46 THE PHARAOH OF THE EXODUS 



Osbura, must have been an exceedingly long one, we must have the 

 Pharaoh of the Exodus and the first enslaver of Israel. But there is 

 another individual, called Mesphres, whose reign is constantly of the 

 same length as that of Acencheres, namely, twelve years."^ Now, 

 the death of Mesphres, father and grandfather of Thothmosis, took 

 place in the twenty-third year of the age and reign of the latter. ^"^ No 

 inscription of Thothmosis is found later than the thirty-fifth year of his 

 age and reign, thus giving to liim a true reign of twelve years.^"* He 

 dwelt at On or Heliopolis, worshipped the god Ra and built a temple 

 to him, oppressed the Israelites, inaugurated songs in his own honour 

 in the temple of Karnak, and was adored as the great Horus and son 

 of the sun.^"^ The most remarkable statement, however, made in regard 

 to him is that he was the offspring of an incestuous marriage,^'''' a crime 

 which, by a very strange coincidence, is not only charged upon Mesphres 

 and his daughter Amenses, but also upon Rameses the Great and his 

 daughter Bent Anat,^"^ from whom doubtless came the successor of 

 Rameses, Setei Menephthah. An inscription designates Thothmosis 

 Son-mautf, brother of his mother.-^"^ We may reasonably conclude 

 that the three dynastic names and religious designations, Acencheres, 

 Mesphres and Thothmosis, to say nothing as yet of Rameses, Sethos and 

 Menephthah or Merenphtah, are equally applicable to two individuals at 

 least, one of whom stands in the double relation of father and grand- 

 father to the other. 



The name Acencheres seems to consist, like most Egyptian names, 

 of two parts, the latter, cheres, common to many other words, as Men- 

 cheres, Nephercheres, Zebercheres, being a kind of Charis or strongly 

 aspirated Horus. The first part of the name, Acen or Aken, is an 

 epithet of Vulcan, and corresponds to the Sanscrit Agni and the Latin 

 Ignis, so that Ptah would be another form for it, Ptah being Hephaes- 

 tus.^°^ The whole name has much in common with the Greek Agenor, 

 or with Cenchrias the son of Neptune, mentioned by Pausanias."" We 



102 See lists of kingslSth dyu., Cory's An. Trag. los Id. ii, 301. 



103 Osburn's Mon. His. of Egypt, ii, 231, 303. 107 Lenormant & Chevalier's Manual, i, 256. 

 10* Kenrick's Ancient Egypt, ii, 196. 108 Osburn's Mon. His. of Egypt, ii, 302. 

 105 Osburn's Mon. His. of Egypt, ii, 208, &c. 



108 De Lanoye's Ram. Gt., p. 7S. We also find the designation Haqan changed to Hickpoun, 

 belonging to a Rameses (De Lanoye, 172) ; and the Rev. W. B. Galloway, Egypt. Record, 371, 

 speaks of Rameses Khenephres. In eacli the Alien appears. 



no There is a decided connection of Agenor with Phoenicia, and, as we shall see, of Egypt 

 with Phoenicia, about the time of the Exodus. Buttman proves that Cnas is the Plioeuician. 

 name of Agenor (Mythol. i, 232); and Ernest Renan shows that the Phoenicians, in the time of 



