18 EDOUABD NAVILLE. 



near Bailos (Belbeis) was not cultivated, but left as pasture 

 for cattle because of the strangers." Thus there was only 

 a short distance between the royal residence and the territory 

 allotted to the Hebrews. Joseph settled his family near him- 

 self, in the. part of the country which was best fitted for the 

 breeding of cattle, and where probably dwelt the herds of the 

 king, with the keeping of which they were entrusted. 



But the Hyksos domination was drawing towards its close, 

 and it is likely that Apepi was the last of the foreign rulers. 

 We have only very scanty information on the wars which 

 broke out between the native princes who had maintained 

 themselves in Upper Egypt and the foreign invaders. In 

 spite of the successes of the kings of the Seventeenth 

 dynasty, Sekenen - Ra and Amosis, the expulsion of the 

 Hyksos and the restoration of the Egyptian rule over the 

 Delta took place only gradually. A queen of the Eighteenth 

 dynasty alludes in one of her inscriptions to the harm done 

 to the country by the strangers, and which she endeavoured 

 to repair. An alleged proof of the fact that the Egyptian 

 dominion was not yet regularly re-established was the supposed 

 total absence of monuments of the Eighteenth dynasty in the 

 Delta. Until now there was only one known, a stone serpent 

 found at Benha, or a few scarabs of Amenophis III. dug out 

 by the fellaheen at Tel Basta. The desire to settle, if possible, 

 the question of the presence of the Eighteenth dynasty in 

 the Delta, was one of the chief reasons which induced me to 

 dig at Bubastis ; and in this respect my expectation has not 

 been disappointed ; we have discovered important monuments 

 of the Eighteenth dynasty at Tel Basta. Last summer, also, 

 the fellaheen came across a large tablet of the same dynasty 

 at Samanood, further north. In both places the monuments 

 are later than Thothmes III. It seems very probable that 

 the final conquest of the Delta, and the complete expulsion of 

 the Hyksos, dates from the great wars of Thothmes III., justly 

 called " the great," or sometimes the Alexander of Egypt. 

 His campaigns had lasting results, not only in Egypt, but 

 also abroad, as we know now from the curious find of cunei- 

 form tablets made by the Arabs at Tel el Amarna last year, 

 that under the successors of Thothmes III. a great many Syrian 

 cities were still tributary to Egypt, and had Egyptian 

 governors. The most ancient mention of a king of the Eigh- 

 teenth dynasty, at Bubastis, is on a stone of Amenophis II., 

 who is sculptured standing before Amon Ra and making him 

 offerings. We notice here, as under the following kings, that 

 the chief divinity of the place is not Bast, but Amon. The 

 king of the Eighteenth dynasty, who seems to have taken the 



