♦ KNOWLEDGE 



[Sept. 1, 1882. 



dynamii's vrithout alluding to the ingenious theory by 

 vhich the President of the Association has proposed to 

 account for tlie conservation of solar energy. Uorameuting 

 on this, he remarked that, " if it l«e true that the compounds 

 are decomposed by absorbing the sun's rays, we ought to 

 find in our atmosphere the products of decomposition ; we 

 ought to find it in free hydrogen, carbonic oxide, and 

 acetylene, or some other hydrocarlnjns. The hydrogen, 

 from its Ein.oll sprcilio gravity, would not be concentrated 

 in the lower regions of our atmosphere in the same propor- 

 tions as the denser gases, but carlionic oxide and hydro- 

 carbons could not fail to be detected in the air if they 

 formed any sensible proportion of tlio gases in interplane- 

 tary space.''* Dewar anil he had recently shown that if 

 nitrogen already in combination— as, for instance, ammonia 

 — lie brought into a hydrocnrlion flame, cyanogen is pro- 

 duced in sutlicient amount to give in a photograph (though 

 not so OS to be directly visible) the characteristic spectrum of 

 cyanogen as it appears in the comet. It is therefore, he 

 said, " no longer necessary to make any other supposition to 

 account for the cyanogen bands in the spectra of comets, 

 than that ammonia, or some such compound of nitrogen, is 

 present as well as hydrocarbons in a state of ignition." 

 Quite recently Dr. Hugginshas observed that the principal 

 comet of this year has a spectrum of an entirely diti'erent 

 character, but he is not yet able to say to what elements 

 or compounds it is probably due. The notion that comets 

 may bring us news of distant parts of stellar .space, towards 

 which our system is driving, where the atmosphere is not 

 like ours — oxygen and nitrogen — but hydrogen and hydro- 

 carlons, may fascinate the fancy, but the laws of occlusion 

 oblige us to think that the meteorites have not merely 

 wandered through an attenuated atmosphere of hydrogen 

 and hydrocarbons, but have cooled in a much denser 

 atmosphere of those substances, which we can only con- 

 ceive as concentrated by the presence of a star or some 

 large aggregation of matter. No comet on visiting our 

 system a second time can repeat the exclusion of its 

 occluded gases unless its store has been replenished in 

 the jntenal ; and it will be interesting to see, when Halley's 

 comet next returns, whether it shines only by a reflected 

 light or gives us, like so many others, the banded spectrum 

 of hydrocarbons. 



WAS RAMESES 11. THE PHARAOH 



OF THE OPPRESSION? 



By Amelia B. Edwards. 



vii.— tue twin cities, pa-tdm and pa-hameses. 



HAVING endeavoured to show how the foregoing 

 monumental and Bible dates are capable of being 

 brought into concordance, and how the chronological pro- 

 blem (which some have pronounced to be insoluble) ceases 

 to l>e forrnidable when carefully tabulated, I now propose 

 to examine, not the chronological, but the hi.storical 

 evidence which connects Rameses 1 1, with the period of 

 the oppression. 



M. de Rotig«:-'« identification, it will Ijc remenibcred,+ is 

 founded in the first place on the name of the city which 

 was built by the forced labour of the Hebrew settlers; and, 

 in the second place, on the length of the reign of Rameses 



•The calm way in which Prfjfcjwor I.irciriK crushcg, under 

 elsemicml coniiJcratfonii, «he theory siroady killed by physical and 

 -.fViFmaticml maoninfr i« worth obnerring. 



+ Be* K!»oin,i!t)0«, No. 85, Vol. II., p. 2. 



Now, if it were possible to identify the site of this city 

 (Raamses), or, better still, the sites of both tJie "treasure- 

 cities " specified in the Bible, and if it could also be shown 

 beyond reasonable doubt that tlicy were indeed built by 

 Rameses II., then the correspondence between Hebrew and 

 Egj-ptian evidence would amount to positive proof. 



The Hebrew evidence is brief and precise : — " And they 

 built for Pharaoh treasure-cities, Pithoni and Raamses." 

 (Exodus i., 11.) 



That is to say, they built a treasure-city (in Egyptian, a 

 Jickhon) called Pa-Tum, or Pi-Tum, and a treasure-city 

 called Pa- Rameses, or Pi-Ramcses ; the one signifying tho 

 " Pa," or abode, of Tum, and the other the " Pa," or 

 aViode, of Rameses. Tum was a solar Deity chiefly 

 worshipped in the East of Delta, where lay the land of 

 (loslien. Rameses is a royal and divine name, meaning 

 the Son of Ra. It was borne as a proper name by two 

 Pharaohs of tlie XlXth Dynasty, and also by a long suc- 

 cession of Pliar.aohs of the XXth Dynasty ; but in the 

 hands of Rameses II. of unbounded arrogance, it became 

 something more than a mere alliliation of tho King to tlic 

 Sun-god Ra. It became the name of a living and personal 

 (!od, Rameses Jlcr-.Vnicn, Pharaoh a)\d deity, self-elected 

 in the flesh to the circle of tlie Gods. In this sense, Pa- 

 Ramcses, no less than Pa-Tum, was a city dedicated to a 

 deity ; and we may be certain that Pa-Tum and Pa- 

 Ramcses each contained a temple in honour of the tutelary 

 God of the place. Nor is tho juxtaposition of the.se two 

 names. Pa Turn and Pa-Rainosc.s, altogether fortuitous. 

 The God Ra and the God Turn were closely related in the 

 system of Egyptian solar myths ; tho one representing tho 

 diurnal, and the other the nocturnal, sun. Or, in other 

 words, Ra was the risen sun, the giver of life and light, 

 while Tum was tho setting sun, precursor of the shades of 

 night. They were even said (as M. Grdbaut has shown in 

 his celebrated translation of a " Hymn to Amen-Ra") to 

 engender each other — day giving birth to night, and night 

 becoming in turn the parent of day. And it is in this 

 sense, as symbolising life, death, and resurrection, that we 

 frequently find Ra and Tum represented together on 

 funereal taVilcts. 



PivRameses and Pa-Tum were therefore twin cities, 

 sanctified by the twin temples (the "Abodes" of Tum and 

 Rameses) after which they were named ; the cult of the one 

 temple being the complement of the cult of the other. 

 Hence it is reasonable to conclude that Pa-Rameses and 

 Pa-Tum were situate not very far apart. 



The question next arises — where verc they situate? To 

 this it m.ay be answered that tliey were undoubtedly 

 situate in the land of Go.shen ; that .same land which, in 

 the XLVIIth chap, of Genesis is called indifferently both 

 Goshen and Rameses. That it should be called " Rameses " 

 thus early in the .^acred narrative is in itself a very signi- 

 ficant fact. It shows that at the time when the Mosaic 

 books were compiled — or, in modern phrase, edited— this 

 province was no longer exclusively called by the name of 

 its ancient capital, Gessen, or Goshen, but was also 

 familiarly known by the name of the Pharaoh who ordained 

 the building of the treasure-cities. It also shows that it 

 is in this district of (Joshen, or Rameses, that we must 

 look for the site of that llchltcn called " Raamses," which 

 is the object of our present inquiry. 



There has been a great diversity of opinion among 

 Egyptologists as to -tlie site of this famous Btkhen, the 

 difficulty of identifying which is considerably increased by 

 the fact that it was the supremo will and pleasure of 

 Rameses 11. to give his name, not only to every new city 

 of his own creation, but even to cities built long before his 

 time and already famous in history. Thus at Aboo 



