Brugsch, Heinrich: Egypt under the pharaohs: a history derived entirely from the monuments (London, 1891)

100 SI-IASU AND BEDAWI IMMIGRANTS oh. v.

Contrary to the custom of giving dates according
to the day, month, and year of the reigning king, this
stone offers the only example as yet discovered of a
foreign system of chronology, mention being there
made of the year 400 of King Nub, a Hyksos prince.

The monuments also attest the presence of these
foreign families on Egyptian soil, as the following letter
will show :—

(I will now pass) to something else which will give satisfaction
to the heart of my lord ; (namely, to report to him) that we have
permitted the races of the Shasu of the land of Aduma (Edom) to
pass through the fortress Khetam (Etham) of King Meneptah -
Hotephimaat—life, health, and strength be to him !—which is situated
in the land of Succoth, near the lakes of the city of Pithom of King
Meneptah-Hotephimaat, which is situated in the land of Succoth, to
nourish themselves and to feed their cattle on the property of
Pharaoh, who is a gracious sun for all nations.

This extremely important document of the time of
Meneptah II., the son of Eamses II., refers to those
Shasu tribes, or Bedawi, who inhabited the great desert
between Egypt and the land of Canaan, and extended
their wanderings as far sometimes as the Euphrates.
According to the monuments they belonged to the
great race of the Aamu, of which they were in fact the
representatives.

As in the neighbourhood of the city of Eamses and
the town of Pithom the Semitic population formed the
main stock of the inhabitants from remote antiquity;
so the neighbourhood of Pa-Bailos was peopled by
strangers who had pitched their tents in sight of the
cultivated land where they found pasture for their
cattle. They were Bedawi, who had in all probability
migrated from the dreary region near the town of
Suez.

Meneptah II., the son and successor of Eamses II.,

o-ives at Karnak a graphic account of the dangerous c
b is

E