22 



• KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Jan. 12, 1883. 



fortress to fortify the border of the land."* The Anostasi 

 papyri II. and IV.t describe it as a llrkhm stationed "be- 

 tween Zahi (Palestine) and Kgypt ; " another papyrus in 

 the same collection, written by the scribe Anien-eni apt, 

 speaks of it as " the beautiful outpost " on " the frontier 

 of the land of the foreigner, th(^ boundary of Egypt J 



The Ikklten of Tel-el-Maskhuta was all that is here de- 

 scribed — a strong place upon the Palestine frontier, guard- 

 ing a valley, which was one of the most important gates of 

 the eastward boundary of Egypt. 



2. I'a-liamcseii vms IhiUt by Rnmf.ses II. — " Thou hast 

 built a great residence to fortify the border of the land, the 

 city of Kameses," says the inscription of Ptah-Tatunen. 

 " His Majesty has built himself a Bekhen,^' says the 

 Anastasi papyri. The Bible tells the same tale, though 

 set to a different key : — " And they built for I'haraoh 

 treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses " ; iievj cities, these, 

 and not mere additions to cities of more ancient date. || 



Before it can be positively proved that these ruins con- 

 tain no remains of a date earlier than the reign of Rameses 

 II., it will be necessary to cut a trench through the mound 

 of Maskhuta. But, thus far, the e\-ideiice, both direct and 

 indirect, points to Rameses II. The huge bricks found 

 here by Dr. Lepsius are stamped with this king's royal 

 oval ; and no bricks stamped with the oval of any of his 

 predecessors have yet been discovered on the spot. They 

 are made from the clay of the neighbouring clay-beds, 

 mixed with chopped straw, and pressed in a wooden mould. 

 The presence of the chopped straw Ls interesting ; because 

 chopped straw did not invariably enter into the composition 

 of ancient Egyptian bricks, and because the Bible especially 

 points out that chopped straw did enter into the composition 

 of those particular bricks of which the treasure-cities Pithom 

 and Raamses were built. The Egyptians, indeed, made ex- 

 cellent bricks of mere sun-dried clay ; bricks as solid and 

 as durable as those which they mixed with straw, bean- 

 haulm, and stubble. At Thebes, many of the crude brick 

 remains are built with bricks of unmixed clay ; and only 

 the other day, at Haybee, near Feshoon, Mr. Lawrence 

 Oliphant, on examining the massive fortifications which 

 surround the ancient city of Isi-em-Kheb, found them to be 

 constructed of bricks in which there is no binding sub- 

 stance whatever. The old Egyptian name for a sunburnt 

 brick is in use to this day. The " tcb " of the hieroglyph 

 is the " tobi" of the Coptic, and the " toob" or "iob"oi 

 the modern Arabic. 



The evidence of the sculptured monolith and sphinxes, 

 already described, § can, of course, be taken for only what 

 it is worth. It proves that Rameses II. embellished the 

 place ; but it cannot te made to prove that he founded it. 



3. Thov-gh biiiU by liaiDcses II., the city of Pa-Ramescs 

 was strengthened by his siiccessor, Menej)hthah , who, in the 

 letter of Amen-em-apt, is thus invoked : — "Oh, sweet is thy 

 voice in speech ! It is thou who hast enclosed Pa-Rameses 

 with a wall ! " 



As we have already seen, Professor Ebers found the 

 remains of a wall of circuit at Tel el-Maskhoota built with 

 bricks stamped with the cartouche of this Pharaoh. IT 



4. I'a-Rameses wa^ a port. Now, a port, in the Egyp- 

 tian acceptation of that word, whether we take it in its 

 ancient or its modern sense, does not necessarily mean a 

 seaport, but merely a place accessible to shipping. Thus 

 the little village of El Hamra is called the "port" of 

 Asyoot, because the Nile-boats moor there ; the town being 

 at some little distance from the river. Pa-Rameses was a 



* See Knowledgb, Sept. 29, p. 292. + Ibid., Sept. 29, p. 292. 

 t rhid., Sept. 29, p. 293. || Ibid., Sept. 8, p. 244. 



§ Ibid., Deo. 8, p. 450. i Ibid., Dec. 8, p. 450. 



port because it could be approached by water. In the 

 letter of Panbesa* we accordingly read that 



" Its galleys come and go in the port." 



And again : — 



" Beer of Kati is brought to the port." 



Among the papyri of the Leyden Museum is a large 

 collection of scribes' letters containing many allusions to 

 the water-traffic of Pa-Rameses. One Kauiser, writing to 

 his master, tells how he found a boat waiting for him at 

 the port of this city. Another scrilie in another letter 

 complains that, when he arrived, he found " no boats at 

 Pa-Rameses." 



We have already seen how the canal of Seti I. — that 

 same canal called " The Cutting," which is represented in 

 the bas-relief sculptures at Kamakt — was carried through 

 Wady Tumilat from " a little above Bubastis " to Lake 

 Timsah, along the very route now followed by the Fresh- 

 water Canal and the Ismaileeyah railway. Hence, the 

 ancient fortress, the walls of which were washed by that 

 canal, was unquestionably a "port." 



5. ra-Rameses iras a port in comnucnication rcith the Red 

 Sea. — This is shown by the Letter of Panbesa, who enu- 

 merates among the delicacies sold at its dailj- market : — 



"Fish from the river Puharta," 

 — the river Puharta being identified by Dr. Birch and 

 Professor Maspero with the Euphrates. 



The significance of this allusion is very great indeed ; 

 for not one of the other sites which have from time to time 

 been proposed for Pa-Rameses could by any possibility be 

 shown to have a direct shipping trade with the Persian 

 Gulf. But if we admit, with Maspero, ilariette, the 

 Abb6 Vigoureux, and other high authorities, that in the 

 time of Rameses II., the ancient canal was already carried 

 as far as the Red Sea, the connection is at once 

 established. 



And in truth it is almost impossible that so great a work 

 should not have been completed by either Seti I., who 

 began it (as shown by the Karnak sculptures), or by his 

 son and successor. That the canal was subsequently 

 allowed to become silted up, and then, in later years, was 

 repeatedly cleared out, silted up, and cleared out again, is 

 a matter of history ; and that those rulers of Egypt who 

 so cleared it should each ari'ogate to himself the honour of 

 having " cut " it, is in accordance with the style and 

 custom of the times. Tradition, as handed dowTi in the 

 pages of Strabo, Aristotle, and Pliny, attribute the com- 

 mencement of the canal to Rameses II. : Herodotus attri- 

 butes it to Nekau, and says that it was finished by Darius : 

 Strabo and Diodorus say that it was finished by the Ptole- 

 mies. Not one of these great wi iters could speak Egyptian 

 or read a hieroglyphed inscription ; and consequently, 

 although they lived so much nearer than ourselves to the 

 time of the Pharaohs, they did not know, as we do, that 

 the De Lesseps of the Middle Empire was Seti I. If their 

 traditions and mutual contradictions have any historical 

 value, it is only in so far as we are enabled to translate 

 them into probable or recently ascertained facts. The 

 reigns of Seti I. and Rameses II. were both unusually 

 long, and the public works executed by these Pharaohs 

 are, with the exception of the Pyramids, the most colossal 

 monuments of ancient Egypt. If, therefore, Seti, the 

 father, did not himself carry the canal of " The Cutting " 

 beyond Lake Timsah, we may, I think, be certain that 

 Rameses, the son, connected the waters of Lake Timsah 

 with the waters of the Red Sea, and so became traditionally 

 credited with the glory of originating a work which, in 

 point of fact, he only completed. 



Sec KxowLEDiiE, Oct. 13, p. 324. f nid-., Oct. 27, p. 357 



