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"A little above Lake Moeris," Herodotus tells us, "at the so-called City of the Crocodiles, is the labyrinth. I have seen it, and it outdoes its reputation. If any one were to put together the walls and buildings of the Hellenes, he would find that they were surpassed in labour and cost by this labyrinth alone, although the temples at Ephesus and Samos are certainly well worth speaking of. The pyramids are indeed beyond all description, and each of them is equivalent to many of the greatest works of Hellas, but the labyrinth surpasses even the pyramids. It contains twelve roofed courts, abutting on each other, the entrances to which are opposite, six to the north and six to the south. Externally they are all included in one wall. The chambers are of two kinds, some are under the ground, others visible above it; of each kind there are 1,500. Those above ground I have passed through, and can speak of them from eyesight; those under the ground the Egyptian overseers could not be induced to show me, because, as they said, they contained the sepulchres of the kings who built the labyrinth, and of the sacred crocodiles. Of these, therefore, I can only speak from hearsay: but the chambers above ground, which I saw, are a superhuman work. The entrances through the covered spaces, and the windings through the courts are very complicated, and excite infinite wonder, as you pass from the courts into the chambers, and from the chambers into colonnades, and from these into other covered spaces, and from the chambers into other courts. On all these spaces lies a roof of stone, similar to the walls; the walls are covered with carved pictures, and each court is surrounded on the inside with pillars of white stones, excellently fitted together. In the angle where the labyrinth ends there is a pyramid forty fathoms high, with large figures cut into it. The entrance to this is under the surface."¹⁷¹

Diodorus says: – "One of the old kings, named Menas, built on the lake of Moeris, the City of Crocodiles, a tomb for himself, a square pyramid, and the marvellous labyrinth." In another passage he says: "King Mendes, whom some call Marrhus, was not distinguished by any military achievements, but he built for his tomb the so-called labyrinth, which is marvellous not so much for its size as for the inimitable art of the structure. Without a thoroughly competent guide, it would not be easy for any one to find his way out." And in a third passage we are told: "The labyrinth at the entrance into Lake Moeris is a square structure – each side measuring a stadium – built of the most beautiful stone, unsurpassed in the sculptures and the art bestowed upon it." "Passing through the enclosure, you see a house surrounded with pillars, forty on each side, and with a roof of a single stone, adorned with mullions in relief, and various paintings. It also contains the monuments of the twelve provinces of Egypt of their sacred relics and sacrifices, all represented in the most excellent pictures."¹⁷²

Strabo's account is as follows: – "At the sluices (of the canal connecting the basin and the lake) is the labyrinth, a work as great as the pyramids, and moreover the grave of the king who built it. About thirty or forty stades above the mouth of the canal is a table-land, on which lies a hamlet and a palace made up of as many palaces as there are districts in Egypt. For so many in number are the colonnaded courts, adjoining each other in a row, and abutting on a partition against which they are built as against a long wall.¹⁷³ The entrances which lead to them are over against the wall. Before these entrances lie dark chambers, long in shape, and numerous, which are connected with each other by winding passages, so that without a guide it is impossible for the stranger to find the entrance or exit belonging to each court. The most marvellous thing is that the roof of each chamber consists of a single stone. Even the dark passages (before the entrances into the courts) are covered with slabs of a single stone, from side to side, without use of wood or other support, and these slabs are of extraordinary size. If you go out on the roof, and as there is but one story, it is not high, you find before you a plateau of stones of this kind. If from this point you look again into the courts, you see them twenty-seven in number in a row, supported by pillars of a single stone. The walls also are of stones not less in size. This number of courts are said to have been erected because it was the custom for all the districts to assemble here by their representatives, with their priests and animals for sacrifice, in order to offer sacrifice and decide matters of the greatest importance. Each district thus met in its own court. At the end of the structure, which extends over more than a stadium (in the square), lies the tomb, a square pyramid, of which each side is about a plethron in length and the same in height. The king buried there is called Ismandes."¹⁷⁴

"The labyrinth," remarks Pliny, "is still existing in Egypt, though it is said to have been erected more than 3,600 years. Lykeas calls it the tomb of Moeris; some authorities assert that it is a shrine of the Sun-god, and this is the general belief. The entrance was built of Parian marble, which is astonishing to me, the remainder of joined blocks of granite, which centuries have not been able to destroy, albeit assisted by the inhabitants of Heracleopolis, who regard this structure with the greatest detestation, and treat it accordingly. The plan of the whole and the various parts it is impossible to describe. It is divided according to the districts and prefectures, which they call nomes; these are twenty-five in number, and their names are given to an equal number of large buildings. Besides this it contains a temple of all the gods of Egypt, and includes above 1,500 small buildings. The chambers are lofty, and each colonnade is ascended by a flight of ninety steps. Within are pillars of porphyry, images of the gods, statues of the kings, and monstrous shapes. Through the greater part you pass in darkness. From the wing attached to the labyrinth, passages lead through the rock to underground chambers, and there is also a pyramid belonging to it."¹⁷⁵

As we have seen, Diodorus in one passage ascribes the building of the labyrinth to the ancient king Menas, and in another to king Mendes, whom other authorities call Marrhus, and at last he says that the twelve kings, who reigned in Egypt after the dominion of the Ethiopians, built the labyrinth for their common sepulchre. Four hundred years before his time Herodotus had stated that the twelve kings built it as a common memorial of their reign. Lykeas mentioned king Moeris as the builder, and Strabo told us that the king buried in it was Ismandes, a name which would agree with the Mendes of Diodorus. According to the lists of Manetho, it was the fourth ruler of the twelfth dynasty – Lacharis in the excerpt of Africanus, and Lamaris in that of Eusebius – who built the labyrinth in the province of Arsinoe for his own sepulchre.

The Menas of Diodorus may be an abbreviation of Amenemha, and this supposition becomes the more probable because the king called Moeris by the Greeks is mentioned as a builder of the labyrinth. The remains of the building, on the north side of which the pyramid is still standing, raise this supposition into a certainty. At the entrance to this pyramid, on the pillars and architraves in the ruins, the name of Amenemha III. is repeatedly found.¹⁷⁶

We must assume, therefore, that in the district which he had recovered from the desert by means of his large reservoir, king Amenemha built a large national temple close to the basin, and in this temple it was intended that all the provinces of Upper and Lower Egypt should see the deities of their land reproduced in separate courts and temples. Then the Egyptians may have ascribed a restoration of this imperial temple, this pantheon, to the supposed twelve kings who were thought to have reigned after the Ethiopian dominion. This tradition is obviously at the bottom of the accounts of Herodotus and Diodorus, who carry the building back to the seventh century B.C. The ruins of the labyrinth lie near the modern village of Hauara, among orchards and palm groves, beside rose gardens and sugar plantations, surrounded by fruitful fields, in a district which is still flourishing and covered with villages, bounded to the west by naked ridges of rock and the sand of the desert. They consist of blocks of granite and dazzling white limestone, which explains the supposed Parian marble in Pliny, the remains of walls and the capitals of pillars. The extent of the structure reaches 600 feet in length and 500 in width; the traces of numerous chambers, some large and some very small, but all rectangular, are still visible both above and under the ground. In the centre is a clear space, once perhaps filled by the courts, of which Herodotus enumerates twelve and Strabo twenty-seven. The pyramid consists of a core built of bricks, and was cased with sculptures, of which, however, there are very slight remains; each side measured 300 feet in length. It was the sepulchre of Amenemha; here, among his great creations, he lay at rest.

In addition to the monuments in Nubia, and this great building, the lake which ripples against the labyrinth is a most eloquent witness of the prosperity to which this dynasty of the Amenemha and Sesurtesen raised Egypt. The population must have been already very numerous when it came to recovering fresh land from the desert, and attention was turned towards increasing and improving the rich fertilization which nature every year secured for Egypt. The picture of the richly developed cultivation, of which these structures exhibit the highest point, is supplemented by the insight into the details of the circumstances of the country permitted by the rock tombs of Beni Hassan, Bersheh, and Sioot (in Central Egypt), which belong to this period of Egyptian history. At Beni Hassan, where the tombs go back to the reign of the first Sesurtesen, we see the entire process of agriculture. Oxen or slaves are drawing the ploughs, of which five different kinds are in use. Sheep and goats tread the seed into the ground. The corn when cut is gathered into sheaves, trodden out by oxen, measured, and carried in sacks to the granary. The flax is packed upon the backs of asses, the lotus, the vintage, and the figs are gathered in. The vintage is partly trodden out, partly squeezed in a press moved by a lever; the wine is poured into jars, and carried into a cellar. We see the irrigation of the fields, the planting of the gardens, the cultivation of onions, the overseer and his clerks. The overseer passes sentence on the lazy and negligent slaves: when he has heard the complaint and the answer, he orders the bastinado to be applied to the culprits, and hands to his master the written account of the matter. With equal minuteness we can follow the breeding of cattle. We see fine herds of oxen, cows, and calves, asses, sheep, and goats in the stalls or at pasture with their keepers; we see the cows milked, the butter and cheese prepared. The fowl-yards are filled with a multitude of different ducks and geese. In the same way by following the pictures on the graves at Beni Hassan we can obtain an accurate view of the process of the various manufactures. We see the spinners and weavers at work; we can follow the potter through all the stages of his work, from the first kneading of the clay to the burning of the finished jar. The carpenter and joiner, the currier, the shoemaker, the smith and goldsmith, the mason and painter, pursue their occupations before our eyes. We see rudders, lances, javelins, bows and arrows, clubs and war-axes preparing: and lastly we have the manufacture of glass, even the blowing, in all the various operations before us. With similar minuteness we can see the interior of the Egyptian house, simply or splendidly furnished, with all the movable goods, the dogs, cats, and apes belonging to the inhabitants; there are the servants at their work, and the operations of the kitchen in great detail. Further we find soldiers of every rank, and with all kinds of weapons; we see them exercising military drill; the battle, the siege, the ram, which is brought up against the walls of the enemy, the roof of shields under which the besieging army advanced to storm the wall – all these are before us. Birding is carried on by means of traps and nets, angling by hooks and spears of two or three tines; there is hunting in its various modes. Long rows of wrestlers exhibit all the various positions of their sport, which seems to have been much in vogue; along with this various games exhibiting strength or endurance were carried on; among others, games of ball and mora. We see dancers, male and female, in various and sometimes very intricate positions; harps and flutes of very different shapes are played upon. A singer is accompanied by a musician on a harp, and the concert is completed by two choruses, one of men, the other of women, who clap their hands. The better class are depicted in gaily-coloured skiffs and palanquins, surrounded by numerous servants, among whom may be observed a considerable number of negroes. Dwarfs and deformed persons are also found in their train.

The most splendid tomb at Beni Hassan belongs to Chnumhotep, the son of Nehera, who, as the inscriptions tell us, was a minister of Amenemha II. and Sesurtesen II. Like Amenj before him, he was the overseer of the province of Hermopolis (Ashmunein). A picture on his tomb exhibits a huge portrait of Chnumhotep, with a staff in his hand, and a scribe at his side; before him are a number of smaller figures, who, to judge from their shape and clothing, are foreigners. The chief among the foreigners, clad in a gay garment, leads forward an antelope and makes a reverential obeisance before the minister. His companions are more simply clad, and armed with lances and bows; one of them is striking a lute with the plectrum. Four women follow, in long gaily embroidered garments, with their heads veiled. An ass driven by a boy with a lance carries two children, and a second ass arms and utensils. The leaf of papyrus, which the scribe of Chnumhotep is handing to his master informs us that Abusa (Abscha) with thirty-six companions from the nation of the Aamu (nomads of the East), had brought presents to the minister of the province of Hermopolis in the sixth year of Sesurtesen III.¹⁷⁷

If we compare the works of that epoch, which saw the erection of the great pyramids, in technical and artistic value with the remains which have come down from the time of the Amenemha and Sesurtesen – according to the chronology of Lepsius the two periods are separated by an interval of six centuries – we find in the great monuments of the first epoch, in their passages and chambers, a dexterity in the use of stone for building, which has never been surpassed. The sculptures exhibit broader and stouter forms, with more strongly-marked but well-shaped muscles. The ornaments consist of simple, straight lines, besides which scarcely any other adornment is found beyond the lotus leaf. The style is composed and full of repose; it remains nearer nature than in the later works. In the monuments of the time of the Sesurtesen and Amenemha the ornamentation has already become far richer. The pillars are massive, fluted, and crowned by a simple cube. The sculptured forms are taller and thinner; the work in relief, carried out with much industry and delicacy, displays at times very happy moments of natural grace and truth of expression, although perspective is entirely left out of sight. Such work is always carefully painted. The statues of limestone are also painted throughout; in those of granite, only the clothing, the eyes and the hair are coloured.¹⁷⁸

CHAPTER V.
THE HYKSOS AND THE RESTORATION OF THE EGYPTIAN KINGDOM

In spite of the union of Upper and Lower Egypt, and the extension of the Egyptian dominion up the Nile as far as Semne and Kumne, the kingdom of the pyramids, of the lake of Moeris, and the labyrinth succumbed to the attack of a foreign enemy. According to Josephus, Manetho, in the second book of his Egyptian History, gave the following account: "There was a king Amyntimaeus. In his reign the divine power, I know not why, was ungracious. From the East came an unexpected swarm of men belonging to a tribe of no great reputation, with a bold resolution of taking the country. This they succeeded in doing without much trouble. They made themselves masters of the ruling princes, ruthlessly set fire to the cities, and destroyed the shrines of the gods. Towards the inhabitants they behaved in a most hostile manner; some they put to the sword, from others they carried away their wives and children into slavery. At last they made one of their own number, by name Salatis, their king. He took up his abode at Memphis, collected tribute from the Upper and Lower country, and placed garrisons in the most suitable places. The eastern districts were fortified most strongly, since he foresaw that the Assyrians, who were then growing in power, would be seized with the desire of invading his country. In the Saitic (Sethroitic) province he found a city excellently adapted for his purpose, lying eastwards of the river from Bubastis, and called Avaris, from some old legend or another. This he surrounded with the strongest walls, filled it with inhabitants, and placed there the bulk of his armed soldiers, 240,000 men, as a garrison. In the summer he visited this stronghold to measure the corn, pay his soldiers, and exercise his troops in order to strike fear in those who dwelt beyond the fortress. After a reign of nineteen years Salatis died. After him reigned a king of the name of Beon, for forty-four years, then Apachnas for thirty-six years and seven months, then Apophis for sixty-one years, and Annas for fifty years and one month, and finally Assis for forty-nine years and two months. These six were their first rulers, and they sought more and more to destroy Egypt to the very root. The whole tribe was called Hyksos, i. e. shepherd kings. For in the sacred language hyk means 'king,' and sos in the ordinary dialect is 'a shepherd,' and from composition of the two comes the word Hyksos. Some authorities say that they were Arabs." "The shepherd kings named above and their descendants are supposed by Manetho to have ruled over Egypt for 511 years. Yet he afterwards tells us that kings arose in the district of Thebes and the rest of Egypt, between whom and the shepherds there was a long and severe struggle. In the reign of a king named Misphragmuthosis the shepherds were defeated by the king, driven out of Egypt, and confined in one place, 10,000 arouræ in extent, the name of which was Avaris. This space, as Manetho tells us, the shepherds surrounded with a great and strong wall, in order to preserve their possessions and their booty in security. But Tuthmosis, the son of Misphragmuthosis, attempted to take Avaris by force, and led out 480,000 men before the walls. When he found that the investment made but little way, he came to terms with the shepherds, permitting them to leave Egypt uninjured and go whither they would. On these terms they departed from Egypt with their families, and goods, not less than 240,000 strong, and went into the Syrian desert, and through fear of the Assyrians, who were then the great power in Asia, they built a city in the land now called Judæa, large enough to contain their numbers, and named it Jerusalem."

The short excerpts made by Africanus and Eusebius from the Egyptian History of Manetho only tell that "there were certain foreign kings, Phenicians, who took Memphis, and built a city in the Sethroitic province, from which they went forth and subdued the Egyptians." Africanus gives six, Eusebius four, names of these foreign kings, which are somewhat the same in sound as those in Josephus, only in Africanus Apophis is the last in the list, not last but two.¹⁷⁹

If Josephus has transcribed and reproduced Manetho correctly there is an obvious contradiction in his narrative. The first shepherd king, Salatis, fortified and peopled Avaris, and placed there a garrison of 240,000 men, for protection against the Assyrians. Then after a lapse of 511 (or according to the excerpt of Africanus of 953) years, when the shepherds had lost Egypt they were shut up in a place containing 10,000 arouræ, i. e. a square of twenty-five miles, of the name of Avaris, which they surrounded with a strong wall in order to keep their possessions and booty in security. At last they were compelled to retire even from this, and march out in just the same strength as the garrison which Salatis had placed so long before at Avaris, towards Judæa, and here they founded a second city of Jerusalem, also for protection against the Assyrians.

We may leave the Assyrians out of the question, and assume that the reference to them has been transferred by Manetho from the later position which Assyria took up towards Syria and Egypt in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. to those earlier times; we may also regard the turn of the narrative, which makes the shepherds the ancestors of the Jews and builders of Jerusalem, as a combination invented by Manetho, for in the tradition of the Hebrews there is no hint that their ancestors had once ruled over Egypt for centuries, and Jerusalem down to the time of David was merely the stronghold of a small tribe, the Jebusites. Still it remains inexplicable that these shepherds, who, after they had taken Egypt, or, in order to take it, fortified Avaris, and garrisoned it with 240,000 men, should fortify Avaris a second time centuries later, in order to maintain their last possession in Egypt, and at last march out of Avaris in exactly the same numbers as the garrison originally settled there. Shepherds, i. e. nomads, do not make war by building fortresses as a base of operations for extending their conquests; they had nothing to gain by conquering Egypt for the mere purpose of shutting up the whole or the greater part of their numbers with their flocks in a fortified place. On the other hand, it might have seemed advisable to them, when they had subjugated Egypt, to possess a fortified place on the eastern border, in order to keep up a connection with their tribe; and it was natural that the shepherds, when the Egyptians had risen against them with success, and they were no longer able to hold the Delta, should attempt to maintain themselves in the flats and swamps of the Eastern Delta; and when forced to act on the defensive should fortify their camp at Avaris in this district.

In the narrative of Manetho we can accept no more than the facts that Egypt succumbed to the attack of the shepherds, and that they, to take the lower estimate, ruled over Egypt for five centuries. Herodotus also learnt in Egypt that the shepherd Philitis had once pastured his flocks at Memphis. There is nothing wonderful in such an occurrence. Nomad tribes dwelt in the deserts on the east and west of Egypt, to whose poverty and scanty means of subsistence the abundance and cultivation of Egypt must have presented a continual temptation. That temptation would increase in force when the tribes became more numerous, when unusual heat diminished the springs in the oases, and robbed these shepherds of the produce of their scanty agriculture. The tradition of the Hebrews tells us that their ancestor Abraham went to Egypt when "there was a famine in the land," and the sons of Jacob bought corn in Egypt.

According to Manetho's account, the tribes from whom the attack proceeded were not famous, and he regarded the invaders as coming from the east. The peninsula of Sinai, Northern Arabia, and the Syrian desert sheltered in the Amalekites, Horites, Edomites, and Midianites, tribes who were rendered hardy and warlike by life in the desert, tribal feuds, and raids for plunder; and these may very well have united in considerable number under some leader of military genius, and attempted the invasion of the rich river-valley in their neighbourhood. According to Manetho, the invaders were Phenicians or Arabians. The name of the shepherd Philitis, given by Herodotus, points to a Semitic tribe, and one immediately bordering on Egypt on the Syrian coast – the Philistines (Pelischtim), from whom the whole Syrian coast was called by the Greeks Palæstina. The name of the stronghold of the shepherds, Avaris, or Abaris, recurs in Hauara, a town of Arabia on the shore of the Red Sea.¹⁸⁰ If the shepherds who conquered Egypt had not been Semitic, and closely related to the Hebrews, Manetho would not have made them the ancestors of the Hebrews and founders of Jerusalem after their expulsion from Egypt.

After the conquest, the chiefs of the shepherds ruled over Egypt. The inscriptions on the monuments repeatedly denote certain tribes in the east of Egypt by the name Schasu, which in the later language is contracted into Sôs. Schasu means shepherds. Moreover, in old Egyptian, the head of a family, a tribe, and a province is called hak, and Hyksos thus can be explained by Haku-schasu, chiefs of the shepherds, shepherd kings, as Josephus, Eusebius, and Africanus render it.¹⁸¹ What Manetho tells us of the destruction of the cities and shrines, the slaughter and enslaving of the Egyptians may be correct for the time of the war and conquest. But this hostility and destruction cannot, as he intimates, have gone on for centuries, for, on the restoration of the Pharaohs, we find ancient Egypt unimpaired in population, unchanged in language, customs, and manners, in civilisation and art. If the national development was interrupted and repressed by the Hyksos, it still remained uninjured at the core, so far as we have the means of judging.

When at a subsequent period the kings of Ethiopia subjugated Egypt, the warrior caste, the soldiers settled in the country by the Pharaohs, were deprived of their lands. The same thing may have taken place on the irruption of the shepherds. The warriors of the Pharaohs fell in battle, were carried away as prisoners, or deprived of their weapons; and in their place came the victorious army of the shepherds. Of these many would soon return home laden with the booty of Egypt, others pitched their tents in the conquered land, and settled in the greenest meadows, more especially in the eastern provinces of the Delta, nearest their own home, on the Tanitic and Pelusiac arms of the Nile, and Lake Menzaleh. The chief of the immigrants became the head of the conquerors and the conquered. The latter would render the same abject homage to their new masters as they rendered before and after to their native kings; and the power which the conquered willingly acknowledged in the chief would exalt his position even among the conquerors. As time went on, the culture and civilisation of Egypt had their natural effect on the barbarous invaders, and when the storm of conquest was over, we may assume that Egypt was no worse off under the rule of the shepherd kings than at later periods under the rule of the Persians, the Ptolemies, and the Romans.

That the new princes, soon after the conquest, attempted to approximate their position as much as possible to that of the ancient Pharaohs may be concluded from the mere fact that Manetho was in a position to give a catalogue of their reigns by years and months. But this is proved more definitely still by certain monuments. In the neighbourhood of Lake Menzaleh, among the ruins of the ancient Tanis, the modern San, two old statues have been discovered, the forms and lineaments of which exhibit a physique different from the Egyptian. In the heads of four sphinxes, discovered in the same place, it is thought that we may recognise the portraits of four shepherd kings, and a colossus discovered at Tel Mokdam is said to bear the following inscription: – "The good god, the star of both worlds, the child of the sun, Sel Salati, beloved by Sutech, the lord of Hauar.¹⁸²"

The six shepherd kings enumerated by Josephus from the Egyptian History of Manetho reigned, according to the dates given by the latter, for 260 years, i. e. from the year 2101 B.C., in which, on Lepsius's arrangement, the irruption of the shepherds took place, till the year 1842 B.C. Their successors must therefore have ruled over Egypt for 251 years more, i. e., down to the year 1591 B.C. But in the time of the later shepherd kings, native princes again arose in Upper Egypt, although subject to tribute. A papyrus of the British Museum tells us: "It so happened that the land of Egypt became the possession of her enemies, and when this took place there was no king. And behold Raskenen became king of the country in the south. The enemy were in possession of the fortress of Aamu (p. 120), and their chief, Ra Apepi was at Hauar. The whole land paid tribute to him, and rendered service of all kinds, and brought to him the produce of Lower Egypt. King Apepi chose Sutech as his lord, and served no other god, and built him a temple of firm and lasting structure."¹⁸³

The power of the native princes at Thebes must have been gradually strengthened till the successors of Raskenen were in a position to press forward towards Lower Egypt, and place limits on the sway of the shepherd kings, and finally to drive them entirely out of Egypt. Josephus has already told us from Manetho that the princes of Thebes and the rest of Egypt rose up against the shepherds, and in consequence a long and severe struggle took place between them. In Manetho's list the series of shepherd kings is followed by Amosis of Thebes (1684-1659 B.C.). Hence we may assume that it was under this prince that the kingdom of Thebes got the upper hand, and the power of the shepherd kings was restricted to the Eastern Delta.