, at Thebes in Upper Egypt. ”

“ The old Memphite kings prided themselves on these armed pursuits as though they were real victories, and had them recorded in triumphal bas-reliefs; but under the XIIth dynasty they were treated as unimportant frontier incidents, almost beneath the notice of the Pharaoh, and the glory of them—such as it was—he left to his captains then in command of those districts.
Egypt had always kept up extensive commercial relations with certain northern countries lying beyond the Mediterranean. ”

“ Some of the dynasties of ancient Egypt lasted two hundred years and more, while others were much less, the shortest dynasty being seventy days. During the fourth dynasty, which lasted two hundred years, the Pyramids of Gizeh were built (about 2400 b.c.) . In the twelfth dynasty many monuments and temples were erected, and many of the famous tombs were made; Abraham, and afterward Joseph, came to Egypt, and several important events of Egyptian history belong to this dynasty. ”

“ But the kings of the XIth dynasty were careful not to wander too far from the valley of the Nile. Egypt presented a sufficiently wide field for their activity, and they exerted themselves to the utmost to remedy the evils from which the country had suffered for hundreds of years. They repaired the forts, restored or enlarged the temples, and evidences of their building are found at Koptos, Gebelên, El-Kab, and Abydos. Thebes itself has been too often overthrown since that time for any traces of the work of the XIth dynasty kings in the temple of Amon to be distinguishable ”

“ It had become, after the conquests of Usirtasen III., the very centre of the Egyptian world—a centre from which the power of the Pharaoh could equally well extend in a northerly direction towards the Sinaitic Peninsula and Libya, or towards the Red Sea and the “humiliated Kûsh” in the south. The influence of its lords increased accordingly: under Amenemhâît III. and Amenemhâît IV. they were perhaps the most powerful of the great vassals, and when the crown slipped from the grasp of the XIIth dynasty, it fell into the hands of one of these feudatories. ”

“ These two dynasties ruled Egypt for 420 years, from 3400 to 2980 B. C. This is known as the archaic period of Egyptian history. Men were, during this time, gradually developing the art of expressing thought by means of picture-writing. At some time during the first dynasty the Egyptians began to work the turquoise mines in the Wady Maghara in the peninsula of Sinai. The tombs of this period were low, flat houses of brick. ”

“ It is in the first place necessary to recur to the fact of the very long occupation of Egypt by successive dynasties of Hykshos or shepherd kings, and that these were not of one but of several nations—Phenicians, Pelasgi, and Scythians; while to these followed, at a long interval, an Ethiopian or Austral-Egyptian dynasty. Each of these great revolutions must have tended in turn to the amalgamation of the Egyptians with other nations ”

“ After their dispersion, the Egyptian Pharaoh turned his eyes towards Palestine, with the intention of restoring the Asiatic empire of Ramses ii. The twenty-sixth dynasty was an age of antiquarian revival; not content with restoring Egypt to peace and prosperity, its kings aimed also at restoring the Egypt of the past. Egyptian art again puts on an antique form, temples are repaired or erected in accordance with ancient models, and literature reflects the general tendency. ”

“ The whole course of the first dynasty is now laid bare to us, and we find that its beginning in 4700 b.c. is modern history compared with the periods of development that must have gone before, for there is proof positive that even before this dynasty, ten other kings reigned in Egypt, and other hands grew flax on the banks of the Nile and spun and wove it into Egypt’s far-famed linen. In ancient Egypt linen occupied a most important place ”

“ One of the chasms of Egyptian history follows the sixth dynasty. Other Memphite kings then ruled, a rival or later royal house arose at Heracleopolis, either the town of that name in Middle Egypt or that in Lower Egypt, and we have no records but the names of kings in later royal lists, which we cannot assign to any dynasty. Contemporary monuments fail us until the rise of the Theban house, when Egypt again appears rich and powerful, with signs of a fresh development of art and civilization. ”

“ They constitute a portion of a vast book, whose chapters are found scattered over the monuments of subsequent periods. They are the means of restoring to us, not only the religion but the most ancient language of Egypt: the majority of the formulas contained in them were drawn up in the time of the earliest human kings, perhaps even before Menés.
The history of the VIth dynasty loses itself in legend and fable. Two more kings are supposed to have succeeded Papi Nofirkeri, Mirnirî Mihtimsaût (Metesouphis II.) and Nîtaûqrît (Nitokris) . ”

“ The belief of the ancient Egyptian was that so long as his body remained intact so was his immortality; whence arose the embalming of the great, and hence the immense structures of stone to secure the inviolability of the entombed monarch. The monuments have as yet yielded no account of the events which tended to unite Egypt under the rule of one man; we can only surmise that the feudal principalities had gradually been drawn together into two groups, each of which formed a separate kingdom. ”

“ The culture of Egypt starts on a magnificently high level and is later reduced to a tremendous degree by a consistent record of degeneration. It might be said that by the end of the fourth dynasty, the people had reached the high peak of Egyptian art and learning. But after the sixth dynasty had well begun, a definite decline and retrogression had set in. We find ourselves then groping in a dark age wherein were no arts and no written history. No great monuments come from that period, and no great buildings were begun, repaired, or finished. ”

“ It was a period of calamity and distress, during which the Arabs or the Aramæans ravaged the country, and pillaged without compunction not only the property of the inhabitants, but also that of the gods. The Elamite usurper having died about the year 1030, a Babylonian of noble extraction expelled the intruders, and succeeded in bringing the larger part of the kingdom under his rule.*
* The names of the first kings of this dynasty are destroyed in the copies of the Royal Canon which have come down to us. ”

“ Under the decadent Memphites of the VIIth and VIIIth Dynasties, Egyptian art rapidly fell from the high estate which it had attained under the Vth Dynasty, and, though good work was done under the Hierakonpolites, the chief characteristic of Egyptian art at the time of the Xth and early XIth Dynasties is its curious roughness and almost barbaric appearance. ”

“ The upper classes had degenerated as much as the masses. The feudal nobles who had expelled the Shepherds, and carried the frontiers of the empire to the banks of the Euphrates, seemed to have expended their energies in the effort, and to have almost ceased to exist. As long as Egypt was restricted to the Nile valley, there was no such disproportion between the power of the Pharaoh and that of his feudatories as to prevent the latter from maintaining their privileges beside, and, when occasion arose, even against the monarch. ”

“ The Egyptians of the XXVIth Dynasty, wearied of the long decadence and devastating wars which had followed the glorious epoch of the conquering Pharaohs of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties, turned for a new and refreshing inspiration to the works of the most ancient kings, when Egypt was a simple self-contained country, holding no intercourse with outside lands, bearing no outside burdens for the sake of pomp and glory, and knowing nothing of the decay and decadence which follows in the train of earthly power and grandeur. ”

“ As often as a new dynasty of kings succeeded in driving out the foreign conqueror and in re-establishing the unity of the kingdom, so often was there a complete restoration. The aim which they had in view was ever to restore, in all its parts, a régime which was founded upon national pride. Enjoying a civilization which for ages had been alone in the world, it was in83 its full and glorious past that Egyptian society found the ideal to which it clung in spite of all obstacles and misfortunes. ”

“ Prehistoric burials were found on the hills near by, but the larger portion of the antiquities were recovered from the temple-ruins, and date back to the beginning of the 1st Dynasty, exactly the time when the kings of Hierakonpolis first conquered the kingdom of Buto and founded the united Egyptian monarchy. ”

“ From remains of the age of the IVth Dynasty he is able to define to some extent the type of the population of Lower Egypt as having a better cranial and muscular development than that of Upper Egypt, probably through immigration from Syria. The advent of the dynasties, however, produced a quickening rather than a dislocation in the development of civilization. ”

“ The Pharaoh who dedicated it was a great builder, and, like most of his predecessors with similar tastes, somewhat of a conqueror. The sovereigns of the XXIst dynasty, though they never undertook any distant campaigns, did not neglect to keep up a kind of suzerainty over the Philistine Shephelah to which they still laid claim. The expedition which one of them, probably Psiûkhânnît II., led against Gezer, the alliance with the Hebrews and the marriage of a royal princess with Solomon, must all have been regarded at the court of Tanis as a partial revival of the former Egyptian rule in Syria. ”

“ The expedition of Shishak, king of Egypt, against Rehoboam, is ascertained, from both Egyptian and Hebrew sources, to have been not earlier than 971 B.C., and within twenty-five years of that date. The nineteenth Egyptian dynasty began about the year 1350 B.C. The Middle Empire is thought by some to have commenced as early as 2200 B.C.; by others as late as 1720 B.C. When we go backward into the Old Empire, the sources of uncertainty are multiplied. ”