REVIEW BY THE SECRETARY. 



87 



Er Rahah to the north-west, and the Wadv Esh Sheikh to the 

 north-east — satisfies "// the conditions. It has been remarked by 

 Urqnhart that the Israelites would, in this case, be enclosed in an 

 almost impregnable mountainous fortress, assailable from only two 

 directions and easily defended. 



AVe shall concur with Professor Hull that "Professor Petrie 

 is to be congratulated on the success of his explorations and the 

 able manner in which he has placed the results within reach of the 

 public." AVe shall cordially thank Professor Hull for the concise, 

 clear and interestinsf manner in which he has brouo'ht the more 

 important of those results before us this afternoon. 



Mr. Rouse. — There can be no doulu that in the interpretation 

 just dealt with Professor Petrie desired to bring the Bible statement 

 within the boimds of common experience. But the expedients will 

 not assort with other facts in the sacred story. Xor is there the 

 cause that he imagines for lengthening the Berlin chronology. In 

 order to make room, 'as he says, for the Xlllth and XVIIth Dynasties^ 

 as well as for the Hyksos, he finds it needful to add a whole Sothic 

 period to the apparent difference in date between an astronomical 

 observation made late in the Xllth Dynasty and another made early 

 in the XVIIIth. But that this is needless is evidenced by the list 

 of kings whose monuments he has found in and around the mines of 

 Sinai ; for whereas the Xllth Dynasty has a continuous record of its 

 seven kings on these monuments, and from the second king of the 

 XVIIIth, who acceded in 1562 B.C., down to the fourth king of the 

 XXth, who acceded in 11-56, there is only one break and that of 

 only 55 years (which we know to have heen troubled ones), on the 

 other hand no king of either the Xlllth or the XYIIth Dynasty is 

 represented at all. The inference is natural that the kings of the 

 intermediate native dynasties were contemporary with and sub- 

 ordinate to the Hyksos kings ; that, when the Hyksos invaded 

 Egypt, the miners who, as appears from the Sinaitic records, were 

 Semites, fled back to their distant homes : and that the Hyksos, 

 having during their conquest of Egypt let the mines slip, were never 

 powerful enough to renew Egyptian ownership over them. It is 

 indeed strange that Professor Petrie should reckon the XIII ch and 



* Manetho assigns three dynasties to shepherd kings ; but he calls 

 them the loth, 16th, and ITtli. 



