Opening the text

The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 01 : $b Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia

History

The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 01 : $b Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia

World history

At the time when a great conquering kingdom was forming itself on the
upper Tigris and began to lay hold on all sides around it, the power of
the Pharaohs in the Nile Valley completely went down. The kingdom of
Tehutimes III had been divided into a succession of small independent
principalities and was ruled by dynasties which had arisen from the
leaders of the mercenaries. On the other hand, in the upper valley of
the Nile, in the lands first joined to Egypt in the time of Usertsen
III and afterwards for five centuries by Tehutimes I, there arose the
powerful kingdom of Cush (Greek Æthiopia, now Nubia). Its capital
was Napata in the Gebel Barhal, “the sacred mountain,” at the foot
of which Amenhotep III had already founded a great sanctuary to the
Theban Amen. By its long connection with Egypt, Egyptian culture was
completely naturalised in Ethiopia. Egyptian was the official language,
the writing was in hieroglyphics, the styling of the kings was after
that of the Pharaohs. Above all, the Egyptian, and especially the
Theban, religion of Amen gained complete dominion in Cush. In the name
of Amen the kings went to battle; they were fully dependent on his
instructions and oracles; they carefully observed the laws on outer
cleanliness and on the food forbidden by religion. What had remained
theory in Egypt, became practice in Ethiopia; a long inscription
describes to us how the god himself immediately elects the king through
his oracle, and strikingly confirms the accounts of the Greeks. Whence
it followed that the priests could command the king in the name of the
god to put an end to his life, a prerogative which Ergamenes abolished
in the third century B.C. By these circumstances it can be seen why the
Egyptian priests described Ethiopia to the Greeks as the Promised Land.
From these circumstances it can also be supposed that the rise of the
kingdom of Napata was connected with the usurpation of the priests of
the Theban Amen at the time of the XXIst Dynasty, an assumption which
is confirmed by many of the kings having borne the name of Piankhi,
prominent in the family of Her-Hor. After that time there was no
question of the rule of the Pharaohs over Cush; so perhaps relatives of
the priests of Amen may have founded the Ethiopian town _circa_ 1000
B.C.

[Illustration: HEAD OF UASARKEN III

(Now in the British Museum)]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

History

The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 01 : $b Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia

World history

At the time when a great conquering kingdom was forming itself on the
upper Tigris and began to lay hold on all sides around it, the power of
the Pharaohs in the Nile Valley completely went down. The kingdom of
Tehutimes III had been divided into a succession of small independent
principalities and was ruled by dynasties which had arisen from the
leaders of the mercenaries. On the other hand, in the upper valley of
the Nile, in the lands first joined to Egypt in the time of Usertsen
III and afterwards for five centuries by Tehutimes I, there arose the
powerful kingdom of Cush (Greek Æthiopia, now Nubia). Its capital
was Napata in the Gebel Barhal, “the sacred mountain,” at the foot
of which Amenhotep III had already founded a great sanctuary to the
Theban Amen. By its long connection with Egypt, Egyptian culture was
completely naturalised in Ethiopia. Egyptian was the official language,
the writing was in hieroglyphics, the styling of the kings was after
that of the Pharaohs. Above all, the Egyptian, and especially the
Theban, religion of Amen gained complete dominion in Cush. In the name
of Amen the kings went to battle; they were fully dependent on his
instructions and oracles; they carefully observed the laws on outer
cleanliness and on the food forbidden by religion. What had remained
theory in Egypt, became practice in Ethiopia; a long inscription
describes to us how the god himself immediately elects the king through
his oracle, and strikingly confirms the accounts of the Greeks. Whence
it followed that the priests could command the king in the name of the
god to put an end to his life, a prerogative which Ergamenes abolished
in the third century B.C. By these circumstances it can be seen why the
Egyptian priests described Ethiopia to the Greeks as the Promised Land.
From these circumstances it can also be supposed that the rise of the
kingdom of Napata was connected with the usurpation of the priests of
the Theban Amen at the time of the XXIst Dynasty, an assumption which
is confirmed by many of the kings having borne the name of Piankhi,
prominent in the family of Her-Hor. After that time there was no
question of the rule of the Pharaohs over Cush; so perhaps relatives of
the priests of Amen may have founded the Ethiopian town _circa_ 1000
B.C.

[Illustration: HEAD OF UASARKEN III

(Now in the British Museum)]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 01 : $b Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia

The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 01 : $b Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia

No reviews yet