CH. XX:]

REIGN OF AAHMES.

207

could have been made upon the city of the Shepherds -the strong and vast fortress of Avaris, situated at the furthest point to which the Nile waters reached, well fortified both by walls and moats, and defended by a garrison of nearly a quarter of a million of men.1 A lake protected the city on one side; canals from the Nile guarded it in other quarters; while a solid rampart of baked, or perhaps merely of sun-dried brick, surrounded the whole, and rendered the position one of first-rate strength and security. However, after a siege of some considerable length, in the course of which there were several engagements,2 the final assault appears to have been delivered with such success, that a panic seized the garrison, and they hastily fled from the place. The majority made their escape, and withdrew to Syria, but many were slain, and a considerable number taken prisoners. All captives appear to have been regarded as the property of the king; but it was a common practice to assign prisoners to those who captured them; and vast numbers of the 'Shepherd' race became in this way permanently fixed in Egypt, where they intermixed with the native inhabitants and modified to some extent their physical type.8

The war of Aahmes with the Shepherds lasted five years. It was no sooner concluded than he hastened to lead an expedition against the south, where the negro races had taken the offensive during the struggle between the Egyptians and their foreign conquerors, and apparently had re-established the independence

1 Supra, p. 201.

Lenormant, Manuel d'Histoire An

2 Records of the Past, vol. vi. | cienne, vol. i. p. 368.

7-8.

PP; Birch, Ancient Egypt, p. 80;

Records of the Past, vol. vi.

p. 8.

whereof they had been deprived by the monarchs of the twelfth dynasty. At first the Egyptian king carried all before him, and, regarding the country as reconquered, returned down the Nile to his capital; but ere long the tide of victory turned. A Nubian chief, called Teta-an, collected the dusky hordes under his banner, and retook the whole region of the south, carrying devastation along the Nile banks, destroying the temples of the Egyptian garrisons, and annihilating the Egyptian power. Aahmes was forced to retrace his steps, and measure his strength against this new enemy. He engaged Teta-an twice, the Nubian being apparently each time the assailant. On the first occasion neither antagonist could claim a decisive success ; but, on the second, Aahmes was more fortunate. The negro army was defeated with great loss, Teta-an made prisoner, and Egyptian authority once more established over the tract between the First and the Second Cataract.2

It would appear that the struggle with Teta-an must have occupied a considerable time. At any rate, it was not until his twenty-second year that the Egyptian monarch, victorious on every side, and no longer apprehensive of attack, was able to turn his attention. to domestic affairs, and commence the restoration of those public edifices which had suffered either from natural decay or from hostile attack during the last two or three centuries. Rock-tablets in the quarries of Toora and Maasara of that year 3 record the fact that Aahmes at this time opened anew the rock

1 Records of the Past, vol. vi. pp. 8-9.

Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. i. p. 276, 1st ed. M. Chabas considers Teta-an to be the name of a people rather than that of a chief

| tain. (Les Pasteurs en Egypte, p. 46.)

3 See the Denkmäler, vol. v. pt. iii. pl. 3 a; and compare Birch, Ancient Egypt, p. 80, and Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. i. pp. 276-7, 1st ed.

CH. XX.] AAHMES RESTORES THE TEMPLES.

6

209

chambers,' and employed men to cut out the best white stone of the hill country' for the repairs of the temple of millions of years' the ancient edifice dedicated to the god Phthah at Memphis-for that of Ammon at Thebes, and for other sacred buildings. Phoenicians are thought to have been employed upon the great works thus initiated,' as they were some centuries later on the construction of the Temple of Solomon.2

、,

6

Aahmes is said to have reigned altogether twentyfive years, or, as Josephus expresses it more exactly, twenty-five years and four months. He married a princess, who took the name of Nefert-ari-Aahmes, or the beautiful companion of Aahmes,' and who is represented on the monuments with pleasing features, but a complexion of ebon blackness. It is certainly wrong to call her a negress;' she was an Ethiopian of the best physical type; and her marriage with Aahmes may have been based upon a political motive. The Egyptian Pharaohs from time to time allied themselves with the monarchs of the south, partly to obtain the aid of Ethiopian troops in their wars, partly with a view of claiming, in right of their wives, dominion over the Upper Nile region.. Aahmes may have been the first to do this; or he may simply

1 Brugsch, History of Egypt, | vol. i. p. 277, 1st ed.

21 Kings vi. 18; vii. 13-45; 2 Chr. ii. 13-16; &c.

3 Manetho ap. Syncell. Chronograph. vol. i. pp. 62, c, and 69, c.

Joseph. Contr. Apion. i. 15. Josephus gives the name the wrong form of Tethmosis; but clearly means Amosis (Aahmes), the first king of the eighteenth dynasty.

5 She is called 'the daughter, So Birch (1.8.c.) and Trevor sister, wife, and mother of a king.' | (1.s.c.).

have followed the example of his predecessors, who, forced by the Hyksos to the south, had contracted marriages with the families of Ethiopian rulers.' His queen was certainly regarded as a personage of im

1

portance. She was called 'the wife of the god Ammon,'2 and enjoyed some high post connected with the worship

Birch, 1.s.c.

2 Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. i. p. 279. Wilkinson renders

the expression used by 'Goddesswife of Ammon' (Rawlinson's HeIrodotus, vol. ii. p. 355, 2nd ed.).

CH. XX. AMENHOTEP I. AND NEFERTARI-AAHMES.

211

of that god at Thebes; Aahmes commemorated her upon his monuments; during her son's reign she held, for a time at any rate, the reins of power; while in after ages she was venerated as ancestress and founder of the eighteenth dynasty.' 2

3

The successor of Aahmes was his son by this Ethiopian princess; he bore the name of Amen-hotep, which is the Amenôphthis of Manetho. On his accession he took the throne name of Tser-ka-ra'; but he is more commonly known as Amen-hotep the First. Either he was of immature age at the death of his father, and therefore placed at first under the guardianship of his mother, or else his attachment to her was such that he voluntarily associated her with bimself in the government. Her figure appears on his monuments, drawn with the utmost care and elaboration; she is joined with him in the worship of the gods; she is the lady of the two lands,' as he is the lord' of them. Little is known of the reign of Amenôphis beyond the fact that, like his father, he led expeditions to the south, and warred both with the Cushites and the negroes, seeking still further to extend the frontier of Egypt in a southern direction. It does not appear, however, that much success attended his efforts beyond the capture of some prisoners and some cattle. Amen-hotep was served by two officers, Aahmes, son of Abana, and another Aahmes named