34 



• KNOWLEDGE <> 



[Jdne 16, 1882. 



rfmeiubor to have seen for many years a sculptured portrait 

 »o full of character. Compare this work with another by 

 the same sculptor — the bust of Mr. Shaw in the Eoyal 

 Academy — and it will be seen that as wide a range of 

 character can be covered in sculpture as in the sister art, 

 and that sculpture is admirably suited (in skilful hands) 

 for the delineation of subtle 'shades of character. Tluit 

 Mr. MuUins should have succeeded in indicating intellec- 

 tual power in one bust, and business capacity in the other, 

 is, of course, little. But he shows the precise quality of 

 the intellect in one case ; in the other the special character 

 of the aptitude for business. 



TVAS RAMESES 11. THE PHARAOH 

 OF THE OPPRESSION? 



Ev Ameli.\ B. Edwards. 

 II.— JOSEPHS PLACE IN HISTORY. 



MDE ROUGE'S argument, steering clear of chrono- 

 • logy, hinges principally upon the name of the 

 " treasure-city " built for Pharaoh by the Israelites ; but 

 this argument, strong as it is, would be greatly strength- 

 ened if we could show a distinct correspondence between 

 the space of time assigned to the Hebrew sojourn and the 

 space of time which divides Joseph from Rameses II. 

 Before any such test can be applied, it is, however, 

 essential that we endeavour to find out as nearly as 

 possible under what Fliaraoh Joseph rose to power. Now, 

 the time of the sojourn in Egypt is expressly stated at 

 430 years (Exodus, chap, xii., verses 40 and 41), and 

 the age of Moses at the time of his return from 

 Midian (not at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, 

 as M. do Roug6 puts it) is as expressly stated 

 to have been eighty years (Exodus, chap, vii., verse 7). 

 To those who know not the chronological pitfalls 

 which enliven the paths of Egyptology, it may pro- 

 babl}' seem that nothing would be easier than to allow 

 eighty years for the age of Moses, and thence, by a retro- 

 grade calculation of 4. '50 years, to arrive at the Pharaoh 

 of Joseph. The method is doubtless excellent ; and if by 

 counting back 4.30 years from Mr. Gladstone's return to 

 office in 1880, we sought to determine under whose reign 

 Jack Cade made himself master of London, it would 

 answer the purpose quite satisfactorily. But not thus can 

 we go to work when dealing with Moses and the Pharaohs. 

 It is not possible, indeed, to apply ordinary chrono- 

 logical methods to inquiries concenn'ng early Heljrew 

 or Egyptiin history, because neither the Hebrews nor 

 the Egjptians had any fixed era from which to reckon. 

 Neither had they any exact system of reckoning. 

 The Hebrews counted by generation.? — that is to say, by 

 a rough-and-ready system of averages. The Egyptians 

 counted Vjy the regnal years of the Pharaolis, and these 

 regnal years were liable to much miscalculation. Some- 

 times an old king shared the throne with his heir during 

 the latter part of hi.'? reign ; and in many cases a Pharaoh 

 began by reigning with his father and ended by reigning 

 with his son. Rami'ses II., for instance, with whom 

 we are now especially concerned, reigned as Pharaoh- 

 Coadjutor during the latter years of Seti I., and himself 

 resigned the c^res of government to liis successor, 

 Menephthah, twelve years before liis death. Again, a 

 king's reign was soraetiraes counted from the beginning of 

 the year in which his predecessor died, and sometimes from 

 the day of his own coronation. Nor do the possibilities of 

 confusion end here. All dynasties were not legitimate, or . 



even successive ; and not merely certain Pharaohs, but 

 whole lines of Pharaohs, were consequently passed over by 

 conservative liistorians, as though they had never existed. 

 There are, in fact, very few even approximately certain 

 dates in Egyptian history before the period of the XXV Ith 

 dynasty, and those few (among which !Mr. R. A. Proctor's 

 astronomical date for the building of the Great Pyramid 

 must henceforth occupy a foremost place) can only be 

 regarded as landmarks planted here and there in a wide 

 waste of uncertainty. 



Granted, then, the impossibility of conducting our 

 present inquiry upon a purely chronological basis, we are 

 reduced, firstly, to the evidence of tradition ; and secondly, 

 to tlio internal evidence of the text 



According to the evidence of tradition as lianded down 

 by two early Christian writers (Eusebius, a.d. 300, and 

 (ieorge the Syncellus, A.D. 800), Joseph was sold into 

 slavery at a time when Lower Egypt, and possibly the 

 whole of Egypt, was occupied by a race of foreign invaders 

 known as the Hykshos, or Shepherds. The nationality of 

 the Hykshos is not exactly determined. Wo only know 

 that they were predatory tribes of Asiatic origin (probably 

 Syrian and Sinaitic), and that towards the close of the 

 XlVth dynasty they descended on the land in vast hordes, 

 slaying, ravaging, and confiscating all before them. Their 

 rule extended over three dynasties, namely the XVth, 

 XVIth, and XVIIth, and is supposed to have lasted for 

 five hundred years. The native princes, meanwhile, were 

 driven southwards, and some would seem to have ruled as 

 tributary chieftains at Thebes. 



The name " Hykshos " is sup- t y j "^ 1 tji\ *-& 

 posed to bo derived from //y^•, iii^ m + JT i li 

 " ruler," and Shasu, " shepherd," ^^ . . a . Su 

 or plunderer; Shasit,* being a Thcso liicroglypha arc: — 

 word used in a general sense to 1- •*• '''l'° Ka''le"i P™- 

 denote the tribes of the Eastern ^°°^^'"l^''- 2. Ancagloj 

 . .. 1 J, , . a. 3. A young shoot ; Su. 



frontier; and thereby seeming 4. A chick ; u, being a con- 

 to indicate that the Hykshos firmatioii of Iho vowel- 

 were originally tent-dwellers and sound. 5. A man signify- 

 herdsmen, like the wandering ing the general Bonsoottho 

 •r> , « t r ii i word. 0. Ihreo upright 



Bedawcen Arabs of the present ,t,„t^„_ „,^„i„g ., ,^^„^y . 



day. Abrahams visit to Egypt or a noun of nambor. 

 probably took place during the 



reign of some Ilykshos king of the XVth dynasty ; while 

 Joseph is traditionally said to have flourished towards the 

 clo.se of the XVIIth. This, the last Hykshos dynasty, was 

 governed, in the opinion of the late Mariette Pasha, by 

 kings of Hittitc nationality. It is, at all events, a singular 

 and a significant fact that Set, or Sutekh, the great god 

 of the Hykshos, was also the god of the Hittites. 



We will now turn from tradition to the internal evidence 

 of the text. 



I need not recapitulate the beautiful and affecting story 

 of Josepli — a story in which every touch of local colour, 

 whether as regards names, customs, or incidents, will bear 

 the strictest arch;eological scrutiny. For our present 

 purpose, I need only quote Joseph's instructions to his 

 brethren, before he introduces them to Pharaoh : — 



" I will go up," he says, " and show Pharaoh, and say 

 unto him. My brethren and my father's house {i.e., house- 

 hold), wliich were in the land of Canaan, are come 

 unto me ; 



" And the men are shepherds, for their trade hath been 

 to feed cattle ; and they have brought their flocks, and 

 their herds, and all that they have. 



* Tlio AbbiS Vigoareux has pointed out how tho Ilobrow root 

 ^DV/, sU'ih, or DDIff, hUm, " to dovaatate," "to pillage," is used in 

 tlio Bible to designate tho forays of tlio Bedawcen hoathtn. Sco 

 " La Biblo et leg Ddcoavertes Uodemos," vol. ii., p. 86. 18H2. 



