"We now pass entirely from these early times, with their fascinating insight into the beginnings of things, long before any other human history that we possess, until we reach down to what seems quite modern times in the record of Egypt, where it comes into contact with the Old Testament history. On clearing out the funereal temple of King Merenptah I found in that the upper half of a fine colossal statue of his, with all the colors still fresh upon it. As this son of Rameses the Great is generally believed to be the Pharaoh of the exodus, such a fine portrait of him is full of interest. Better even than that—I found an immense tablet of black granite over 10 feet high and 5 feet wide. It had been erected over two centuries before and brilliantly carved by an earlier king, whose temple was destroyed for materials by Merenptah. He took this splendid block and turned its face inward against the wall of his temple and carved the back of it with other scenes and long inscriptions. Most of it is occupied with the history of his vanquishing the Libyans, or North African tribes, who were then invading Egypt. But at the end he recounts his conquests in Syria, among which occurs the priceless passage: 'The people of Israel are spoiled; they have no seed.' This is the only trace yet found in Egypt of the existence of the Israelites, the only mention of the name, and it is several centuries earlier than the references to the Israelite and Jewish kings in the cuneiform inscriptions of Assyria. "What relation this has to our biblical knowledge of the Israelites is a wide question, that has several possible answers. Without entering on all the openings, I may here state what seems to me to be the most probable connection of all the events, though I am quite aware that fresh discoveries might easily alter our views. It seems that either all the Israelites did not go into Egypt or else a part returned and lived in the north of Palestine before the exodus that we know, because we here find Merenptah defeating Israelites at about 1200 B. C. Of his conquest and of those of Rameses III in Palestine there are no traces in the biblical accounts, the absence of which indicates that the entry into Canaan took place after 1160 B. C., the last war of Rameses III. Then the period of the Judges is given in a triple record—(l) of the north, (2) of the east of the Jordan, (3) of Ephraim and the west; and these three accounts are quite distinct and never overlap, though the history passes in succession from one to another. Thus the whole age of Judges is but little over a century. And to this agree the priestly genealogies stretching between the tabernacle and temple periods.