742 REPORT— 1888. 



and Daplinse (Tahpanhes). Seti 1. lias given us his military route, witli its fortified 

 watering stations in the desert, to tlie stronghold of Kanana south of Hebron. 



Avery important place, besieged and taken after the expulsion of the Hyksos by 

 Aahmes the founder of the XVIII. dynasty, is Sharuhen, now Tel-esh-Sheriah, 

 north-west of Beersheba. It used to be thought that the Egyptian armies avoided 

 the mountain masses of Palestine. But a careful examination of the Karnak tribute- 

 lists leads to quite a different conclusion. 



The coast route was deflected far inland by a dense and impracticable forest, 

 haunted by brigands, between Joppa and Oa'rmel. But the hill-country was 

 brought under the military control of Egypt by the great kings of the eighteenth 

 dynasty. 



The names of the tribute-lists are to a great extent identical with the Biblical 

 names in the book of Joshua, &c., and many of them occur in Assyrian annals, and 

 the greater part may be found not greatly altered as the present local names. 

 Askalon, Joppa, Gaza, Megiddo, were Egyptian garrisons. 



The great fords of the Jordan were covered by military posts on the east side, 

 and the great route down into Arabia was secured. 



Tabor and Merom and Laish were points of note. The fords of Jordan, and the 

 Litany (Nazana) are mentioned, and the Nahr-el-Kelb bears its own monumental 

 testimony to the conquerors. 



The Lebanon supplied its cedar and pine timber to the Pharaohs, who had 

 garrisons there. 



Along the southern Nahr-el-Kebir (Eleutherus) a great route led to the Orontes 

 and its fortress Kadesh in the land of the Amorites. 



The Orontes valley is full of names which we meet in Egyptian tribute-lists and 

 narratives of campaigns, and several occur near Antioch and in the Taurus. 



The northern list of Thothmes III. furnishes 230 names, besides 119 in the 

 Palestine list. 



Very careful examination now shows that at least 20 of the northern names as 

 along the Euphrates, including Pethor (of Balaam), Karkemish, and Kirkesion, 

 and three important fortified towns renowned in the Egyptian campaigns, Anukie 

 (Annukas of Procopius, refortified by Justinian) ; Hurenkal ; and luua (perhaps 

 Haragla or Herakleh and Einya, both on the Euphrates). 



The land of Naharina extended east and west of the Euphrates, as we learn from 

 Egyptian texts, but in the cuneiform tablets of Tel-el-Amarna it is identified with 

 the land of Mitani between the Euphrates and the Khabur river. These tablets show 

 us that the Pharaohs Amenhotep III. and IV. (Khu-en-aten) were overlords of 

 Assyria and Babylonia, and this agrees well with the principal places on both sides 

 of the Euphrates being included in the tribute-list of Thothmes III. A list of 

 Euphratean names wiU illustrate this, reaching from above Bir-ejik to some 100 

 miles below Kirkesiou, including positions on the east side commanding great 

 passages of the river. Further eastward it is not proposed to go in the present 

 paper. But the inclusion of Damascus and other places on the great route across 

 the Jordan near Beth-shan, and the old Hajj road towards Arabia, in the lists of 

 Thothmes is thoroughly congruous with such substantial conquest as we have now- 

 ascertained. This was the old hne of march of Kedorla'omer in the days of 

 Abraham, and in the list of Thothmes we find the same memorials in the Ono-rapha 

 which preserves the name of the Rephaim, and Ashtaroth where these people were 

 smitten, and perhaps Hum is the Ham (Dn), where the Zuzim were likewise 

 smitten by the old Elamite suzerain. Now the tables had been turned, and Egypt 

 was lord of the Euphrates. 



The Egyptians, for all their appliances of easy life, were a -very enterprising 

 people, and highly trained both as conquerors and administrators, and were con- 

 tinually forced to supply their needs from foreign lands and to defend themselves 

 by keeping their enemies in order. 



These things help to account for the thorough knowledge which they had of the 

 geography between their own Nile and the gi-eat river Euphrates, which we are 

 able to ascertain by Biblical and Assyrian and classic records, and by the innumer- 

 able names still fresh on the lips of the inhabitants. 



