EGYPT, LAND OF e’ jĭpt (Heb. מִצְרַ֫יִם, H5213; Gr. ̓Αίγυπτος). In the NE corner of Africa, the Nile delta and valley, with their flanking deserts, from the Mediterranean Sea to the first cataract in antiquity, to the second cataract in modern times.

Outline

I. Natural conditions

A. The setting. The Nile in past ages carved out a long gorge or valley northward to the Mediterranean across the African tableland; the successive phases of the process can be seen in the terraces visible in the cliffs that border the valley. Not until the valley floor had been filled with alluvial mud could there be a long, narrow strip of human settlement in the valley “flood-plain” on either river bank, and that only in the last eight thousand years or so. The Delta, formerly a bay of the sea, was formed by alluvial mud at the same time, and this region early consisted in large measure of low lying marshland, gradually and progressively reclaimed during the course of Egypt’s long history. Desiccation of the Sahara steppe land forced early hunters into the Nile valley, to become its first settlers.

The course of the Nile is hindered by six outcrops or “cataracts” of granite. Eroded less easily than the Nubian sandstone or the limestone that succeeds it northward some seventy m. N of Aswan, these cataracts limited ancient Nile navigation. The first is at Aswan, and the others are counted southward to the sixth, about seventy m. N of Khartum in the Sudan. Now flooded by the new High Dam at Aswan, the valley between the first and second cataracts was Lower Nubia; southward is Upper Nubia. Nubia was the Biblical Cush (q.v.), and its history was closely bound up with that of Egypt.

Within Egypt proper, the Nile valley is rarely more than twelve m. wide. Green vegetation flourishes as far as the life-giving waters reach, but immediately beyond, all is desert, a change so sharp that one may stand with one foot on the cultivation and one on the sand. On the political map of Africa, Egypt (AR) occupies a large rectangle some 386,200 square m. in extent, but ninety-six percent of that terrain is desert, so that ninety-nine percent of Egypt’s population live on and from the four percent of usable land in valley and delta. Hence Herodotus’ famous dictum about Egypt being the gift of the Nile, esp. as the rainfall is of the slightest: about seven and one-half inches at Alexandria, an inch at Cairo, and nil at Aswan apart from very occasional showers or cloudbursts. Until the advent of modern regulation, the Nile has created and renewed the fertility of Egypt by its annual flood or “inundation,” derived from the rains and melting snows of equatorial Africa and Ethiopia. These waters brought down a vast quantity of silt that was deposited as virtually a layer of new soil. The Nile begins its rise in June/July, subsiding after October. The abundance of the inundation determined that of the crops, and so prosperity or famine (cf. Joseph); modern dams are designed to retain a reserve of water and so guarantee the supply.

The long narrow valley and broad spreading delta stand in striking contrast—two Egypts, the Upper (valley) and Lower (delta). The pharaonic monarchy effectively began with the uniting of these two lands under one rule, but the ancient Egyptians never forgot the duality of their country: the pharaohs were always “King of Upper and Lower Egypt” and “Lord of the Two Lands.” This conception affected the administration both in its ceremonial titles and in its practical divisions (e.g., separate viziers for S and N). The only feasible site for a capital of such a bipartite land is at the region of junction of the two areas—in the district where Cairo now stands as successor to ancient Memphis only a few m. across the river.

Some forty m. S of Cairo, but on the W bank, is the natural depression of the Fayum, connected to the Nile by a long water channel. From at least the 12th dynasty, the Fayum served as a reservoir, and by irrigation became (and is) a garden province. Further W in the Sahara desert, a string of oases owe their existence to wells of artesian water, used since pharaonic times.

Within her valley and delta, Egypt had one splendid highway, the Nile itself. Her deserts largely protected her from external invasions for much of her early history, but access routes across the Sinai isthmus and through the E desert to the Red Sea, plus contacts S up the Nile and W along the Libyan coast all gave scope for Egypt both to give and to receive cultural stimuli.

B. Topography. Within the two broad divisions of Upper and Lower Egypt, the land was divided anciently into provinces or “nomes.” While various of these (esp. in Upper Egypt) may have originated as petty chiefdoms in prehistoric times, the organization of these nomes first clearly emerges during the Old Kingdom (3rd millennium b.c.), and continued to develop thereafter. As early as the 12th dynasty (1900 b.c.), Upper Egypt was already divided into the later canonical number of twenty-two such provinces (P. Lacau and H. Chevrier, Une Chapelle de Sésostris ler à Karnak [1956]). The more gradual development of the Delta can be seen in the recognition of only a dozen Lower-Egyp. nomes in the 12th dynasty, the full twenty provinces being established finally only in the 2nd cent. b.c. under the Ptolemies.

The ancient Egyptians took their geographical orientation from the S, not N; hence, Aswan was in the first Upper-Egyp. nome, it was early a frontier post (first cataract) with Nubia, and a staging post when Nubia was under Egyp. control. A hundred m. to the N (some 300 m. S of Cairo), the spectacular monuments at Luxor preserve the memory of ancient Thebes (q.v.) in the fourth nome, most magnificent of Egypt’s capitals during the Empire age (c. 1550-1085 b.c.), with the Karnak and Luxor temples of the god Amun, and the tombs of its pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings. Some fifty m. further N (eighth nome) stood Abydos, holy city of Osiris, the Egyp. god par excellence of the dead and of the afterlife, sacred (even before Osiris) from the earliest times. Among the cities further N in Middle Egypt, suffice it to name Hermopolis (15th nome), the seat of Thoth the god of learning, to the SE of which Akhenaten established his city for the worship of the solar disc (whence came the Amarna tablets), and also Heracleopolis (20th nome) opposite the Fayum and seat of the 9th and 10th dynasties.

The territory of Memphis (Biblical Noph), the administrative capital, counted as the first nome of Lower Egypt, and was prob. founded by the very first pharaohs; across the Nile just N of modern Cairo once stood Heliopolis (Biblical On), city of the sun god Ra. Further N was Bubastis (Biblical Pi-Beseth), famed for its cat goddess and festival, while the NE Delta contained administrative centers such as Pi-Ramessē (Raamses, q.v.) and its successor Tanis (Zoan), on or near the main route to Pal. The Delta could boast of other renowned cities: Busiris (sacred to Osiris), Mendes, and esp. Sais, an ancient city from which later came the 26th dynasty, of Neco and Hophra (q.v.). Out on the NW shore of the Delta, the Ptolemies made Alexandria their capital, developing Alexander the Great’s new foundation into a vast city of Hel. culture where only a village (Rakoti) had stood before. Egyptian society was (as now) predominantly rural, and her ancient cities were not dense industrial communities, but groups of settlements with garden lands among and between them.

Detailed study of the ancient geography and topography of Egypt is very complex, esp. as the courses of the Delta branches of the Nile have varied in number and location at different historical epochs. Ancient Egyp. sources mention three main arms, classical writers distinguish seven, while today only two main streams function, from and between which a network of lesser channels, canals and drains run and intersect.

II. Population and languages

A. Population. The ultimate origins of those earliest settlers who first colonized the Nile valley remain uncertain. The predynastic (i.e., prehistoric) Egyptians who developed the beginnings of settled culture in the Nile valley show African affinities. On the eve of the formation of a literate and united kingdom in Egypt, in N Egyp. cemeteries of that epoch traces have been noted of people showing slightly different physical characteristics (e.g., in cranial capacity), the so-called “Giza race.” These are thought by some to have been newcomers who infiltrated from Western Asia, fused with the existing stock, and promoted the rapid flowering of what is known as typically Egyp. culture of the pharaonic period. However, certainty on the point is not attainable. From the Old Kingdom onward, the Egyptians show from their statues, reliefs and paintings their own distinctive type, a physical type that has persisted ever since (despite all invasions), so that the Egyptians of today are the lineal descendants of their ancient predecesors, notwithstanding the transition through three civilizations in the interim.

B. Languages and scripts

1. Languages. The language of the ancient Egyptians had a complex origin and very long history. It was basically an African language, perhaps of the Libyo-Berber group (“Hamitic”) which was then affected in some grammatical forms, syntax, and a fair proportion of vocabulary by the impact of a Sem. language. The independent personal pronouns, for example, are closely related to those of the best known Sem. languages, and cognates in vocabulary can be readily recognized. The links between ancient Egyp. and African languages are less easy to establish clearly (partly due to lack of ancient African texts), but useful work is being done in this field. The result of the “Hamito-Semitic” fusion was what we now call ancient Egyptian, and was already established by the time of the earliest inscrs., with the first dynasties.

The main phases of the Egyp. language may be summarized as follows. Old Egyptian is the relatively terse form of the 1st to 8th dynasties in the 3rd millennium b.c. (Archaic period and Old Kingdom); apart from tomb inscrs., the main source for this phase is the Pyramid Texts (see [http://biblegateway/wiki/III. Language and literature LITERATURE and RELIGION], below), which show the most archaic forms of the tongue. Middle Egyptian was prob. the spoken language of the early Middle Kingdom (11th-12th dynasties, c. 2100-1800 b.c.), and is the “classical” phase of the language—it was thus used for formal writings of every kind (esp. literary) not only in the Middle Kingdom but throughout the New Kingdom (even with Late-Egyp. current), and well on into the late period, even till the Graeco-Rom. age in a modified form.

Late Egyptian was the vernacular of the New Kingdom (empire) and after, in the 16th to 8th centuries b.c., but had begun to develop before that period (traces back to 18th cent. b.c.). With Akhenaten of the late 18th dynasty, Late Egyptian came to be used regularly in written documents, esp. of current business, administration, etc.; literary and religious texts also were composed in Late Egyptian from the Ramesside age onward, alongside the Middle-Egyptian lit. “Demotic,” really the name of a script, is the term applied to “later” Late Egyptian, further developed, as attested in documents from the 8th cent. b.c. into the Rom. epoch. It was always principally the language of business and daily life, but literary and religious works in Demotic joined the existing Middle and Late Egyptian traditions.

“Coptic” was the final phase of Egyp., as it came to be used in Byzantine Egypt, developed by native Christian writers, esp. for tr. the Bible and Gr. church lit. Coptic has survived in Egypt into modern times as the liturgical language of the Coptic or indigenous church (cf. Lat. at Rome), while the everyday tongue of modern Egypt is Arabic. Coptic exhibits several dialects, Sahidic and Bohairic being the most important.

2. Scripts. The oldest is the hieroglyphs, by origin pictorial signs. Such signs may be used (i) to stand for the object depicted (ideogram or word sign), (ii) to represent the consonants of the word for the object depicted, giving the sign a phonetic value that can allow it to be used to write other words, and (iii) as a “determinative” appended to a phonetically-spelled word to indicate its general class.

However, almost as early as the hieroglyphs themselves, there appeared abbreviated or “cursive” forms of them. Writing at speed with a reed pen and carbon ink upon papyrus, or making jottings on limestone flakes or on potsherds (“ostraca”), the scribes soon developed running, even ligatured forms based on the hieroglyphs but no longer pictorial. This form of book-script we call “hieratic.” It was the usual script for all documents (literary or otherwise) on papyrus while the hieroglyphs remained the monumental script on stone and wood. Both scripts were used to write Old, Middle and Late Egyptian, right on into the days of the Roman empire; i.e., for about 3,000 years.

In the 8th cent. b.c., there was developed a “shorthand” VS of hieratic, now termed demotic, and which has given its name also to the still later form of Late Egyptian expressed in this script. This, too, continued into Rom. times. With the advent of Christianity in the valley of the Nile, the need arose for ordinary people to be able to read the Scriptures. For this, the old scripts were much too cumbersome with their hundreds of signs and groups. After some experimentation (“Old Coptic”), the Egyp. Christians took over the Gr. alphabet, adding to it seven letters to represent sounds not covered by the Gr. letters. This is the only form of Egyp. that shows the vowels, and is of philological importance.

During the course of Egyp. history, various foreign loan words entered the language, esp. in the highly international age of the 14th-13th centuries b.c.; these are mainly Sem. Such attestations of W Sem. vocabulary are of great value for the study of Heb. and other Sem. languages. Occasionally, Egyp. words appear in cuneiform, e.g., in the Amarna tablets. In the Coptic of Christian Egypt, a large body of Gr. vocabulary was taken over, plus a sprinkling of Lat. and further Sem. terms.

Southward from Egypt, the Nubian kingdom and civilization of Meroe adopted Egyp. hieroglyphs, modified them to write the Meroitic tongue, and eventually developed its own cursive script. This kingdom flourished from the 6th cent. b.c. to the 4th cent. a.d. However, Meroitic is not yet fully deciphered; it would be the mother tongue of Candace’s officer (Acts 8:27ff.).

III. Names of Egypt

The mod. name “Egypt” derives from Gr. Aigyptos, and the latter from Egyp. Ḥa(t)-ku-Pta(ḥ), “Mansion of the ka-spirit of (the god) Pta(h),” a name for Memphis, the ancient capital. (Cf. Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica, I, 124*.) This term is already attested in the Amarna letters of the 14th cent. b.c. as Hikuptah. This shows a use of the city name for the land, while conversely in Arab. the name of the land, Masr or Misr, also stands for Cairo, successor to Memphis. This Arab. term for Egypt is that attested in the older Sem. languages, including Akkad. (Muṩri) and Biblical Heb. (Miṩrayim), cf. Mizraim.

Throughout the OT, Miṩrayim stands for Egypt virtually without exception, despite sporadic attempts in the past to refer some passages to a Musri near SE Anatolia. By Musri, the Assyrian sources for their part usually mean Egypt, and sometimes a land N of Assyria; its use for N Arabia is dubious (cf. Oppenheim, ANET, 279, n. 9, for references). The only OT passages that have been seriously attributed to a northern Musri are the references to Solomon’s horse and chariot trade with Misrayim and Kue (1 Kings 10:28, 29, cf. 2 Chron 1:16, 17). That Kue is Cilicia seems clear. But if so, then Misrayim could hardly be a near neighbor of Kue if Solomon’s traders were to act between them. If the trade was between Egypt to the S (producing chariots) and Kue in the N (horses), then Solomon was ideally placed to be middle man between the two. On Musri (Akkad.), see P. Garelli, “Musur,” in F. Vigoureux and H. Cazelles (eds.), Supplement au Dictionnaire de la Bible, V (1957), cols. 1468-1474, and H. Tadmor, IEJ, XI (1961), 143-150.

OT Misrayim for Egypt is paralleled not only by Akkad. Musri but also by Ugaritic Msrm in the 14th/13th centuries b.c. For possible origins of the term, see under Mizraim. The ancient Egyptians themselves had their own terms for their homeland: Kemyt, the “black land” (as opposed to the desert, the “red land”), Tawy the “Two Lands” (Upper and Lower Egypt), and Ta-meri, a term of uncertain meaning.

IV. Chronology

A. Basis of Egyptian chronology

1. Introduction. Ancient Egypt shows a continuous history for almost 3,000 years down to the Rom. conquest (31 b.c.), a span rivalled only by Mesopotamia. Current knowledge of that history varies in accuracy and detail from period to period in relation to the available sources, and the accuracy of Egyp. chronology is similarly conditioned, as a compact survey of the basic evidence will make clear.

Before the decipherment of the hieroglyphs, the principal source of Egyp. chronology was the Epitome of dynasties and kings based on the History of Egypt written in Gr. by the Egyp. priest Manetho in the 3rd cent. b.c. He divided the long line of kings into thirty “dynasties” or families. This basic framework has largely stood the test of modern knowledge of firsthand Egyp. sources opened up by decipherment of the hieroglyphs, and so it is still retained today. However, it has been found convenient to group the dynasties into larger units, corresponding to the main divisions of Egyp. history, the whole now being prefaced by the Predynastic (and in practice, prehistoric) period. Thus, the three most brilliant and best understood epochs of Egyp. history are termed the Old Kingdom (3rd-6th dynasties, third millennium b.c.), the Middle Kingdom (11th-12th dynasties, early second millennium), and the New Kingdom or Empire period (18th-20th dynasties, late second millennium). Before the Old Kingdom came the formative Protodynastic or Archaic Period of the 1st and 2nd Dynasties. Between the Old and Middle, and Middle and New, Kingdoms respectively are the First and Second Intermediate Periods (7th-10th and 13th-17th dynasties), obscure periods of internal weakness. After the New Kingdom, the Late Period covers the 21st to 30th dynasties and Pers. rule prior to Alexander the Great (i.e., c. 1085-332 b.c.). The 21st to 24th dynasties are sometimes termed the “Third Intermediate Period” because of conditions reminiscent of the earlier Intermediate Periods; the 26th dynasty saw an archaizing “renaissance” until overwhelmed by the Pers. empire. After Alexander the Great, the Ptolemies ruled until supplanted by Rome. Between the limits of prehistory and Alexander, the profile of Egypt’s history may be graphically set out thus:

Archaic\nold-k middle-k new-k\n1st IP 2nd IP Late Pd.

2. Sources and limits of Egyptian dates. Besides the excerpts from Manetho preserved in defective VSS by later writers, there exist also Egyp. king lists from the New Kingdom. Despite its pitifully damaged state, the most valuable of these is the Turin Papyrus of Kings which once listed nearly all the kings of Egypt, from the mythical dynasties of gods and spirits and the first human dynasties down to the time of Ramses II, giving lengths of reigns and of groups of dynasties, etc. It thus preserves, for example, a figure of 955 years for the first eight dynasties, and gives 143 (136+7) years for the 11th dynasty, besides the reigns of many individual kings. Other lists give simply the names of kings in order, often omitting obscure periods; such are the lists of Sethos I and Ramses II in their temples at Abydos, and from the tomb of Tjenuna at Saqqara. A list of Thutmose III from Karnak (now in the Louvre) merely gives groups of selected kings. For the first five dynasties, one must add the limited but vital evidence of the Palermo Stone and other fragments from the same or a similar monument which once contained a record of all the years of the kings of the 1st to 5th dynasties, with notes of events (mainly religious).

At all periods, we possess monuments dated by the regnal years of individual pharaohs; these furnish at any rate minimum figures for reigns in default of other evidence. Genealogies of officials in which successive generations served different kings can be very helpful, esp. in the Late Period (21st-25th dynasties). Synchronisms betwen Egyp. pharaohs and the rulers of states in W. Asia in the 2nd and 1st millennia b.c. afford valuable cross-checks on dates of both areas.

Finally, there are some “external” means of control upon Egyp. dates. The Carbon-14 method is of limited utility, mainly for the prehistoric epoch. Astronomy is more serviceable for the historical period. The Egyp. calendar was 365 days long, and so ended a day too early every four years (no leap year). Thus, after some 700 years the calendar-seasons fell in the wrong natural seasons (calendrical summer in natural winter, etc.), and after some 1,453 years the calendar would coincide with nature’s seasons again. The proper starting point of the Egyp. calendar happened to coincide with the “heliacal” rising of the Dog Star, Sirius or Sothis. Thus, mentions of such risings of Sothis in terms of dates of the moving calendar are of great value in helping to fix the date b.c. of such references within narrow limits. Lunar dates can be useful, if they are known to fall within a limited general time span.

This kind of evidence has made it possible to date the 12th dynasty closely to 1991-1786 b.c. (a Sothic rising, plus lunar dates), and so the 11th dynasty with 143 years before it at c. 2134-1991 b.c. A similar Sothic datum is attested for Amenophis I in the early 18th dynasty. Taken as observed at Thebes, this seems to indicate a date of c. 1551 b.c. for the start of the 18th dynasty, while lunar data for Thutmose III would place his reign in 1490-1436 b.c. This allows of good dates for the dynasty to the death of Amenophis III in about 1364 b.c. This dynasty would end by either 1315 or 1301 b.c. at the latest, depending on the date adopted for Ramses II, and affected by the vexed question of a possible co-regency of Amenophis III and Akhenaten.

In the 19th dynasty, lunar data indicates that the redoubtable Ramses II reigned either 1304-1238 b.c. or 1290-1224 b.c. (a margin of only fourteen years), but intensive attempts to decide finally between the two dates have proved fruitless because the Egyp. and Near Eastern data contain ambiguities not yet eliminated; new material is needful. After Ramses II, the next generally agreed fixed point was not reached until the beginning of the 26th dynasty in 664 b.c. (not 663); from the Pers. conquest (525 b.c.) onward, Egyp. dates are well enough tied in with the rest of antiquity to cause little difficulty beyond details.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE: History of Egypt

Many of the dates are approximate only. Some dynasties ruled at the same time in different parts of the country.

Only the rulers of importance for the history of Canaan and Israel are listed.

(based on: E. Drioton--J. Vandier)

However, between Ramses II and 664, it is possible to suggest that Shoshenq I (Biblical Shishak) who raided Pal. in the fifth year of Rehoboam of Judah did so about 925 b.c., and so reigned c. 945-924 b.c.; some set these dates about a decade later. Shoshenq’s line, the 22nd dynasty, ended with Osorkon IV who was prob. the Shilkanni mentioned by Assyrian documents of Sargon II in 716 b.c., which sets an upper limit for the rule of the 25th dynasty in Egypt. With this outline framework and a large body of scattered facts, it is then possible to produce reasonable dates for the 20th to 25th dynasties that rarely exceed a decade or so in margin of error.

Between the end of the 12th dynasty (1786) and the beginning of the 18th (c. 1551), there are some 235 years for the 13th to 17th dynasties of the difficult Second Intermediate Period. However, the 13th dynasty can be allowed 153 years for its sixty kings during 1786-1633 b.c., ruling most of Egypt until c. 1650 b.c. The 14th dynasty was a minor line local to the NW Delta, not affecting general chronology. Similarly, the “16th dynasty” consists of local Hyksos chiefs subject to the main 13th dynasty and Hyksos kings. The 15th or Hyksos dynasty itself had six rulers for 108 years (Turin Papyrus); and, being expelled in about the eleventh year of Ahmose I of the 18th dynasty, it prob. ruled most of Egypt during c. 1648-1540 b.c. until the last decade.

Going back beyond the 11th dynasty (from 2134), there is the Turin Papyrus figure of 955 years for the 1st to 8th dynasties, which may be fairly correct. The length of the 9th/10th dynasties is not really known, nor the length of their overlap with the 11th dynasty. If the 9th and 11th dynasties competed for the kingship immediately from the end of the old 8th dynasty, then 955 years before 2134 would set the start of the 1st dynasty at c. 3089 b.c.—say c. 3100 b.c. in round figures. If the 11th dynasty was only founded some years after the 9th dynasty took over from the 8th, then the whole set of dates for the 1st to 8th dynasties would have to be raised by the amount of that interval. Conversely, if the 400 years or so usually allotted to the 1st and 2nd dynasties proved to be excessive, then the beginning of the 1st dynasty would have to be correspondingly lowered somewhat. Thus, for the 3rd to 8th dynasties, there is several decades’ margin of error; for the 1st and 2nd, up to a cent. or more. Cf. following Table.

B. Outline table of Egyptian dates.

V. Historical survey

A. Predynastic Egypt. In Upper Egypt, the first settled societies are known as Badarian (earliest phase, Tasian). These people practiced agriculture, lived in villages (huts or tents), and made pottery (some, very fine), having flint tools and some use of copper. They had already developed some concept of an afterlife, as indicated by the furnishings of their modest burials. The following period, Naqada I (or Amratian), had some contacts abroad with S Arabia, Iran and Mesopotamia, possibly passing via Wadi Hammamat in the Eastern desert and down the Red Sea. The final period of Egyp. prehistory, Naqada II (or Gerzean), witnessed great changes by its end. By now, regular townships existed, some walled (e.g., at Naqada itself). Graves and their furnishings increased in elaboration. During this age at latest must have occurred that fusion of “Hamitic” (Libyo-Berber) and Sem. elements that went to produce the Egyp. language of the historic period. And before the end of Naqada II, cultural influences from Mesopotamia had a tangible impact, inspiring the Egyptians to use cylinder seals, undertake monumental brick architecture, and above all to produce their own form of writing—the hieroglyphs. By the end of the period, Upper Egypt had become a unified kingdom, and another kingdom had rule over at least part of the Delta.

B. Archaic Egypt. 1st and 2nd dynasties (c. 3100-2686 b.c.). Traditionally, Egyp. history begins with the union of the Two Lands under King Menes from Upper Egypt, conquering the Delta kingdom and founding a new capital at Memphis for the 1st dynasty to rule all Egypt. It is likely that the Menes of late tradition is the King Narmer of contemporary monuments. This king dedicated a superb, shield-shaped “palette” bearing triumphal scenes that show him wearing the crowns of Upper and of Lower Egypt—perhaps direct evidence of his actually uniting the two Egypts under his rule. Seven other kings, his descendants, continued the dynasty, a period of tremendous advance in early civilization. At Abydos, each king had at this holy place a tomb surrounded by graves of the nobles of the court, well back on the desert edge, and also—rather nearer the town—an imposing “funerary palace” (possibly with provision for his continuing cult) itself surrounded in turn by the graves of palace servitors. The stele or tombstone of the fourth king, Wadji (or, “Djet”), is in beauty of execution the noblest monument of its kind. At Saqqara, on the desert edge to the NE of Memphis the new capital, magnificent brick tombs were built, combining a burial with a superstructure having a “palace-façade.” These were prob. the tombs of great men of the realm who served the king at Memphis. Several scholars have suggested that some of these Saqqara tombs were the real royal tombs, the Abydos tombs being a species of cenotaph, but this is far from certain. See on the significance of these series of tombs, B. J. Kemp, JEA, LII (1966), 13-22, and in Antiquity, XLI (1967), 22-32. The physical furnishings of all these tombs—both at Abydos and at Saqqara—illustrates the great strides made in the applied arts: fine vases of the hardest stones, fantastically carved slate dishes, fragments of beautiful furniture employing ivory, ebony, etc., a full range of copper tools and vessels, and free use of gold (usually plundered long since). The evidence of clay sealings and of bone and ivory labels once attached to goods deposited in the tombs bear witness to a rapidlydeveloping and elaborate state administration already in the 31st to 29th centuries b.c. One may perceive the functioning of a treasury, state bureaus for provisions, the existence of various royal estates and institutions as economic units, and so on—all, 2,000 years before David and Solomon had to organize their state administration. Only in contemporary Sumer do we have written evidence for a parallel elaboration of civilized life, but the mute evidence from Asia Minor, Syrian and Palestinian town sites, with palatial and military architecture, organized material wealth, etc., is enough to hint that, so early, much of the future Biblical Near E already had highly organized societies.

Under the 2nd dynasty, progress was for a time halted by internal dissensions, possibly epitomized in the figures of the falcon god Horus and the god Seth of Ombos (both of Upper Egypt). These troubles were prob. ended by a King Khasekhem who perhaps took the modified name Khasekhemwy. “the two powers are manifest,” as symbol of a reconciliation. The Palermo Stone preserves some records of the first two dynasties, but mainly of religious ceremonies and the founding of buildings. The date-lines of the ivory and bone labels “date” their years within the king’s reign by reference to such events plus the royal name. The data on these labels plus the once continuous enumeration of such years and events on the Palermo Stone are the nearest approach to historical annals for this early epoch.

C. Old Kingdom (3rd-6th dynasties, c. 2686-2180 b.c.). The rapid progress of the early dynasties, consolidated by Khasekhemwy, had laid the foundation for Egypt’s first and most vigorous period of greatness, an age epitomized for many by the pyramids (q.v.) that are her most enduring monuments. The 3rd dynasty is dominated by the figures of the Pharaoh Djoser and his minister Imhotep. At Saqqara they built the Step Pyramid, the world’s first great building of stone, originally nearly 200 ft. high. It stood in a vast enclosure, nearly 600 yards long by over 300 wide, which contained besides the pyramid a whole series of special buildings for the royal cult in perpetuity, all with an external finish of the finest limestone masonry. Doubtless that cult was celebrated with rituals of matching elaboration, precursors of the later attested Pyramid Texts. Imhotep was celebrated early by the Egyptians as an author, prob. of Egypt’s first wisdom book (cf. later allusions, e.g. ANET, 432a, 467a), and by the Greeks as a healer and identified with Asklepios. Further step pyramids were built by Djoser’s successors, but were all unfinished because of the premature deaths of most of these kings.

True pyramids came into fashion only with the 4th dynasty; its founder, Snofru, built two at Dahshur. His son Kheops built the Great Pyramid (originally 481 ft. high) at Gizeh opposite the area of modern Cairo. Khephren built the Second Pyramid and was prob. responsible for the carving of the Sphinx, a large specimen of a common royal/divine guardian figure in Egyp. sculpture. The Third Pyramid, of Mycerinus was much smaller but was expensively sheathed in granite. The step pyramids may have given tangible expression to the concept of a stairway to heaven (cf. distantly Jacob’s ladder Gen 28:12, and the Mesopotamian temple towers). The true pyramid was a solar symbol, reminiscent of the benben stone of the sun god Ra at Heliopolis, and perhaps symbolized the rays of the sun as a ramp upon which the king might ascend to heaven.

The divine Pharaoh ruled supreme but in due course had to yield in authority to the sun god, to whom he was subordinated theologically as Son of Ra. This began in the 4th dynasty, but reached full expression in the 5th dynasty when the kings built not only pyramids but also separate solar temples in their vicinity.

Throughout the 4th to 6th dynasties, the pharaohs sent expeditions S into Nubia, establishing a foothold at the second cataract, and also in the N maintained trade relations with Byblos in Phoenicia to procure timber of the class of “cedar of Lebanon.” In the 6th dynasty, movements of peoples in the Near E caused pressure on Egypt’s Palestinian frontier; and so, under Pepi I, the dignitary Uni led five expeditions into Pal. to ward off this threat, the fifth of these being an amphibious operation.

In internal politics, the increasing elaboration of administration meant that the pharaoh delegated ever more authority to his ministers and officials. In the 4th dynasty the chief ministers had often been members of the royal family, from the 5th dynasty onward this ceased to be so. The steady fragmentation of power and the economic drain of tax-exempt royal endowments for temples attached to pyramids and gifts of land for the funerary cults of officials all combined to reduce the effective power of the kings, esp. in the 6th dynasty. In Upper Egypt, the provincial governors became hereditary local rulers with an increase in real local authority at royal expense. To counterbalance this trend, the pharaohs appointed special governors of the S as “overlords” for the local rulers, but this measure eventually proved inadequate. The end came with the reign of Pepi II, who acceded as a boy of six and reigned for ninety-four years; for the latter part of his overlong reign, the aged king was prob. helpless to halt the centrifugal forces in the realm.

The internal peace and security of Egypt under a strong and effective administration headed by the vizier and other ministers made possible the full development of all the civilized arts. Architecture was represented not only by the vast surfaces of the pyramids, but also by the sumptuous royal temples attached to them. Choice and costly granites and alabaster were often employed for pillars and paving, and their walls were increasingly decorated with superbly executed scenes in delicate low relief, usually painted, and mainly of ritual subjects. The tombs of the great nobility each consisted of a massive rectangular structure of stone over a burial shaft and pit; in the 5th and 6th dynasties, funerary chapels within these massifs (called mastabas) were brilliantly decorated with scenes in relief of daily life, etc., for the other worldly benefit of the owner, but vividly preserving the life of the epoch. Statuary in the round reach heights of excellence unrivaled at any later period in world history before the works of the Greeks.

So much ability and brilliance in practical and visual arts did not lack counterparts in the intellectual realm, although the evidence is much more fragmentary. The gods of Egypt were already served in temples with elaborate rituals. From the time of King Unas (end of the 5th dynasty), the inner chambers of the royal pyramids were inscribed with a vast series of spells, magical rituals and religious texts now known collectively as the “Pyramid Texts,” the oldest major corpus of religious lit. yet known. They served magically to insure the protection and well-being of the pharaoh in the afterlife (cf. also Literature, below, for their evidence on early literary form). Another famous document, the “Memphite Theology,” prob. originated in the Old Kingdom; it shows the first known formulation of a logos type concept. Of quite another order were the “Instructions” or wisdom books composed by leading dignitaries of the monarchy from Imhotep of the 3rd dynasty to Ptahhotep of the 5th (see Literature, below). In their day, these were the quintessence of the “wisdom of the Egyptians,” and inculcated the rules for a successful and “integrated” life within the society and service of the pharaoh. They aimed also at “good style” in their mode of literary expression (so, Ptahhotep). Then esp. in the 6th dynasty, we have the biographical tomb inscrs. of high officials, giving glimpses of history (e.g., Uni) associated with their personal achievements. Royal decrees in favor of temples exhibit the official style. Having arisen, flourished and passed away long before Abraham was born, this brilliant age (and its parallels abroad) is of value in several respects from the viewpoint of Biblical studies. Like the Archaic Period, it serves to underline the fact that the Biblical world was not merely the dim haunt of savages prior, say, to the Heb. monarchy or the Babylonian exile—such a conception is false, even 1,000 years before Abraham. The wealth of pictorial matter contributes to our understanding of ordinary daily life and custom in the Biblical world, and the lit. provides material toward a really factual history of literary style in the Biblical world as a setting for OT lit.

D. Rise and fall of the Middle Kingdom

1. First Intermediate Period (7th-10th dynasties, c. 2180-2030 b.c.). The 7th and 8th dynasties show a rapid series of brief reigns without any notable undertakings. The pharaohs at Memphis were still recognized in Upper Egypt, if rather nominally, as shown by their temple decrees from Coptos. When their throne fell vacant, a prince from Middle Egypt (Herakleopolis)—Khety I—founded a new line (9th-10th dynasties), but the order ran into difficulties in both N and S. From Pal., Asiatics penetrated the Delta and added to unrest in the towns, while in the S the princes of Thebes established a rival line of kings—the 11th dynasty—in southern Upper Egypt from c. 2134 b.c. This period of internal stress came to an end only when the Theban King Mentuhotep II (Neb-hepet-re) reunited all Egypt by about 2030 b.c., so ushering in the Middle Kingdom proper. However, this tense age produced (or inspired) noble lit.: the earnest questings about life and death in the Dispute of a Man With His Soul, the demand for social justice reflected in the ornate rhetoric of the Eloquent Peasant, and the royal wisdom of the “Instruction” of [Khety III?] for King Merikara, that rightness of character is better than sacrifice, cf. 1 Sam 15:22 (samples in ANET, 405ff., 407ff., 414ff.).

2. Middle Kingdom proper (11th-12th dynasties). The 11th dynasty ended with the great Mentuhotep’s second successor. Into the vacant kingship stepped the latter’s former vizier as Amenemhet I to found the 12th dynasty, establishing a new administrative center (Ithettawy) just S of Memphis itself. In the pseudoprophecy of Neferty, he had himself portrayed as a promised deliverer of Egypt from her ills, and announced a program of internal prosperity and external security, thus inaugurating the deliberate use of lit. for political and social propaganda. He undertook correspondingly vigorous measures for two decades, but was almost assassinated on the eve of appointing his son Sesostris I as co-regent. In the “Instruction of Amenemhat I,” the old king set out the achievements of his reign, casting bitter odium on his ungrateful assailants. Thereafter, the dynasty stood on a firmer footing, and Egypt again knew an age of peace, effective government and considerable prosperity. Some kings, e.g., Amenemhat III, took particular interest in irrigation and developed the Fayum province. New wisdom books (see Literature, below) inculcated loyalty to the throne, or exalted the role of the scribes upon whom the success of the administration rested (Satire of the Trades).

Nubia was brought under firm control as far as the second cataract and beyond, with trade posts in the third cataract region. Trade and gold mining interests were safeguarded through massive mud brick forts of medieval proportions. Egypt also had intimate contact with Western Asia, esp. through Byblos, whose princes by the end of the 12th dynasty were writing their names in Egyp. hieroglyphs, and thereafter full length inscrs. also. The Execration Texts of the 12th/13th dynasties, for cursing the pharaoh’s enemies, throw vivid light on the political geography of Syria-Pal. in the age of the Patriarchs, including references to (e.g.) Jerusalem and Shechem, and the land of Damascus under the term Upe. They show the division of Canaan into city-states and tribal areas much as is presupposed by the narratives of Genesis 12ff. Sesostris III raided Pal. as far as Shechem (cf. ANET, 230). A close guard was kept by use of forts on Egypt’s Sinai frontier, and important centers were established in the E Delta, esp. near modern Qantir (see [http://biblegateway/wiki/Raamses, Rameses (city) RAAMSES], Hyksos). One may note as a background parallel to the men appointed to escort Abraham out of Egypt (Gen 12:20), those appointed to conduct the Egyp. fugitive Sinuhe back into Egypt (ANET, 21b). The well-known tomb scene at Beni Hasan of the magnate Khnumhotep welcoming “37 Asiatics” into Egypt under Sesostris II is the classic pictorial background for the Egyp. journeys by Abraham and Jacob (Gen 12, 46/47).

3. Second Intermediate Period (13th-17th dynasties). The great 12th dynasty ended with a queen. The 13th dynasty (c. 1786-1633 b.c.) saw a rapid succession of kings. At first, Egypt remained outwardly powerful, but real power now resided with the viziers, not the throne; “Asiatics” (mainly W Semites) increasingly came into Egypt, partly as slaves and in many occupations. Some Semites prob. gained a foothold as local rulers in the E Delta, and eventually one of them overthrew the reigning pharaoh, banishing the 13th dynasty to Thebes and the S. Thus was established the 15th (Hyksos) dynasty, a line of six kings that lasted 108 years, from c. 1648 to c. 1540 b.c. Historical data for this whole epoch are very meager. The settlement of Joseph and his family in Egypt may perhaps be placed c. 1700 b.c. in round figures, i.e., late 13th dynasty passing over into the Hyksos period. A Brooklyn papyrus of c. 1740 b.c. sheds light on the prison system of the day; and of about seventy servants of an official listed elsewhere on this document, over forty bear names of good Sem. origin like Joseph himself (a Menahem, a Shipra, etc.). Joseph began (Gen 39:2) as a domestic, Egyp. ḥery-per, “in the house,” and like some of these he rose to become steward or “overseer of the house” (imy-ra per). The interpretation of dreams was the subject of special textbooks; in the British Museum, Papyrus Chester Beatty III is a New Kingdom copy of a work prob. much earlier than Joseph’s day. Horses were known in Egypt from about the 18th cent. b.c. (skeleton from the Middle Kingdom fort, Buhen), and as horses were used for chariotry before being ridden as cavalry, this is prob. indirect evidence for some knowledge of the chariot in Egypt just before Joseph’s time. The keeping of cattle (see Goshen) was a matter of interest to the pharaohs in the Delta (47:6), including in texts of barely a cent. or so later (ANET, 232b and n. 5). Utterly dependent on the Nile flood, Egypt always feared famine while blessed oftener with rich harvests.

E. New Kingdom (18th-20th dynasties)

1. The 18th dynasty (c. 1551-1315/01 b.c.). Ahmose I (c. 1551-1526 b.c.) completed the work of his elder brother King Kamose, in ejecting the Hyksos rulers from Egypt, and in the process invaded Pal. The first major step toward an empire was taken by his second successor, Thutmose I (c. 1505-1493 b.c.) who reached the river Euphrates in N Syria, and as far as the fifth cataract of the Nile in Upper Nubia. After the premature death of her husband Thutmose II (c. 1493-1490 b.c.), Queen Hatshepsut (1490-1468) ruled Egypt as real king during the minority of her stepson Thutmose III (1490-1436 b.c.). Her reign was remarkable mainly for works of peace: a great trading expedition down the Red Sea to Punt (S. E. Sudan), her superb W Theban funerary temple at Deir el Bahri, a shrine at Karnak, etc., but she did not hesitate to repress rebels in Nubia. After her death, the now mature Thutmose III conducted no less than sixteen campaigns in Western Asia, turning Syria-Pal. into an Egyp. province. The wealth, religious influences and captured peoples from Canaan entered Egypt, while Egyp. artistic canons penetrated Syria-Pal., during the ensuing period. Thutmose III was also a great builder of temples and an energetic administrator. His immediate successors maintained Egypt’s power, and made marriage alliance with the strong N Mesopotamian state of Mitanni. Thus Amenophis III (c. 1402-1364 b.c.) had a reign of peace and hitherto unparalleled magnificence, still reflected by his buildings (e.g., temples of Luxor and Soleb, and the “Colossi of Memnon,” sole relic of his funerary temple in W Thebes). Babylon and Mitanni courted Egypt for gold. Tensions between the monarchy and the priesthood of Amun, god of Thebes, broke out openly under his son Amenophis IV who, as Akhenaten, proclaimed the sole worship of the sun god manifest in the solar disc as Aten, abolishing the other gods (esp. Amun) and disbanding their priesthoods. Akhenaten built himself a new capital (Akhet-Aten (“Horizon of the Aten”), now El Amarna, in Middle Egypt; part of his diplomatic correspondence with Babylon, Mitanni, and the Syrian city-states was found there in 1887, becoming known as the El Amarna tablets or letters. Along with Hitt. annals and the archives from Ugarit in Phoenicia, these tablets shed a brilliant light on conditions in Canaan in the 14th cent. b.c., on the eve of the Exodus and Conquest. During Akhenaten’s preoccupation with the Aten, a war betwen the Hitt. and Mitannian empires lost Egypt her N Syrian possessions, while Pal. lapsed into some disorder. With the deaths of Akhenaten and his brother Smenkhkara, the throne came to the young prince later known as Tutankhamun, famous principally for the splendors of his burial-equipment, discovered almost intact in the Valley of the Kings in Western Thebes. As he died prematurely without heir, his queen appealed to the Hitt. King Suppiluliuma I for a son of his to become pharaoh as her husband. But the over wily Hitt. delayed, so that his younger son then was murdered on his way into Egypt when the plan became known. Instead, the aged retainer Ay reigned briefly, until the general Haremhab took in hand the renewal of Egypt’s now neglected internal administration.

Egypt reached the zenith of her political power and wealth in this epoch. Under the king, two viziers served for Upper and Lower Egypt and a viceroy ruled Nubia as a separate province. In Syria-Pal., the city states continued to be ruled by their own local dynasties, but on oath of allegiance to the pharaoh who regulated the succession in these states. A large and usually reasonably effective administrative organization supported these and other departments of state. A standing army was the nucleus of Pharaoh’s forces. The increasingly splendid temples of the gods enjoyed rich endowments in land and settlements in Egypt and abroad, and a goodly share of the spoils of conquest. In these temples, the priesthoods performed complex rituals often of great length, both daily and for the great periodical festivals.

2. The 19th dynasty (c. 1315/01-c. 1200 b.c.). a. History. From Haremhab, the throne passed to a military colleague Paramessē, who reigned a brief sixteen months as Ramses I (c. 1315-14 or c. 1301-00 b.c.) but was succeeded by his able son Sethos I (c. 1314-1304 or c. 1300-1290 b.c.).

Sethos I immediately set about the reconquest of Syria-Pal., and thus collided head-on with the Hittites, not unsuccessfully. At home, he undertook the vast hypostyle Hall of Columns in the Karnak temple of the god Amun at Thebes, and built a temple in Abydos now famed for its exquisite colored reliefs. He also began building works in the Delta, and was prob. a pharaoh of the Heb. oppression. His son Ramses II (1304-1238 or 1290-1224 b.c.) doggedly fought on against the Hittites, the pyrrhic Battle of Qadesh being his most famous encounter. Eventually, both powers made peace in Ramses II’s twenty-first regnal year by a treaty later sealed by dynastic marriages (see Ramses, [http://biblegateway/wiki/King, Kingship KING]). Within Egypt, Ramses II erected and adorned more temples than any other pharaoh. His were the great rock temples of Abu Simbel in Nubia (two of half-a-dozen shrines), the Ramesseum (funerary temple) in Western Thebes, much at Karnak, a great court at Luxor temple, and the residence city of Raamses in the E Delta. It was perhaps in his reign that the Exodus (q.v.) occurred. His successor Merneptah (1238-1218 or 1224-1214 b.c.) beat off a massive Libyan invasion of Egypt, after a brief campaign in W Pal. on which his forces encountered some Israelites (the “Israel Stela,” ANET, 376, 378). Merneptah’s successors were short-lived and insignificant.

b. New kingdom background for the Hebrews in Egypt. The 19th dynasty was perhaps the most cosmopolitan age in Egyp. history, and was a fitting backdrop for the oppression, Moses and the Exodus. Official intercourse between major and minor states of the ancient world was at its height, following on from the 18th dynasty. At every level of Egyp. society, foreigners—esp. from Syria-Pal.—filled a multitude of roles in the main centers, whether the E Delta, in Memphis, or in Thebes. Ever since the expulsion of the Hyksos, a steady stream of prisoners of war had flowed into Egypt, used to help cultivate the fields and man the workshops of the state institutions and of the great temples; such slaves could also be found in small numbers in Egyp. households. In the early 18th dynasty, the veteran warrior Ahmose son of Abana lists nineteen such slaves in his tomb at El Kab (Upper Egypt), one woman bearing the good Akkad. name Ishtar-ummi (Sethe, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, 11). At the other end of the scale, Amenophis II (c. 1438-1412 b.c.) lists vast numbers of captives from Syria from his (and his father’s ?) campaigns there: e.g., 3,600 ’Apiru, 15,200 Shasu (semi-nomads), 36,300 people of Hurri (Horites Syria-Pal.), 15,070 people of Nukhasse (in N Syria), and so on (cf. ANET, 247). These people often were installed in special settlements, e.g., at Thebes, “a settlement of Thutmose IV with Syrians (who were) spoils of His Majesty from Gezer,” attached to the king’s funerary temple in Western Thebes (ANET, 248a). Such people were used on building projects, like the Biblical Hebrews in the brick fields of Exodus 1:14.

Besides the famous painting of Egyptians, Semites and others making bricks, in the tomb chapel of the vizier Rekhmire under Thutmose III, an ostracon of that same official deals with building works, referring to the hauling of stone, causing to mold bricks, and to various personnel including thirty Hurru (Syrians) among others (text, Sethe, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, 1174-5). Under Ramses II, the chief of militia and of royal works, Amenemonē, had charge of “the soldiers and the ’Apiru who drag stone for the great pylon” of a building of Ramses II at Memphis (Papyrus Leiden 348; tr. by Caminos, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies [1954], 491, 494; cf. Gaballa and Kitchen, Chronique d’Egypte, XLIII/85 [1968], 263-269). In the Anastasi Papyri of this general period, one official noted his work people “making their quota of bricks daily” (Caminos, op. cit., 106), while another had to complain, “there are neither men to make bricks nor straw in the neighborhood” (ibid., 188), scenes reminiscent of Exodus 5. Furthermore, a close surveillance was kept of the days worked, as is exemplified by jottings on ostraca from W Thebes concerning work on the royal tombs there. Such journals of work took special note of days worked and days “idle,” in some examples even for individuals by name and giving the reasons for their absences from the job—“ill,” “eye trouble,” “brewing (beer),” or plain “idle.” And religious holidays for festivals (cf. Exod 5:1, 3, 8) occur as “offering to the god” (so, Ostracon British Museum 5634, of the fortieth year of Ramses II). Such references occur in many other similar documents (references, Kitchen, Ancient Orient and Old Testament [1966,] 157, notes 17-19). When such a close check was kept on Egyp. workmen, one cannot expect foreign sla ves to escape from equally close oversight.

However, the brickfields and building sites did not account for all Semites in Egypt, Hebrews or otherwise. The abilities of Bezalel and Oholiab (Exod 31:1-11) and the early career of Moses indicate otherwise. Such foreigners could be employed in all manner of callings (e.g., shepherds, weavers, brewers, wine merchants, porters, soldiers and ships’ captains), including also craftsmen. One finds shipbuilders, stonemasons, coppersmiths and goldsmiths (see W. Helck, Die Beziehungen Aegyptens zu Vorderasien..[1962], 372, 373, § V, for references). Some Hebrews may have reached such employments. Higher up the scale, besides foreigners serving as priests (ibid., 373, 374, § VI), one finds scribes high and low, high stewards of the Kings Sethos I and Ramses II (Horites, in two cases), and cupbearers who were the trusted confidants of several pharaohs, e.g., Ben-Ozen (from Rock-of-Bashan!) under Merneptah, one Baal-mahir under Ramses III, and a Pen-Hasuri (“he of Hazor,” Helck, op. cit., 369). One also notes foreign couriers coming and going over the E Delta frontier between Egypt and S. Pal. (ANET, 258b). Si-Montu, a son of Ramses II, married the daughter of a Syrian sea captain called Ben-Anath (Spiegelberg, Recueil de Travaux, XVI [1894], 64), while a daughter of Ramses II bore the corresponding name Bint-Anath, “daughter of (the goddess) Anath.” In Ramesside Egypt, the learned scribes prided themselves on their knowledge of Canaanite, as in the Satirical Letter of this period (ANET, 477b); at a humbler level, a father reproached his son for making blood brotherhood with “Asiatics” while in the Delta (see J. Černy̆, JNES, XIV [1955], 161ff.). This extraordinarily rich background for the mingling of Semites and Hurrians (Horites), etc., with Egyptians in Egypt, and at all levels from court to slaves, is a fitting backcloth for the early career of a Moses—taken up by a minor princess in a Delta harem of the reigning pharaoh, and brought up in an Egyp. and Sem. milieu. Like him, other Asiatics were brought up in “district harems,” e.g., in the Fayum (see Sauneron and Yoyotte, Revue d’Égyptologie, VII [1950], 67-70; related matters, also refs. in NBD, 343b, esp. 844-845). This upbringing carries the implication that a person in Moses’ position would undergo an Egyp. royal education, no mean equipment in its day. Cf. H. Brunner, Altägyptische Erziehung (1957), for details of Egyp. education. As a scribe, a Moses would be able easily to learn the 26 or 30 letters of the W Sem. alphabet. Apart from the Sinai texts of c. 1500 b.c., other brief epigraphs in alphabetic script are known, e.g., one mentioning ’mht, “maidservants,” on an ostracon from the Valley of the Kings at Thebes, far distant from Pal. or the Delta; and, significantly, all these are homely, everyday inscrs., not recondite. In this context, the picture of a literate Moses is no fantasy—and the Hebrews would have known the ways of Canaan in Egypt itself, long before they ever set out for the Promised Land.

3. The 20th dynasty (c. 1200-1070 b.c.). Siptah, last king of the 19th dynasty, was a short-lived puppet ruler, enthroned by the Syrian “king-maker,” the chancellor Bay. After the deaths of Siptah and the dowager Queen Tewosret, one Setnakht briefly took the throne, founding the 20th dynasty and restoring internal order in Egypt again. His son Ramses III was the last great pharaoh of the empire. While Sea Peoples in the E Mediterranean basin and other folk moving overland brought final destruction to the Hitt. empire and to the old order of Amorite and Canaanite states in Syria, Ramses III was able in three campaigns to beat off both the Libyans and their allies in the W (years 5, 11) and the Sea Peoples on his NE (year 8) in a dramatic land and sea conflict in S Pal. and at the mouths of the Nile, so saving Egypt from invasion. His inscrs. (e.g., in his great funerary temple of Medinet Habu in W Thebes) contain the first known mention of the Philistines outside the pages of the OT. Peace and prosperity so hard won by Ramses III were transitory, ebbing away with the decay of administration, increase of graft and venality among officials, and spiraling inflation, causing great hardship to the ordinary people. His life ended with a harem conspiracy, and none of his successors—Ramses IV to XI—was able to stop the rot. In this period there first came into the open under Ramses IX a series of notorious tomb robberies in Western Thebes, from which not even the sacrosanct bodies of the pharaohs were exempted. Under these later Ramses, Thebes (and in some measure, Upper Egypt) was increasingly dominated by virtually a dynasty of high priests of Amun, until Amenhotep was displaced by the military commander Herihor in a coup d’état. Ramses XI then endeavored to stabilize the internal situation through the introduction of a “Renaissance” era whereby he as pharaoh had as his direct subordinates Herihor ruling Upper Egypt and Nubia, and one Smendes ruling Lower Egypt. Herihor also became high priest of Amun in Thebes, a dignity that remained hereditary in his family for another 130 years or more. With the death of Ramses XI, the empire formally came to an end, and the accession (c. 1070 b.c.) of his northern deputy Smendes marks for us the beginning of the Late Period.

No age is better known by documents and by visual remains than is the New Kingdom; special mention should be made of the great war reliefs and topographical lists in the Theban temples, so valuable for Syro-Palestinian geography, and of the amazing wealth of scenes of official and daily life still brilliantly preserved in many of the more than 400 tomb chapels of nobles and officials at Thebes. Both literary and non-literary papyri and ostraca throw a flood of light on lit., religion and society in the Egy