When Abraham went down into Egypt the empire was already very old. Its history begins with Menes, who united the independent states of the Nile valley into a single kingdom, and established his capital at Memphis. The first six dynasties of kings, who reigned 1,478 years, represent what is called the Old Empire. It was under the monarchs of the fourth dynasty that the pyramids of Gizeh were built; and at no time during its later history did the art and culture of Egypt reach again so high a level as it did under the Old Empire. With the close of the sixth dynasty came a period of disaster and decline. When Egypt again emerged into the light of history it was under the warrior princes of the twelfth dynasty. The capital had been shifted to the new city of Thebes, in the south, a new god, Amun, presided over the Egyptian deities, and the ruling class itself differed in blood and features from the men of the Old Empire. Henceforth Egyptian art was characterised by a stiff conventionality wholly unlike the freedom and vigour of the art of the early dynasties; the government became more autocratic; and the obelisk took the place of the pyramid in architecture. But the Middle Empire, as it has been termed, did not last long. Semitic invaders from Canaan and Arabia overran the country, and established their seat at Zoan or Tanis. For 511 years they held the Egyptians in bondage, though the native princes, who had taken refuge in the south, gradually acquired more and more power, until at last, under the leadership of Aahmes or Amosis, the founder of the eighteenth dynasty, they succeeded in driving the hated foreigners out. These foreigners are known to history as the Hyksos or Shepherds, Hyksos being the Egyptian _hik shasu_, “prince of the Shasu,” or “Beduins.” The name which they bear upon the monuments is Menti. It must have been while the Hyksos monarchs were holding their court at Zoan that Abraham entered the land. He found there men of Semitic blood, like himself, and speaking a Semitic language. A welcome was assured him, and he had no need of an interpreter. But the Hyksos kings had already begun to assume Egyptian state and to adopt Egyptian customs. In place of the Semitic _shalat_, “ruler,” the title by which their first leaders had been known, they had borrowed the Egyptian title of Pharaoh. Pharaoh appears on the monuments as _pir-aa_, “great house,” the palace in which the king lived being used to denote the king himself, just as in our own time the “porte” or gate of the palace has become synonymous with the Turkish Sultan.