Benson, Margaret; Gourlay, Janet: The temple of Mut in Asher: an account of the excavation of the temple and of the religious representations and objects found therein, as illustrating the history of Egypt and the main religious ideas of the Egyptians (London, 1899)

chap, ix.] ACTS OF AMENEMHAT.

135

of water distribution, and made law efficient through-
out Egypt. The inscription goes on :—

" He [the King] arose and placed him [Khnumhotep] great
chief of the Oryx * nome, establishing for him the south land-
mark and making firm the northern one like heaven, and divided
for him the great river down its middle, setting its eastern half to
the nome of the ' Rock of Horus,' reaching to the east desert.

"Whereas his majesty came that he might abolish wrong,
gloriously appearing even as the god Turn f himself, that he
might set right that which he found ruined, and that which one
city had taken from its sister city; that he might cause one city
to know its boundary with another city, establishing their land-
marks as heaven, reckoning their waters according to that which
was in the writings, apportioning according to that which was in
antiquity, of the greatness of his love of right. . . . He set up
the landmarks ... he divided the great river-valley down its
middle, its water, its fields, its wood, its sand, as far as the western
desert." }

Could there be a more vivid yet simple picture
of a great king, who with one hand welded Egypt
into a homogeneous kincrdom, and with the other
moulded the details essential to the well-being
of his people ?

Amenemhat was not only a statesman but a
builder, and what he wrought in stone has long out-
lasted his wise and equal laws. There are remains
of his work scattered along the whole length of the
river valley, from Tanis in the Delta to Korosko in
Nubia ; it is evident that these have been parts
of great buildings, and the workmanship and finish

* The oryx is a species of antelope.

t The sun-god at his setting.

X ' History of Egypt,' vol. L, p. 149.