D[;. PORTER ON EGYPT. oO 



tliose unique monuments from the country where they were 

 designed ; but their existence in far distant and widely 

 separated lands is not without advantage to the philologist 

 and antiquarian. He can trace upon the hieroglyphics which 

 cover them the original germs, so to speak, of those letters 

 that now give expression with such marvellous precision and 

 facility to the literature of the whole civilised world. Many 

 of them still fortunately remain in Egypt. There is one, a 

 companion apparently to that of Heliopolis, in the Fayoum, 

 but fallen and broken. There are several in Thebes ; there 

 are some broken and prostrate on the site of the ancient 

 Tanis in the Delta; and there is one unfinished, lying in a 

 granite quarry near Syene. 



Connexion of Eyijpt ivlth Sacred Illi^tonj. 



It would seem to have been soon after the close of the 

 twelfth dynasty that Abraham visited Egypt. About a 

 century later a new race of shepherd warriors, called Hijlcsos, 

 apparently of Semitic origin, invaded and captured the 

 country. They established the seat of their government in 

 Memphis, but their conquests did not extend to Upper Egypt, 

 of which Thebes was then the capital. During their rule 

 Joseph was sold by his brethren and brought to the Egyptian 

 court. It was quite characteristic of the strange transition of 

 life and authority in the East that the slave became viceroy, 

 and introduced his brethren to Pharaoh. The influence he 

 gained, and the position to which the Israelites attained were, 

 doubtless, in part owing to the fact that the then rulers of the 

 country were Shemites and natives of Arabia. 



Subsequently the Hyksos were conquered and expelled by 

 Amosis, the founder of the eighteenth, which was a Theban 

 dynasty. This dynasty inaugurated one of the most brilliant 

 periods of Egyptian history. To them we owe most of the 

 magnificent temples, monuments, and tombs that line the 

 banks of the Nile, from Memphis southward. Records of 

 their conquests, and of the glory of their country, are in- 

 scribed on the walls of Karnac, Luxor, Medinet Habou, Abu 

 Simbel, and other places. Their conquests extended to the 

 Euphrates, over Syria, Asia Minor, the Isles of Greece, and 

 away down into Ethiopia on the south. They excelled in 

 literature, science, art, engineering, and architecture; and 

 they have left behind them, on the walls of their temples and 

 tombs, and on numerous papyrus rolls, many hundreds of 

 which are now in the museums of Europe, most valuable 



VOL. XX. D 



