85 



the desert to cross, and were obliged in consequence to take 

 with them the necessary food." Here, then, in '' the best of 

 tlie land," " the land of Goshen," still further irrigated and 

 made fruitful as " the land of Rameses," tlie troops could take 

 up their commissariat stores just before issuing through the 

 gates of the great frontier fortress of Zar on the waste lands 

 swept by the hordes of marauding Shasu, the scene of Israel's 

 wanderings and trials. The results of careful examination at 

 Tell-el-Maskhuta correspond singularly well with the history 

 given us in the Bible. The place was built by Eameses II. 

 There are no earlier monuments than his. It was Pi-tum. It 

 was a fortified store-city, the place of military supplies nearest 

 to the walled frontier-line of Egypt : the first halting-place of 

 the Israelites, Succoth. And there are certain minute parti- 

 culars which stamp the story on the structure itself. M. 

 Naville found '^ very thick brick walls, remarkably well built, 

 with mortar between the layers of brick," &c. This was not 

 the usual mode of building with sun-burnt brick in Egypt. I 

 quote from the fine new work of MM. Perrot and Chipiez on 

 "Ancient Art" (vol. i., Bgypte, 115): — "As to crude brick 

 it does not differ perceptibly from pise [which in Devon I 

 should translate coli] ; placed one on another, after undergoing 

 only an incomplete drying, these bricks under the action of 

 pressure {ta.ssemeiit), and of atmospheric influences, finish by 

 no longer forming anything but a homogeneous mass, where 

 one does not even distinguish the courses of work." But at 

 Pithom M. Naville found "mortar between the layers of 

 brick." This at once brings us to the Israelites whom the 

 Egyptians made "to serve with rigour; and they made their 

 lives bitter with hard bondage in mortar (inn), and in brick," 

 &c. (Ex. i. 13). Here [exhibiting itj is a photograph of 

 bricks of the time of Hameses, and stamped with his royal 

 mark. These contain bits of chopped straw. 



Now, as for the brick itself, we learn that the straw was 

 withholden from the Israelites, and they had to gather it for 

 themselves, and yet to do the same tale of work (Ex. v.). 

 "And they were scattered throughout all the land of Mizraim 

 to gather stubble for straw/' that is, to make the necessary 

 chopped material. The word rendered stubble is an Egyptian 



word (u;p - Eg., ^ A. J<:^.cy, ariwdo, calamus), used for 



the reeds of which the scribes made their pens. And this is 

 just what M. Naville found : — " I may add," he writes, " that 

 some of them (the bricks) are made with straw ; or witla frag- 

 ments of reed, of which traces are still to be seen, and some 

 are of mere Nile mud, and without any straw at all." So that 



