87 
and just such are now found about the site of old Dothan. 
It is remarkable that, though dug in hard rock, and apparently 
sound, they are nearly all dry even in winter.”* 
The Spicer y from Gilead. 
Of the three aromatics which the merchants were taking 
down to Egypt Dr. Ebers f thinks that he has identified two — 
nek^oth, ns33, and tsori, — with the nehpat and tar a which 
he finds among the . constituents of the celebrated incense 
called KV(pL in the inscriptions of the laboratory at Edfu 
given by Diimichen. Nek'oth must be the resin of the As- 
tragalus tragacantlia , still called naka^at by the Arabs. J Dr. 
Ebers has also given§ from the papyrus Ebers a formula for 
AAAAAA 
making Kyphi, in which nehat, J [j ^ ^ from Tahi (north Syria) 
occurs as an ingredient, 
word as the ^ 3 ^ 
This must surely be the same original 
nekpath of Diimichen’s Edfu text. 
The tsori seems to be the “ balm of Gilead,” and the third 
aromatic, lot, to?, is supposed to be the ladanum of the 
Cistus ladaniferus, which was introduced into Egypt for 
cultivation in Ptolemaic times, and before that imported from 
the East. || 
Spices of Canaan and of Syria are mentioned in general 
terms in Egyptian papyri, and were largely consumed, both 
for incense and for embalming, from very early ages. 
The Egypt of Joseph. 
There seems no sufficient reason to give up the old tradition 
that Joseph entered and ruled Egypt during the domination 
of the Hyksos kings. The latest historians of Egypt, as 
Birch, Brugsch,** Maspero, ft agree in this opinion . Eusebius 
(c. a.d. 300) JJ gives this tradition, and George the Syncellus 
(c. a.d. 800) specifies Aphophis as the Pharaoh of J oseph. This 
name appears in Manetho's lists, and is supported by the 
monuments. For it is inscribed on the right shoulder of a 
statue of Ba-smenkh-ka Mermesha of the Xlllth dynasty 
* The Land and the Booh, 287. *j* ZEg. &c. 290. 
t Vigouroux, La Bible , 13. § Zeitschr., 1874, 108. 
|| Wilkinson, Anc. Eg. II. 404. IT Hist. Eg. 76. 
** Hist. d'Eg. 1875, 175. Eng. ed. I. 260. 
ft Bunsen, Egypt? s Place, I. 628. JJ Hist. Anc. 174. 
