History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12)Maspero, G. (Gaston)
History
History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12)
Maspero, G. (Gaston)
Civilization, Ancient; Egypt -- History -- To 640 A.D.; History, Ancient; Middle East -- History
** Ahmosi Pannekhabit lay in tomb No. 2, at El-Kab. His
history is briefly told on one of the walls, and on two
sides of the pedestal of his statues. We have one of these,
or rather two plates from the pedestal of one of them, in
the Louvre; the other is in a good state of preservation,
and belongs to Mr. Finlay. The inscription is found in a
mutilated condition on the wall of the tomb, but the three
monuments which have come down to us are sufficiently
complementary to one another to enable us to restore nearly
the whole of the original text.
The expedition having accomplished its purpose, the Egyptians returned
home with their spoil, and did not revisit Asia for a long period. If
the Hyksos generals had fostered in their minds the idea that they could
recover their lost ground, and easily re-enter upon the possession of
their African domain, this reverse must have cruelly disillusioned them.
They must have been forced to acknowledge that their power was at an
end, and to renounce all hope of returning to the country which had so
summarily ejected them. The majority of their own people did not follow
them into exile, but remained attached to the soil on which they
lived, and the tribes which had successively settled down beside
them--including the Beni-Israel themselves--no longer dreamed of
a return to their fatherland. The condition of these people varied
according to their locality. Those who had taken up a position in the
plain of the Delta were subjected to actual slavery. Ahmosis destroyed
the camp at Avails, quartered his officers in the towns, and constructed
forts at strategic points, or rebuilt the ancient citadels to resist the
incursions of the Bedouin. The vanquished people in the Delta, hemmed in
as they were by a network of fortresses, were thus reduced to a rabble
of serfs, to be taxed and subjected to the _corvee_ without mercy.
But further north, the fluctuating population which roamed between the
Sebennytic and Pelusiac branches of the Nile were not exposed to such
rough treatment. The marshes of the coast-line afforded them a safe
retreat, in which they could take refuge at the first threat of
exactions on the part of the royal emissaries. Secure within dense
thickets, upon islands approached by interminable causeways, often
covered with water, or by long tortuous canals concealed in the thick
growth of reeds, they were able to defy with impunity the efforts of the
most disciplined troops, and treason alone could put them at the mercy
of their foes. Most of the Pharaohs felt that the advantages to be
gained by conquering them would be outweighed by the difficulty of
the enterprise; all that could result from a campaign would be the
destruction of one or two villages, the acquisition of a few hundred
refractory captives, of some ill-favoured cattle, and a trophy of nets
and worm-eaten boats. The kings, therefore, preferred to keep a close
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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