C&e IjMstorical Series foe TBfble ^tuDcnts PBOFBSSOE CHARLES F. KENT, PH.D., of Yale Uni R FRANK K. SANDERS, PH.D., formerly of Yale University Volume v A HISTORY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS Cfte historical Series for TSiblt Students It also refers freely to the biblical and monumental sources, and lo the standard aulhoii- VOLS. I. HISTORY OF THE HEBREW PEOPLE. 1. The United Kingdom. Sixth edi- CHARLES F. KENT, Ph.D., Professor of B 'bhCa ' LlteratUrC' 2. The^D'ivlded Kingdom. Sixth edi- II. HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE. 3. The Babylonian, Persian, and Greek CHARLES F. KENT, Ph.D., Professor of III. CONTEMPORARY OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. IV. NEW TESTAMENT HISTORIES. 7. The Life of Jesus. RUSH RHFFS, President nf the University C 8. The Apostolic Age. GEOBnE T. "'URVES, Ph.D., D.D.. late C C1 and lxegesis, pruKetSL Theological V. OUTLINES FOR THE STUDY OF BIBLICAL HISTORY AND LITERATURE. 9. From Earliest Times to 200 A. D. FRANK K. SANDERS, Ph.D., Professor of A HISTORY THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS JAMES HENRY BREASTED, Pn.I). WITH FOUR MAPS AND TIIR% PLANS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS MY FATHER IN REVERENCE AND GKA PREFACE As works on the early Orient multiply, it becomes more and more easy to produce such books at second and third hand, which are thus separated by a long primary sources of knowledge. As the use of this vol- ume is in a measure conditioned by the method which produced it, may the author state that it is based di- rectly and immediately upon the monuments, and in most cases upon the original monuments, rather than upon any published edition of the same? For this pur- pose the historical monuments still standing in Egypt, or installed in the museums of Europe (the latter in to- to), were copied or collated by the author anew ad hoc and rendered into English (see infra, p. 445, B. Trans- lations, BAR). Upon this complete version the present volume rests. Those students who desire to consult the sources upon which any given fact is based, are re- ferred to this English corpus. A full bibliography of each original monument, if desired, will also be found there, and hence no references to such technical bibliog- raphy will be found herein, thus freeing the reader from a mass of workshop debris, to which, however, he can easily refer, if he desires it. While this volume is largely a condensation and abridgement of the author's longer history, he has en- deavoured to conform it to the design of this historical series and to make it as far as possible a history of the Egyptian people. At the same time the remarkable recent discoveries and the progress of research made since the appearance of his larger history have been fully incorporated. The discovery of the Hittite capital records of this remarkable people, and elsewhere the evidence that they conquered Babylonia temporarily in the eighteenth century B. c., form the most remarkable of the new facts recently recovered.* The new-found evidence that the first and third dynasties of Babylon were contemporaneous with the second, has also settled the problem, whether the civilization of the Nile or of the Euphrates is older, in favour of Egypt, where the forma- tion of a homogeneous, united state, embracing the whole country under the successive dynasties, is over a thousand years older than in Babylonia. We possess no monument of Babylonia, as Eduard Meyer recently remarked to the author, older than 3000 B. c. The author's journey through Sudanese Nubia during the winter of 1906-07 cleared his mind of a number of mis- conceptions of that country, especially economically, while it also recovered the lost city of Gem-Aton, and disposed of the impossible though current view that the Egyptian conquest was extended southward immedi- ately after the fall of the Middle Kingdom. Those fa- miliar with the other history will also welcome the im- proved maps redrawn for this volume. On the never-settled question of a pronounceable, * This book was paged in October, 1907, but as the proof was unhappily lost for three months in transport to Europe, the re- sults of the second campaign (summer of 1907) at Boghaz-Kbi, which appeared in December, 1907, could not be employed in detail as they might otherwise have been. that is vocalized, form of Egyptian proper names, which are written in hieroglyphic without vowels, I must refer the reader to the remarks in the preface of my An- cient xiv. It is that Records (Vol. I., pp. fi.). hoped the index has made them pronounceable. As to the au- thor's indebtedness to others in the preparation of this volume, he may also refer to his acknowledgments in the same preface, as well as in that of his larger history acknowledgments which are equally true of this briefer work. He would also express his appreciation of the patience shown him by both editor and pub- lisher, who have waited long for the manuscript of this book, delayed as it has been by distant travels and heavy tasks, and the fact that the mass of the material collected proved too large to condense at once into this volume, thus resulting in the production of the larger history first. Even so, the present volume is larger than its fellows in the series, and the author greatly appre- ciates the indulgence of the publishers in this respect. In conclusion, to the student of the Old Testament, by whom it will be chiefly used, the author would express the hope that the little book may contribute somewhat toward a wider recognition of the fact, that the rise and development, the culture and career, of the Hebrew nation were as vitally conditioned and as deeply influ- enced by surrounding civilizations, as modern historical science has shown to be the fact with every other peo- ple, ancient or modern. JAMES HENRY BREASTED. BORDIQHERA, ITALY, March 2, 1908. CONTENTS PART I INTRODUCTION I. THE LAND OF THE EGYPTIANS . II. PRELIMINARY SURVEY, CHRONOLOG III. EARLIEST EGYPT PART II THE OLD KINGDOM IV. EARLY RELIGION V. THE OLD KINGDOM: GOVERNMENT , VI. THE PYRAMID BUILDERS . VII. THE SIXTH DYNASTY: THE DECLINI KINGDOM PART III THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE VIII. THE DECLINE OF THE NORTH AND THE RISE OF THEBES : IX. THE MIDDLE KINGDOM OR THE FEUDAL AGE STATE, SOCIETY AND RELIGION . X. THE TWELFTH DYNASTY ii CONTENTS PART IV THE HYKSOS: THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE XI. THE FALL OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM. THE XII. THE EXPULSION OF THE HYKSOS UMPH OF THEBES .... PART V THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD XIII. THE NEW STATE: SOCIETY AND RELIGION XIV. THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE KINGDO XV. THE FEUD OF THE THUTM OF QUEEN HATSHEPS XVI. THE CONSOLIDATION OF 11 OF THUTMOSE in. XVII. THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEI XVIII. THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUT: XIX. THE FALL OF IKHNATON OF THE EMPIRE. PART VI THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD XX. THE TRIUMPH OF AMON AND THE REORGANIZA- TION OF THE EMPIRE 2 XXI. THE WARS OF RAMSES II 3 XXII. THE EMPJRE OF RAMSES II 3 XXIII. THE FINAL DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE: MERNEP- TAH AND RAMSES III 3 CONTENTS xiii PART VII THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT XXIV. THE FALL OP THE EMPIRE 347 XXV. PRIESTS AND MERCENARIES: THE SUPREMACY OF THE LIBYANS 357 XXVI. THE ETHIOPIAN SUPREMACY AND THE TRIUMPH OF ASSYRIA 367 PART VIII THE RESTORATION AND THE END XXVII. THE RESTORATION 387 XXVIII. THE FINAL STRUGGLES: BABYLON AND PERSIA 404 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 419 A SELECTED BIB INDEX OF NAM; MAPS AND PLANS MAP I. EGYPT ANI MAP II. THE ASIA MAP III. THEBES A PLAN IV. THE TEMI THE BATTLE OF KADESH, SECOND STAC MAP V. GENERAL MAP OF EGYPT A PART I INTRODUCTION THE LAND OF THE EGYPTIANS 1. THE roots of modern civilization are deeply in the highly elaborate life of those nations which rose into power over six thousand years ago, in the basin of the (eastern Mediterranean, and the ad- jacent regions on the east of it. Had the Euphrates finally found its way into the Mediterranean, toward which, indeed, it seems to have started, both the early civilizations, to which we refer, might then have been included in the Mediterranean basin. As it is, the scene of early oriental history does not fall entirely within that basin, but must be designated as the east- ern Mediterranean region. It lies in the midst of the vast desert plateau, which, beginning at the Atlantic, extends eastward across the entire northern end of Africa, and continuing beyond the depression of the Red Sea, passes northeastward, with some interrup- tions, far into the heart of Asia. Approaching it, the one from the south and the other from the north, two great river valleys traverse this desert; in Asia, the Tigro-Euphrates valley; in Africa that of the Nile. It is in these two valleys that the career of man may be traced from the rise of European civilization back to a remoter age than anywhere else on earth; and it is from these two cradles of the human race that the in- fluences which emanated from their highly developed 4 INTRODUCTION but differing cultures, can now be more and more clearly traced as we discern them converging upon the early civilization of Asia Minor and southern Europe. 2. The Nile, which created the valley home of the early Egyptians, rises three degrees south of the equa- tor, and flowing into the Mediterranean at over thirty- one and a half degrees north latitude, it attains a length of some four thousand miles and vies with the greatest rivers of the world in length, if not in volume.