74 



If George the Syncellus is right in saying that Aphdphis, 

 the shepherd-king, was the Pharaoh in whose time Joseph 

 ruled, then the most ancient Egyptian prince found at Deir- 

 el-Bahri was a contemporary of Joseph, who may himself well 

 have looked on the countenance of the patriot Ra-sekenen, the 

 Very Valiant, the calm placid features and rather oblique eyes, 

 whose " counterfeit presentment " is given by the mask of the 

 mummy-case which hides the reality. 



The celebrated sphinxes of Sun, discovered by Mariette, 

 carry the royal titles of Aphdphis (Apepi), and have been 

 considered as bearing the stern visage of Joseph's Pharaoh. 

 I believe Professor Maspei'o doubts (Perrot et Chipiez, Hist, 

 de I' Art, i. 688) whether the inscription is not a usurpation 

 of a still older king's monument. And Lepsius has expressed 

 the opinion that the sculptures of San are to be assigned to 

 the oldest, not to the latest, Hyksos period. But this does 

 not affect what I have said of Joseph and Ba-sekenen-taii-aa- 

 ken, who began the war of liberation in earnest, which Ka-mes 

 and Aah-mes carried to a prosperous end. 



I would earnestly plead for those most interesting excava- 

 tions in the Delta which will soon, we hope, bring to light fresh 

 monuments of this impori-ant period, and enable us to know 

 the certainty of these gi-eat problems affecting Biblical, no less 

 than Egyptian, history, and the tantalizing cross-questions 

 which the Nile and the Euphrates are asking of one 

 another. 



Meanwhile, the solemn "statue of flesh," the bodily frame 

 of Ra-sekenen the Valiant, has in good likelihood seen Jacob's 

 beloved son, and perhaps Jacob too, and bears witness to the 

 fashion in which those patriarchs may reappear to the e3^es of 

 their descendants with names and titles written in hiero- 

 glyphic by the scribes of Joseph's household. I think this 

 a very interesting thing. I do not suppose any mummy has 

 been found so nearly corresponding with Jacob's burial as 

 this : and if Joseph's mummy were recovered it would very 

 possibly be in such a case as this is. All these touches bring 

 home to us the inimitable " Egypticity " of the Biblical 

 nai'rative, unfeigned as it is in its antique simplicity. 



The next period, that of the eighteenth dynasty, was repre- 

 sented in the sepulchre of Deir-el-Bahri by its greatest 

 monarehs, Aahmes the founder, who chased the aliens out of 

 the Delta as far as Sharuhen (north-west of Beersheba) ; 

 Amenhotep I. (in his garlands of bright flowers) ; Thothmes I., 

 who pushed his victorious arms as far as the Syrian river-land 

 of " Naharina"; his son Thothmes III., the " little corporal " 

 of Egyptian history, whose memorable conquests are detailed 



