EECENT RESEAECH IN EGYPT. 573 



and we preserved all the skeletons and measured them. This belonged 

 to the middle of the age of the pyramid builders, about 3500 B. O. To 

 my great surprise, I found that two entirely different systems of treat- 

 ing the bodies were followed then. While many bodies were wrapped 

 up and buried in the usual Egyptian style, nearly half of the bodies 

 were more or less cut to i^ieces, and some had been elaborately dis- 

 sected, stripped of all their flesh, and then wrapped up bone by bone 

 separately in cloth. Thus there were two entirely diiferent customs of 

 funerals existing side by side. Yet, on measuring the bodies, there 

 proved to be no distinct difference between them. The population was 

 completely fuse4 and unified as to ancestry, but had kept up entirely 

 different customs in different levels of society. 



We now pass entirely from these early times, with their fascinating 

 insight into the beginnings of things, long before any other human 

 history that we possess, until we reach down to what seems quite mod- 

 ern times in the record of Egypt, where it comes into contact with the 

 Old Testament history. On clearing out the funeral temple of King 

 Merenptah I found in that the upper half of a fine colossal statue of 

 his, with all the colors still fresh upon it. As this son of Eameses the 

 Great is generally believed to be the Pharaoh of the exodus, such a fine 

 portrait of him is full of interest. Better even than that — I found an 

 immense tablet of black granite over 10 feet high and 5 feet wide. It 

 had been erected over two centuries before and brilliantly carved by 

 an earlier king, whose temple was destroyed for materials by Merenptah. 

 He took this splendid block and turned its face inward against the wall 

 of his temple and carved the back of it with other scenes and long 

 inscriptions. Most of it is occupied with the history of his vanquishing 

 the Libyans, or North African tribes, who were then invading Egypt. 

 But at the end he recounts his conquests in Syria, among which occurs 

 the priceless passage: "The people of Israel are spoiled; they have no 

 seed." This is the only trace yet found in Egypt of the existence of 

 the Israelites, the only mention of the name, and it is several centuries 

 earlier than the references to the Israelite and Jewish kings in the 

 cuneiform inscriptions of Assyria. What relation this has to our bib- 

 lical knowledge of the Israelites is a wide question, that has several 

 possible answers. Without entering on all the openings, 1 may here 

 state what seems to me to be the most probable connection of all the 

 events, though I am quite aware that fresh discoveries might easily 

 alter our views. It seems that either all the Israelites did not go into 

 Egypt or else a part returned and lived in the north of Palestine before 

 the exodus that we know, because we here find Merenptah defeating 

 Israelites at about 1200 B.C. Of his conquest and of those of Eameses 

 III in Palestine there are no traces in the biblical accounts, the absence 

 of which indicates that the entry into Canaan took place after 1160 

 B. C, the last war of Rameses III. Then the period of the judges is 

 given in a triple record — (1) of the north, (2) of the east of Jordan, (3) 

 of Ephraim and the west; and these three accounts are quite distinct 



