006. III. The Egyptian Background
III THE EGYPTIAN BACKGROUND
I.The Beginnings of Egyptian History(3400-2900B.C.). Egypt’s early history is closely parallel to that of Babylonia. It begins at about the same time, with a long period during which rival city states, and nomes or provinces, fought with each other, the stronger gaining a temporary supremacy over their weaker neighbors. By 3400 B.C. at least, the rule of Memphis was acknowledged throughout all Egypt. About this time may be dated the first of the thirty-three dynasties in the classification of the Egyptian historian Manetho, whose tables have been generally adopted as the basis of Egyptian chronology. At the very beginnings of its recorded history, the art and civilization of Egypt had also attained an exceedingly high stage of development.
II.The Fourth Dynasty(2900-2750 B.C.). The immunity from foreign attack which Egypt enjoyed during its earlier history, left its rulers free to carry out vast building enterprises. The greatest building dynasty was the fourth (about 2700 B.C.). Its kings penetrated the Sinaitic peninsula and opened the mines and quarries along the Red Sea. They also, in part, reclaimed the lands of the Nile Delta and built defences on the east to keep out Semitic invaders. Their crowning achievement was the construction of the great pyramids at Gizeh as royal tombs. The magnitude of their work and the remarkable organization of the empire, which it reveals, can only be appreciated when it is remembered that the Great Pyramid alone covers thirteen acres, is four hundred and eighty feet high, and contains nearly seven million tons of stone, transported from Syene, five hundred miles up the Nile.
III.Twelfth Dynasty (about2000to1800 B.C.). The rulers of the twelfth dynasty accomplished for Egypt what the great Hammurabi did for Babylon. Seven powerful, long-lived kings succeeded one another.
Nubia in the south, with its rich gold mines, was conquered. Peaceful commercial relations were established with Syria and southern Arabia. The marshy district west of the lower Nile, now called the Faiyum, was drained, greatly increasing the productive area of Egypt. Many palaces and temples were built. The industries and local interests of the different provinces were developed. Contemporary inscriptions bear testimony to the noble spirit of justice and consideration for their subjects that actuated kings and princes. One ruler declares that he “ marched through the country to overthrow evil, fixed the frontier of each township and placed the boundary stones as firm as the sky. He sought information from the books as to the irrigation district belonging to each town, and this was drawn up according to the ancient writings, because he loved truth so much.” A noble also boasts: “No daughter of a citizen have I injured, no widow have I molested, no laborer have I arrested, no shepherd have I banished, no superintendent of workmen was there whose laborers I have taken away. In my time there were no poor, and none were hungry in my day. When the years of famine came, I ploughed all the fields of the province from the southern to the northern boundary. I kept the inhabitants alive and gave them food, so that none was hungry. I gave to the widow, even as to her who had a husband; I never preferred the great to the small.”
IV.Rule of the Hyksos (about1650-1580 B.C.). After the peaceful and prosperous days of the twelfth dynasty, civil war between the kings and their powerful nobles weakened the kingdom and invited foreign invasion. The invasion of Babylonia by the Kassites during the latter part of the eighteenth century B.C. was but the beginning of a general westward movement of the peoples of southwestern Asia. One important result of this same movement was that certain tribes from Syria, Palestine, and Northern Arabia were pushed on through the Isthmus of Suez and seized northern Egypt. Establishing themselves in the Delta, they soon brought southern Egypt also into subjection. For fully a century these so-called Hyksos kings maintained their rule, adopting many of the Egyptian institutions. In the end the native princes of Thebes rallied the south-land, and, after a half century of fierce fighting, succeeded in driving the invaders back into Asia.
V.The Victorious Eighteenth Dynasty (1580-1350B.C.). The long training in warfare, the possession of the horse and chariot which the Hyksos first brought to the land of the Nile, the fear of subsequent invasions, and the newborn desire for military glory, all united in transforming the peaceful Egyptians into a conquering nation. Under the leadership of the able kings of the victorious eighteenth dynasty (about 1600 to 1350 B.C.), the kingdom of Egypt suddenly expanded into an empire. The great conqueror Thutmose III, in a series of campaigns, subjugated Palestine and Syria, and carried the borders of his empire to the Euphrates. For fully a century Egypt ruled the eastern Mediterranean coast-land. By its prestige and alliances with Asiatic provinces it extended its influence still further, so that, while Babylonia and Assyria were engaged in mortal combat, Egypt was mistress of the western world. From all the subject states she exacted heavy annual tribute. The income from this source and the services of the captives of war made possible the huge building enterprises for which the eighteenth and following dynasty were famous.
IV.The Nineteenth Dynasty (1350-1205B.C.). During the rule of the nineteenth dynasty, Egypt was confronted in northern Syria by a formidable foe, the Hittites, who came down from the mountains of eastern Asia Minor. After fighting with them for nearly twenty years, Ramses II concluded a remarkable treaty which established the boundary line between the two peoples a little north of Mount Hermon. The treaty left Ramses II free to develop the resources of his empire, and to fill Egypt from one end to the other with the monuments of his zeal as a builder.
V.The Transitional Twelfth CenturyB.C. The beginning of the twelfth century B.C. is memorable as a great transitional epoch in ancient history. It saw the decline of the first Babylonian empire. In the west the second great world empire, Egypt, torn by civil wars within and attacked from without by northern hordes, entered its long eclipse. The same hordes broke the power of the Hittites in northern Syria, so that they soon disappeared. At the same time in the east, Assyria began to gather its forces for that series of conquests which ended in the mastery of the ancient Semitic world. From Mesopotamia the Arameans moved westward and southward to take possession of northern Syria. Along the shore from southern Asia Minor came the ancestors of the Philistines to break the power of Egypt and to find a home on the rich, rolling plains of southwestern Palestine. From Egypt certain Hebrew tribes went forth as fugitives, and began that memorable movement which led them at last to the land of Canaan and the possession of central Palestine. With the twelfth century the earliest chapter of human history which represented over three millenniums of magnificent achievement and splendor, closes, and a new era of political, intellectual, and religious progress opens.