Discoveries in Egypt, Ethiopia and the peninsula of Sinai, in the years 1842-1845, during the mission sent out by his majesty, Frederick William IV of Prussia.Lepsius, Richard
History
Discoveries in Egypt, Ethiopia and the peninsula of Sinai, in the years 1842-1845, during the mission sent out by his majesty, Frederick William IV of Prussia.
I have more in mind the remarkable scene in the tomb of the royal
relation, Nehera-si-Numhotep, the second from the north, which places
the immigration of Jacob and his family before our eyes in a most lively
manner, and which would almost induce us to connect the two, if Jacob
had not really entered at a far later period, and if we were not aware
that such immigrations of single families could not be unfrequent.
These, however, were the precursors of the Hyksos, and prepared the way
for them in more than one respect. I have traced the whole
representation, which is about eight feet long, and one-and-a-half high,
and is very well preserved through, as it is only painted. The Royal
Scribe, Nefruhotep, who conducts the company into the presence of the
high officer to whom the grave belongs, is presenting him a leaf of
papyrus. Upon this the sixth year of King Sesurtesen II. is mentioned,
in which that family of thirty-seven persons came to Egypt. Their chief
and lord was named Absha, they themselves Aama, a national designation,
recurring with the light-complexioned race, often represented in the
royal tombs of the nineteenth dynasty, together with three other races,
and forming the four principal divisions of mankind, with which the
Egyptians were acquainted. Champollion took them for Greeks when he was
in Benihassan, but he was not then aware of the extreme antiquity of the
monuments before him. Wilkinson considers them prisoners, but this is
confuted by their appearance with arms and lyres, with wives, children,
donkeys and luggage; I hold them to be an immigrating Hyksos-family,
which begs for a reception into the favoured land, and whose posterity
perhaps opened the gates of Egypt to the conquering tribes of their
Semetic relations.
The city to which the rich rock-Necropolis of Benihassan belonged, and
which is named Nus in the hieroglyphic inscriptions, must have been very
considerable, and without doubt lay opposite on the left bank of the
Nile, where old mounds are still existing, and were marked on the French
maps. That the geography of the Greeks and Romans knows nothing of this
city, Nus, as indeed was true of many other cities of the Old Empire, is
not very astonishing, if it be considered that the five hundred years of
Hyksos dominion intervened. The sudden fall of the Empire and of this
flourishing city, at the end of the twelfth dynasty, is recognised by
some in the circumstance, that of the numerous rock-tombs, only eleven
bear inscriptions, and of these but three are completely finished. To
these last, broad pathways led directly up from the banks of the river,
which, at the steep upper end, were changed into steps.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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