Uncertainty again shrouds the history of the country after the reign of Sovkhoptu I. The Twentieth dynasty contained, so it is said, sixty kings, who reigned for a period of over 453 years. The Nofirhoptus and Sovkhoptus continued to all appearances both at home and abroad the work so ably begun by the Amenemhaits and the Usirtasens. During the Thirteenth dynasty art and everything else in Egypt were fairly prosperous, but wealth exercised an injurious effect on artistic taste. During this dynasty we hear nothing of the inhabitants of the Sinaitic Peninsula to the east, or of the Libyans to the west; it was in the south, in Ethiopia, that the Pharaohs expended all their superfluous energy. The middle basin of the Nile as far as Gebel-Barkal was soon incorporated with Egypt, and the population became quickly assimilated. Sovkhoptu III., who erected colossal statues of himself at Tanis, Bubastis and Thebes, was undisputed master of the whole Nile valley, from near the spot where it receives its last tributary to where it empties itself into the sea. The making of Egypt was finally accomplished in his time. The Fourteenth dynasty, however, consists of a line of seventy-five kings, whose mutilated names appear on the Turin Papyrus. These shadowy Pharaohs followed each other in rapid sequence, some reigning only a few months, others for certainly not more than two and three years. Meantime, during what appears to have been an era of rivalries between pretenders, mutually jealous of and deposing one another, usurpers in succession seizing the crown without strength to keep it, the feudal lords displayed more than their old restlessness. The nomad tribes began to show growing hostility on the frontier, and the peoples of the Tigris and Euphrates were already pushing their vanguards into Central Syria. While Egypt had been bringing the valley of the Nile and the eastern corner of Africa into subjection, Chaldæa had imposed not only language and habits, but also her laws upon the whole of that part of Eastern Asia which separated her from Egypt. Thus the time was rapidly approaching when these two great civilised powers of the ancient world would meet each other face to face and come into fierce and terrible collision. _VII.--Ancient Chaldæa_ The Chaldæan account of Genesis is contained on fragments of tablets discovered and deciphered in 1875 by George Smith. These tell legends of the time when "nothing which was called heaven existed above, and when nothing below had as yet received the name of earth. Apsu, the Ocean, who was their first father, and Chaos-Tiamat, who gave birth to them all, mingled their waters in one, reeds which were not united, rushes which bore no fruit. In the time when the gods were not created, Lakhmu and Lakhamu were the first to appear and waxed great for ages."