started a little after sunrise. We followed the base of the mountain westward, about two miles, over low, broken hills. On the way we came in sight of the Tigris, sweeping its course with its wonted rapidity, about three miles beyond us. We halted near the small village of Beeboozee, inhabited by Papal Nestorians, and waited for our muleteers to come up with us; here our road changed its direction toward the northwest, and led us over the rocky ridge by a cow pass, and down upon a fine grassy plain, about three miles broad, which runs up from the shores of the Tigris directly east between two parallel mountain ranges. This district, which is called Kayid, is mostly inhabited by Yezedees. Crossing a large brook at the foot of the ridge, we soon came to the village of Tilbash (hill of Kush, the name of a king). The peasants were planting rice near the village. A few rods east of it is the ancient Nestorian church of Mar Melus, which is deserted, there being no Nestorians now in this district. ARTICLE VII. EGYPTOLOGY, ORIENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND TRAVEL. BY JOSEPHI P. THOMPSON, d.d., new YORK. Ir is hopeful for the future of Egyptology that the leading scholars in this department are combining their labors for a common end. The Zeitschrift für Aegyptische Sprach-und Alterthumskunde, which was commenced in July, 1863, by Dr. Heinrich Brugsch, as an independent publication, is now issued under the joint editorship of Lepsius and Brugsch (the latter being Prussian consul at Cairo), and with the special co-operation of Messrs. Birch, Chabas, and other well-known Egyptologists. Mons. Chabas has lately published a second series of his Mélanges Égyptologiques,1 containing articles from Drs. Birch and Hincks, and Mr. C. W. Goodwin. This cooperation gives assurance of important results in the interpretation of hieroglyphic texts. Already there are indications that the monuments of Egypt are about to yield up the mystery of the Hebrew bondage and exodus. The Bibliotheca Sacra has reported the supposed identification of the Hebrews by Mons. Chabas in the hieroglyphic group Aperiu=Hiberim ;1 and also the confirmation of this reading by Dr. Brugsch. As the result of more recent investigation, Mons. Chabas believes that documentary evi 1 Chalon-sur-saone: Imprimerie de J. Dejussieu. 2 Bib. Sac., Vol. XX. p. 881. dence points to Ramsès II. as the Pharaoh who received Moses into his court, and to his son and successor Meï-en-Ptah (perhaps the same with Amenophis) as the king under whose reign the events of the exodus took place. The argument on this is presented in an essay upon Ramsès and Pithom, in the Mélanges Égyptologiques, of which the following is a sum mary. The sacred historian concentrates his attention upon the Hebrew people, without caring to introduce the contemporaneous history of other nations. Had Moses given us the names of the Egyptian kings from Joseph to the exodus, we should have had several important synchronisms; but he uniformly designates the sovereign by the generic title of Pharaoh. In the whole history of Israel in Egypt there is nothing so specific with regard to Egypt itself as the mention made of Pithom and Ramses, in Exodus i. 11 : "Therefore they did set over them task-masters, to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure-cities (mid), Pithom and Raamses." That the Egyptians thus utilized their captives is evident from numerous hieroglyphic records. The familiar picture in the funeral chapel of Abdel-Qurna at Thebes, representing captives engaged in the various details of building, hauling stone, making brick, carrying burdens, etc., each detachment of laborers having an overseer armed with a stick for punishment has over it this explanatory legend: "captives employed by his majesty in building the temple of his father Ammon." Dr. Brugsch gives also an inscription which describes the building of magazines for Ammon, which appear to have been depots for the various stores and animals needed in the service of the temple. M. Chabas finds in this an analogy to the Miskenoth of Ex. i. 11, where for "treasure-cities" he would read “magazines,” in the comprehensive sense in which the same term is used in 2 Chron. xxxii. 28: “Hezekiah built storehouses [miskenoth] for the increase of corn, and wine, and oil; and stalls for all manner of beasts, and cotes for flocks." Here, then, are two correspondences established between the hieroglyphic record and the Hebrew text. It was customary for Egyptian monarchs to build great storehouses in connection with their temples, and to employ captives as their drudges under taskmasters. M. Chabas finds also a third coincidence in a fragment of the papyrus Anastasi III., which he interprets as the report of a scribe, that twelve workmen who had been employed in the field at brickmaking, having failed to render their appointed tale, were set at harder tasks upon a building. This is a curious illustration of the story in Exodus v. 6 – 20, of the harder tasks laid upon the Israelites, when for lack of straw, they failed to return the required tale of brick. Such analogies serve to verify the biblical narratives from customs known to have existed at the era of Moses. 1 Brugsch Histoire d'Egypte, Tom. I. p. 106. See also Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, Vol. II. p. 99. The name Ramsès, which signifies "begotten of the sun," belonged to a numerous line of kings of the nineteenth and twentieth dynasties. It was customary to attach the name of the reigning monarch to cities, temples, fortresses, palaces, reservoirs, etc., built by his authority; and there are numerous examples of this during the epoch of Seti I. and of the Ramsès. With Seti I. began the fortification of Lower Egypt, as a defence against incursions from Asia1; but the great builder of that era was Ramsès II., who being involved in long wars with Asiatic powers, multiplied cities and fortresses in the Delta, to consolidate his empire in Lower Egypt. The papyrus Anastasi III. contains a brilliant description of the city and temple of Ramsès Meiamon, written by a scribe who attended the king in one of his visits to that favored place. The writer pronounces the city perfect: its public buildings surpass those of Thebes; the fields in its vicinage are of marvellous fertility; its market abounds in fruits, fish, flowers, and in delicacies of all sorts, daily brought from the surrounding country, and also by water, to its doors. From this allusion to conveyance by water, it is inferred that the city was in the vicinity either of the Red Sea or of the Mediterranean, or of a navigable branch or canal of the Nile. The fertility of the district in which Ramsès was situated, accords perfectly with the statement that Joseph gave his brethren a possession "in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses." Another papyrus places the citadel of Ramsès Meiamon in the vicinity of Ijor or Zor, the capital of the fourteenth Nome in Lower Egypt, which Dr. Brugsch locates near lake Timsah, bordering upon the canal that connected the Nile with the Red Sea. From all this, Mons. Chabas infers the existence of an important city founded by Ramsès II. in the eastern part of the Delta, where the Bible places the city of Rameses. Add to this evidence the report of the scribes touching the foreigners called Aperi-u- [=Hiberi-m], who were employed in building a palace-temple for Ramsès II., and there is a strong presumption that the Goshen of the Exodus is substantially identified from Egyptian sources. Concerning Pithom, less is known. The evidence points towards a seaboard city upon the eastern frontier. The British Museum contains a mutilated papyrus which records the fact that certain chiefs of wandering tribes that dwelt in the deserts of Arabia Petrea and of Syria, were authorized to settle in Egypt, in the vicinity of Pithom, with their flocks, in order that their cattle might not perish. This was the very reason assigned by Joseph's brethren for coming to sojourn in the land of Egypt: "thy servants have no pasture for their flocks, for the famine is sore in the land of Canaan." We would be careful against fanciful analogies between the scriptures and early Egyptian records, and also against hasty inferences from established correspondences. But, on the other hand, we must agree with M. Chabas that the Christian believer has nothing to fear from Egyp 1 See Papyrus of Berlin, pp. 38 and 81. 2 Geographische Inschriften, Vol I. pp. 260-266. tology, even though it should compel him to modify somewhat the received chronology of the Hebrew scriptures. Dr. Brugsch has prepared a valuable help for the determination of Egyptian chronology in a study upon the calendar. The materials for this study are: (1) The Coptic calendar, which dates from the era of Diocletian or of the Martyrs, August, A. D. 284. The Coptic year commences on the 10th of September, and consists of twelve months of thirty days each, with the addition of five complementary days at the close of the last month, and of a sixth day every fourth year. (2) The Alexandrine calendar, of Greek origin, dating from 30 B.C. In the division of months and the arrangement of complementary days this corresponds with the Coptic. (3) The ancient Egyptian calendar, as inscribed upon monuments at Guertassi, Esneh, Dendera, etc. After an elaborate comparison of these several data, Dr. Brugsch reaches the following conclusions: the Egyptians had two or more distinct years; the monumental datation is based upon a civil year, which began forty days after the rising of Sirius; in addition to this year, which regulated all dates in civil life, the Egyptians had a sacred year, whose beginning was marked by the rising of Sirius; and there was also a scale of special eponyms for harmonizing the sacred with the civil year. Dr. Brugsch promises, in a second volume, several inscriptions which will furnish the elements of a certain epoch of Egyptian history; and also a reduction of the monumental dates and calendars to the Julian year. One such reduction, clearly verified, will lay a sure foundation amid the chaos of Egyptian dates. The date supposed to have been won by M. de Rougé, from a monolith discovered in the Delta by Mr. Mariette, is not accepted by Mr. Chabas as belonging to any known era. M. Mariette, an indefatigable and most successful explorer, found at Tanis, in a confused mass of ruins that mark the site of the great temple, a monolith of red granite, with a distinct inscription, of the era of Mëiamon Ramsès. The monarch is described as king of Upper and Lower Egypt, the most powerful of conquerors, who takes care of Egypt and chastises foreign nations, and who possesses the earth through the monuments erected to his name. This accords perfectly with the character of Ramsès the Great. The monolith records the date 400. But of what era? Some suppose it to refer to the Hyksos invasion, and thus to identify the great dynasty of the Ramsès with those foreign conquerors. 1 Matériaux pour servir a la reconstruction du Calendrier des anciens Egyptiens Par Henri Brugsch. Leipzig: 1864. 2 Rev. Arch., Fevrier et Mars, 1865. But M. Chabas shows that this theory lacks proof from the monuments; and, moreover, that "the debris of information which has survived the shipwreck of ancient science," has not yet yielded sufficient data for a chronological system. If Dr. Brugsch shall establish his new construction of the calendar, we may recover the lost thread of this labyrinth of ages. A curious incident brings the name of the youngest of modern emperors into direct association with the eldest of the Pharaohs: When Maximilian I. of Mexico visited Egypt in 1855, he obtained, through the favor of the viceroy, the privilege of selecting a few antiquities from the museum at Cairo, as souvenirs of his visit, to adorn his own palace of Miramar, near Trieste. These, with kindred articles previously purchased, at the instance of Maximilian, by the Austrian consul-general in Egypt, form quite a respectable museum. The specimens, consisting of monoliths, statuettes, amulets, mummies, and sarcophagi, are remarkably perfect, and many of them show great beauty of execution. Dr. S. Reinisch of Vienna has made this collection a special study, and has published his results in an elegant royal octavo, richly illustrated, and appropriately dedicated to his majesty the emperor Maximilian I. Without design on the part of its imperial founder, this museum proves to have a peculiar character, in that nearly all its treasures serve to illustrate, in some way, the religious belief of the Egyptians; and it was with a view to the elucidation of this still obscure department of Egyptology, that Dr. Reinisch addressed himself to their interpretation. His readings of the Miramar monuments confirm the evidence from the "Book of the Dead," and from other sources, that the Egyptians believed in the existence of the soul after death, in the rewarding of the good and the punishing of the bad in the hereafter, and also in the reunion of the deified soul with the transfigured body. This last is beautifully symbolized by a bird with a human face and with the symbols of life gently settling down upon the bosom of a mummy as it reposes upon a bier. In keeping with this belief was the formula inscribed upon the sepulchral figures little images of porcelain, clay, terra-cotta, etc.— which were profusely scattered in the Egyptian tombs. These figures, according to the normal type, represent a person equipped with a hoe and a pickaxe, and with a basket for the purpose of removing sand. They were called “respondents," and were supposed to respond to the wishes of the deceased for whatever service he might be required to perform in hades. The formula reads: "Should I call upon you, get ye ready at once to do what is 1 Die Aegyptischen Denkmaeler in Miramar, Beschrieben, erläutert und herausgegeben von S. Reinisch, Doctor der Philosophie, Privatdocent an der K. K. Universität in Wien, etc. Wien Wilhelm Braumuller. 1865. |