architecture and of her sculpture, carried to perfection her complex system of hioroglyphics-and attained very considerable proficiency in most of the useful and ornamental arts. The period of this civilisation was designatocl by Manetho that of "the Old Empire; " and the phrase has been preserved by some modern historians of Egypt 1 as indicative of a very important reality. The period of "the Old Empire II was followed by that of "the Middle Empire." At a date variously estimated, but believed by the present writer to have been about B.c. 1900, Egypt was conquered by a pastoral Asiatic people, which destroyed the old civilisation, defaced the monuments, burnt the cities, and completely demolished the temples. The whole country was plunged for a time into utter ruin and desolation. All the less massive ouildings disappeared-literature, unless enshrined in pyramids or buried in sepulchral chambers, ceased to exist--architecture, mimetic art, even the ornamental arts, finding no demand, died out--for a century or more utter barbarism settled down generally over the land, and if it had not been that in a few places native Egyptian dynasties were suffered to drag on a dependent and precarious existence, all the old knowledge would have perished. It was as when the Gothe and Vandals and Alane and Alemanni and Burgundia.ns swept over the Roman Empire of the West, and brought in those " Dark Ages " of which so much has been said and so little is known. Egypt for a century or more was crushed under the iron heel of her conquerors. Then, by slow degrees, there was a revival. The bar- barism of the invaders yielded to the softening influences of that civilisa- tion which it had nearly, but not quite, annihilated. First the useful, then the ornamental arts, were recalled into life. Temples were built, sphinxes were carved, even statues were attempted by the rude race which had at first despised all arts but war, and all trades but that of the armourer. The court of the invaders, held at Tanis in the Delta, became assimilated to that of the old Egyptian Pharaohs. No great works, however, were attempted; and the memorials of the period which remain are few and insignificant. How long the foreign domination lasted is uncertain, but the five centuries of some writers 2 are reduced by others to two centuries or two centuries and a half. 3 The present writer inclines to the shorter estimate, and would assign to the "Middle Empire" or " Hyksos rule" the period between B.c. 1900 and 1700-or at most that between B.c. 1925 and B.C. 1675.
1 See Bunsen, • Egypt's Pla.ce in Universal Hi.story,' pauim: Birch, 'Egypt from the
Earliest Times,' pp. 23-56 ; etc. . . • AI, Brogsch (' History of Egypt,' vol. ii. p. 314), Lenormani ('. Manuel d'H1stoue Ancienne,' vol. i. p. 321), e.nd Wilkinson (in the author's' Herodotus,' vol. _ii p:p 297, 298). • The arguments for the shorter period a.re well ste.ted by C~on Cook m hlB, Essa.,: on th_e Bearings of Egyptian History upon the Pentateuch (' Spee.kera Commentary, vol. 1. pa.rt 1 pp.447-8' INTRODUCTION. XXV
The yoke of the invaders was thrown off about B.c. 1700-1675 by an uprising of the native Egyptians against them, under a leader named Aahmee, who had his capital at Thebes. The most brilliant period in Egyptian history-the time of the "New Empire"-now set in. Under the eighteenth dynasty, which consisted of twelve kings and a queen, Egyptian fleets explored the Mediterranean and the Red Seas, commerce flourished, Palestine and Syria were conquered, the Euphrates was crossed, Assyria invaded, and the Khabour made the eastern limit of the Empire. At the same time architecture and all the arts revived; great temples were built, lofty obelisks erected, huge colossi upreared. The duration of the dynasty is variously estimated at from two to three centuries. In assigning to it the period from B.c. 1700 to B.c. 1400 we follow the high authority of Dr. Brugsch. Other ~ters 1 have assigned it the space from B.c. 1 703 to ;J.C. 1462-from B.C. 1633 to B.C. 1412-and from B.C. 1520 to B.C. 1324. In the ensuing dynasty-the nineteenth-Egyptian art and literature oulminated, while in arms there was a slight retrogression. Seti I. and Rameses II. erected the most magnificent of all Egyptian buildings. Seti was a conqueror, but Rameses was content to resist attack. Towards its close the dynasty showed signs of weakness. Internal troubles broke out. The succession to the crown was disputed ; and three or four short reigns were followed by a time of complete anarchy. The dynasty probably held the throne from about B.C. 1400 to B.c. 1280. Under the twentieth dynasty a rapid decline set in. The second king, Rameses III., was a remarkable monarch, successful in his wars, and great in the arts of peace. But with him the glorious period of the Egyptian monarchy came to an end-his successors rapidly degenerated, and for more than two centuries-until the time of Solomon-there was not the slightest sign of a revival. Architecture, art, literature-all pass under a cloud ; and, but for the dynastic lists and the excavated tombs of the kings, we might have supposed that some sudden calamity had engulfed and destroyed the Egyptian people. It is agreed on all hands that the period within which the Israelites and their ancestors came into contact with Egypt prior to their settlement in Canaan fell within the space occupied in Egyptian history by the dynasties between the twelfth and the twentieth inclusively. Abraham's visit to Egypt is generally assigned to the period called above that of "the Old Empire," Joseph's residence to the "Middle Empire," the oppression of the Israelites and the Exodus to the "New Empire." The chief controversy i-aiscd is with respect to the Exodus, which some assign to the nineteenth, some to the eighteenth, some to a period anterior to the eighteenth dynasty. The materials at present existing seem insufficient to determine this con- troversy ; and perhaps the unlearned reader will do best to follow the
1 Leuonnant gives the first of these estimates, Bunsen the second, and Wilkinson the third. INTRODUC'l'ION.
ha.lance of authority, which cert.a.inly at present points to the nineteenth as the dynasty, and to Menephthah, son of Rameses II., as the king, under whom the" going forth" of the Israelites took place. TABULAR VIEW OF THE CHIEF EVENTS IN EGYPTIAN HISTORY FROM THE TWELFTH TO THE TwENTIETB DYNASTY, WITH APPROXIMATE DATES,
ABOl'T B.C. Dr1'ABTIE9, Cmn Kmca. EVENT!!.