The History of Antiquity, Vol. 3 (of 6). Duncker Max

this house, Smendes, must have ascended the throne about 20 years before the time when the people of Israel raised up Saul to be king. The chronology of the Hebrews allows us to establish the fact that the last prince of this house must have come to an end at least ten years before the middle of the tenth century.130 From this point (960 B.C.), the period already mentioned as the length of the dynasty of the Tanites, carries us back to the year 1074 for the date of the accession of Smendes.

      Since the expulsion of the Hyksos the central point of the kingdom had remained for more than 500 years at Thebes. With the accession of the Tanites it was removed to the Delta. Henceforth it was never restored to Upper Egypt or to Thebes. After a reign of 26 years Smendes was succeeded by Psusennes, who sat on the throne for 46 years (1048-1002 B.C.). If it was Psusennes, who took into his protection the young son of the king of Edom, who was saved from David and Joab by the servants of his father, and gave him the sister of his wife in marriage,131 it is the daughter of Amenophtis, the fourth prince of this house (998-989 B.C.), which Solomon took to wife, whom he honoured above his other wives, and for whom he built a special house near his new palace (II. 185). Solomon remained on good terms with the successors of Amenophtis. Only a few shields have been preserved from the monuments of this dynasty in the ruins of Tanis; in these we can recognise the name of Smendes in the form of Si-Mentu, of Psusennes I. in the form Psiuncha, of Amenophtis in the form Amenemenkam, and lastly of Psusennes II. in the form Hor Psiuncha.132

      The last prince of this house, Psusennes II., was succeeded in the year 960B.C. by Sesonchis, the Ssheshonk of the monuments, the Shishak of the Hebrews. With him begins a new dynasty, which, according to Manetho's list, belonged to the canton of Bubastis. In the Western Delta a considerable part of the population, at any rate since the time of the shepherd kings, was of a Semitic character. But families belonging to the nation of the shepherds were not all that remained from those periods; Semitic elements remained in the language and manners of the Egyptians, and these certainly increased in importance owing to the campaigns of the Tuthmosis and Amenophis in Syria, the long settlement of the Hebrews in this district, the relations of Ramses II. to the Hittites; lastly, to the trade of the Phenicians, the friendly relation and lively intercourse which the Tanites maintained since Solomon's time with the kingdom of Israel. The names of the forefathers and descendants of Ssheshonk show that he belonged to a Semitic family living in the canton of Bubastis. His forefathers had risen under the Pharaohs of Tanis; his grandfather, whose name the grandson bore, had married a lady of distinction. The offspring of this marriage, Nemrut (Nimrod), was captain of the body-guard (Mashawasha), and bore the Semitic title, Ser a mat, i. e. sovereign; at any rate he is so named by his son Ssheshonk on a granite block at Abydus, which enumerates the funds supplied by the son for the libations poured to his father who is buried here – unless we have rather to recognise in this title as well as in the addition to it, "prince of princes," titles of distinction subsequently transferred from the son to the father.133 In another inscription the same Ssheshonk calls his predecessor Psusennes II. king of Upper Egypt;134 a memorial stone of Selsilis mentions a double accession of Ssheshonk; the inscription on a statue of the Nile in the British Museum states that king Hor Psiuncha married his daughter Rakamat to Osorkon, the son of Ssheshonk.135 Hence we may assume that Ssheshonk, the son of Nemrut, became a rival for the throne; that Psusennes II. was perhaps compelled to retire to Upper Egypt, whither Ssheshonk could not penetrate; that a compromise took place with Psusennes, the possessor of the throne, by means of this marriage, which secured the succession to Ssheshonk and his family; and that Ssheshonk subsequently described his rebellion as his first accession, and his accession after the death of Psusennes II. as his second.136

      However this may be, whether Ssheshonk in the first instance obtained the power over Lower Egypt only, whether he afterwards lost it, or whether he did not obtain the supremacy till after the death of Hor Psiuncha,137 he took up a different position towards the kingdom of Judah from that occupied by the dynasty of Tanis since the accession of Amenophtis. When flying from Solomon, Jeroboam found refuge and protection with Ssheshonk. When after Solomon's death the ten tribes made Jeroboam their king, as against Rehoboam, Ssheshonk in the year B.C. 949 undertook the campaign against Judah which secured Jeroboam; he confirmed the division, carried away spoil from Judah, and exhibited Israel in dependence on Egypt. The results of this campaign Ssheshonk caused to be set forth in the most splendid manner on the walls of the temple of Karnak, westward of the building which Ramses III. had here erected in the circuit-wall, (I. 177). The picture displays the victorious Pharaoh, and the taxed places as bound figures in a long row (II. 233). Over the row of vanquished places we read that "the good god (the king) returned in peace, after defeating the nations of the North and South; that he led home captive nations who had never seen Egypt, that he spread the terror of his name as far as the four pillars of the heavens." Ammon says to the king: "My heart is glad, that I have seen thy victories. I have granted that the nations of the South shall be defeated and come to thee, and the nations of the North shall be subject to the greatness of thy name. Their kings throw themselves on the belly, for they are stricken to the ground in their vallies. I have known the splendour of thy thoughts; thou hast carried out the work of my temple at Thebes, the brilliant place, which my heart loves; thou hast begun to build in Hermonthis and Heliopolis."138 We see what achievements the inscriptions of the Pharaohs can make out of a plundering excursion into the south of Syria: the nations of the North and of the South are overcome; the terror of Ssheshonk is spread to the pillars of the sky.

      Besides this picture of his victories on the outer wall, Ssheshonk erected a kind of entrance porch to the southern court of the great temple at Karnak. The inscriptions on the architrave of this porch tell us that Ssheshonk had given command to enlarge the temple of Ammon; that he had made the city of Thebes to live again.139 On a memorial stone in the quarries of Selsilis, the goddess Mut places the king, "the great conqueror of all nations," accompanied by his son Aupoth,140 before Ammon of Thebes, Ra-Harmachu of Heliopolis, and Ptah of Memphis. The inscription says: "That is the divine benefactor; Ra wears his shape; he is the image of Harmachu. Ammon has placed him on the throne, in order to complete what he had begun, in the occupation of Egypt for the second time. This is king Ssheshonk; he caused a new quarry to be opened for the beginning of a structure. Of such a nature is the kindness which he has shown to his father, Ammon Ra." Then Ssheshonk himself says: "It is a beautiful thing to work for Ammon. Grant me a long reign for that which I have done. I have caused a new quarry to be opened for him for the beginning of a work. The high priest of Ammon has carried it out, Aupoth the highest captain of the most famous army, the first of all the warriors of Patores, the son of Ssheshonk."141 The architect also, who had to erect the portico, Horemsaf, mentions this task in an inscription at Selsilis. In the twenty-first year, i. e. in the twenty-first year of the reign,142 Ssheshonk had commanded him to obtain the best stones of Selsilis, in order to erect buildings for the king of the gods, and to surround them with a strong wall.143

      Ssheshonk was succeeded by his son Osorkon, the husband of the daughter of Psusennes II., the last king of the preceding dynasty. It is supposed that in him we may discover the Cushite Serach, who, according to the Books of Chronicles, invaded the kingdom of Judah in the fifteenth year of king Asa, i. e. in 918 B.C., but was defeated by him at Maresa (II. 233). The monuments of Egypt only mention to us the names of the two wives of Osorkon. Osorkon was followed by Takeloth, Osorkon II., Ssheshonk II., Takeloth II., Ssheshonk III., Pimai, and Ssheshonk IV. No monuments of these kings have come down to us except memorial stones in the tombs of the Apis on the plateau of Memphis. These memorials show that the regulations of Ssheshonk I. to give to one of his sons the office of high priest at Thebes, and with this office to combine the command of divisions of the army, and to put other divisions

130

II. 229, note.

131

II. 155.

132

Maspero reads Psiuncha; Brugsch, Pisebkhan.

133

In the unpublished inscription of Abydus in Brugsch, "Hist. of Egypt," II. p. 199.

134

Brugsch, loc. cit. II. p. 204.

135

According to Brugsch, Rakamat, or Karamat, was not the wife of Osorkon, but of Ssheshonk, loc. cit., p. 204.

136

To make Pithut, Ssheshonk, Nemrut, and Ssheshonk II., as well as Panrechnes or Pallash-Nisu, kings of Assyria, and place a conquest of Egypt by Assyria at the end of the twenty-first dynasty (Brugsch, "Hist. of Egypt," II. p. 198), because Nemrut or Nemaroth is called on the stone of Abydus "Ser a mat," and "prince of princes," appears to me absolutely impossible. How could one of the kings of Asshur, who, in the service of Asshur, Samas, and Bin, overthrew the nations, allow himself to be buried near Osiris of Abydus? – how could his son perform Egyptian funeral rites for him there? The Books of the Hebrews must have preserved some knowledge of a conquest of Egypt in the time of David and Solomon, in the first half of the tenth century – how could the armies of Assyria have come to Egypt except through Syria? Tiglath Pilesar I., about 1100 B.C., touched northern Syria merely in passing; not till the ninth century did Assurnasirpal again come as far as Mount Amanus and the coast of the Phenicians, and Shalmanesar as far as Damascus. A hundred years later Tiglath Pilesar II. first planted a firm foot in Syria. The Semitic (?) character of the names of the princes of the twenty-second dynasty, who are also distinguished as eager worshippers of the gods of Egypt, as well as the Semitic nationality of the six or eight servants, who, according to the stone of Abydus, were allotted to the plots of ground for the funeral service of Nemaroth at Abydus, are sufficiently explained by what we know of the mingling of the population in the Western Delta, and of other Semitic influence in Egypt.

137

It ought perhaps to be observed that Shishak (1 Kings xi. 40), is not called Pharaoh, but Melek Mizraim.

138

Brugsch, "Hist. d'Egypte," p. 227.

139

Brugsch, "Hist. d'Egypte," p. 222.

140

Others read Shuput.

141

Brugsch, "Hist. of Egypt," II. 212.

142

According to Manetho's list, Sesonchis reigned 21 years.

143

Brugsch, loc. cit. II. p. 198.