New Kingdom of Egypt

“ 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. ”

“ 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 kingdom of Upper Egypt was more powerful, richer, better populated, and was governed apparently by more active and enterprising rulers. It is to one of the latter, Mini or Menés of Thinis, that tradition ascribes the honour of having fused the two Egypts into a single empire, and of having inaugurated the reign of the human dynasties. ”

“ He was no doubt in part withheld from war by this luxurious love of ease; but his reign taught the world the new lesson, that an ambitious monarch may gratify his wish for praise and gain the admiration of surrounding nations, as much by cultivating the blessed arts of peace as by plunging his people into the miseries of war.
He reigned over Egypt, with the neighbouring parts of Arabia; also over Libya, Phoenicia, Cole-Syria, part of Ethiopia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Lycia, Caria, Cyprus, and the isles of the Cyclades. ”

“ They were coming to Egypt to bring Egypt under a rule stronger and more durable than that of the Persians. After former invasions of foreign people, Hyksos and others, Egypt had again always in the end recovered its freedom and set up new dynasties of native Pharaohs, carrying on the immemorially old national tradition in government and culture and language; but now there would never again, to the end of time, be a Pharaoh of native blood ruling beside the Nile. ”

“ Theban Egypt was, before all things, a community recognizing a theocratic government, in which the kingly office was merged in that of the high priest. Separated from Asia by the length of the Delta, it turned its attention, like the Pharaohs of the VIth and XIIth dynasties, to Ethiopia, and owing to its distance from the Mediterranean, and from the new civilization developed on its shores, it became more and more isolated, till at length it was reduced to a purely African state. Northern Egypt, on the contrary, maintained contact with European and Asiatic nations ”

“ The Pharaoh of Joseph was probably Apophis III. If so, the Hebrew vizier would have witnessed the outbreak of the war of independence towards the close of the long reign of the Hyksos king. It may be that the policy which transferred the soil of Egypt from the people to the king and the priests gave its first impulse to the movement.
The Eighteenth dynasty founded an Egyptian empire. Its kings carried the war into Asia, and planted the boundaries of Egyptian dominion on the banks of the Euphrates. ”

“ At last,450 twelve of the principal noblemen, conspiring together, seized upon the kingdom, and divided it amongst themselves into as many parts. It was agreed by them, that each should govern his own district with equal power and authority, and that no one should attempt to invade or seize the dominions of another. They thought it necessary to make this agreement, and to bind it with the most dreadful oaths, to elude the prediction of an oracle, which had foretold, that he among them who should offer his libation to Vulcan out of a brazen bowl, should gain the sovereignty of Egypt. ”

“ This operation, though it is leading to the submergence of the temples of Philae, will more than double its native population. For Egypt (compared to the rest of Africa) is a healthy land for Black, White, and Yellow. Give it a sufficient water supply in the way of irrigation and it will become one of the wealthiest regions, for its area, on the world’s surface and one of the most habitable. What the ultimate consequences of this regeneration of Egypt under the British aegis will be, it is interesting to speculate. ”

“ If none of the countries in the centre of Asia Minor would respond to their call, and if the interests of their commercial rivals, the Phoenicians, were so far opposed to their own as to compel them to maintain the conflict to the very end, Egypt, at any rate, always proud of her past glory and impatient of servitude, was ever seeking to rid herself of the foreign yoke and recover her independent existence under, the authority of her Pharaohs. ”

“ One may hope, at least, that the most prosperous days of the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, and the Romans will be reproduced once more for the modern Egyptians, as an outcome of the wise administration which has originated through the occupation of the country by the English, as an international trust held for civilisation. By aid of British initiative, Egypt now controls a vast empire in equatorial Africa and the Sudan, and the great water ways of this immense territory are being gradually brought under such control that the maximum advantage to all the population will be the necessary result. ”

“ Osiris: Isis.
High priest: High priestess.
Right hand sceptre: Left hand sceptre.
North: South.
Red crown: White crown.
The following data, gleaned from the valuable works of Prof. A. H. Sayce and the serial History of Egypt, written by Prof. Flinders Petrie, J. P. Mahaffy and J. G. Milne, furnish strong indications that, in the remotest past, the two divisions of the land of Egypt were respectively governed by a male and female sovereign; a proof that, before the time of Menes, the ancient empire had become disintegrated, and undergone a long period of intense strife and warfare. ”

“ Henceforth Egyptian civilization runs an uninspired and undeveloping course till the days of the Saïtes and the Ptolemies. This point in the history of Egypt, therefore, forms a convenient stopping-place at which to pause, while we turn once more to Western Asia, and ascertain to what extent recent excavations and research have thrown new light upon the problems connected with the rise and history of the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Before we turned from Egypt to summarize the information, afforded by recent discoveries, upon the history of Western Asia under the kings of the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, we noted that the Asiatic empire of Egypt was regained by the reactionary kings of the XIXth Dynasty, after its temporary loss owing to the vagaries of Akhunaten. Palestine remained Egyptian throughout the period of the judges until the foundation of the kingdom of Judah. With the decline of military spirit in Egypt and the increasing power of the priesthood, authority over Asia became less and less a reality. ”

“ 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. ”

“ While the new Egypt was expanding outwards in all directions, the old country did not cease to add to its riches. The two centuries during which the XIIth dynasty continued to rule were a period of profound peace; the monuments show us the country in full possession of all its resources and its arts, and its inhabitants both cheerful and contented. ”

“ Egypt, now an independent and improving kingdom, appears, under the enterprising rule of Mahommed Ali, likely to revenge its former oppression upon the decrepit power of the Turkish empire.—M.—This note was written in 1838. The future destiny of Egypt is an important problem, only to be solved by time. ”

“ During this second phase Egyptian wealth, population and technology, spilling over its frontiers onto foreign lands, established and maintained relations with foreign territory on a basis that yielded a yearly "tribute," paid by foreigners into the Egyptian treasury. The land of Egypt thus surrounded itself with a cluster of dependencies, converting what had been an independent state or independent states into a functioning empire. ”

“ Egypt has not much more to offer us in regard to many of her Pharaohs, but we have in her case at least the ascertained framework of her dynasties, in which each fact and each new name falls eventually, and after some uncertainty, into its proper place. ”

“ By about 1700 B.C., Egypt experienced the weakening of central authority which permitted the invading Hyksos (“rulers of foreign lands”) to seize control of the country and establish their own dynasty. The prosperous Middle Kingdom was at an end, and the hard hand of alien rule was evident throughout the land. It was not until 1570 B.C. that Ahmose, founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty, succeeded in driving the Hyksos back into Asia and establishing native control over Egypt. ”

“ He had killed 112 lions during the first ten years of his reign, and as it was an exploit of which he was remarkably proud, he perpetuated the memory of it in a special inscription, which he caused to be engraved on numbers of large scarabs of fine green enamel. Egypt prospered under his peaceful government, and if the king made no great efforts to extend her frontiers, he spared no pains to enrich the country by developing industry and agriculture, and also endeavoured to perfect the military organisation which had rendered the conquest of the East so easy a matter. ”

“ At one time Ethiopia would succeed in annexing Egypt, and again Egypt would seize some part of Ethiopia; but the settlement of affairs was never final, and the conflicting elements, brought with difficulty into harmony, relapsed into their usual condition at the end of a few years. A kingdom thus divided against itself could never succeed in maintaining its authority over those provinces which, even in the heyday of its power, had proved impatient of its yoke. ”

“ Behold me, gaze on me, O my son Thûtmosis, for I, thy father Harmakhis-Khopri-Tûmû, grant thee sovereignty over the two countries, in both the South and the North, and thou shalt wear both the white and the red crown on the throne of Sibû, the sovereign, possessing the earth in its length and breadth; the flashing eye of the lord of all shall cause to rain on thee the possessions of Egypt, vast tribute from all foreign countries, and a long life for, many years as one chosen by the Sun, for my countenance is thine, my heart is thine, no other than thyself is mine! ”

“ It is no love of Egypt's lost grandeur, or of Karamour and his cause that prompts the decision. He would unite with us solely to gain that land which borders his own foreign possessions. Restore the ancient glory of his country, you say. Bah! Egypt had known fifty centuries of the Pharaohs while his land was still a wilderness. Nay, we have no need for such as he in the ranks of the chosen. ”

“ Egypt was divided into forty-two districts or ‘nomes,’ and each of these possessed its own governor (hak, or prince, he was called) and each was to some extent a government complete within itself. The office of these prince-governors was often hereditary, and there was always a danger lest some powerful and popular governor should aim at setting up a petty kingdom of his own, in the event of the ruling hand becoming enfeebled. During a female reign the controlling power would be lessened, whilst the prospect of a disputed succession was awakening ambitious hopes and schemes. ”

“ 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 ”