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

244

THE KING'S LINE OF MARCH

CH XI

also near a spring. Here stood the often-mentioned'
temple on Mount Casius, in which an Amen was wor-
shipped, who was the Baal Zapuna of the Egyptian
inscriptions, the Baal Zephon of Holy Scripture
The army passed along the sea-shore to Ostracine, where
there was a tower, designated Pa-Nekhtu, or ' the'
conqueror's tower' of King Seti. At this point the
boundary of Egypt proper ended, and the land of the
Philistines began. The next halting-place was a fortified
spot, newly built by Seti, at the water of Absaqab.
Two other fortresses lay on either side of the road.
The larger one was called ' the town, which the king had
built at the spring of . . . tha.' It is also called ' a
strong place' in a second passage, and its water is desig-
nated as that of Eibatha, without doubt the Eehoboth of
the Bible, to the south-west of Beersheba, in Negeb or
the south country of Palestine. The smaller fortress stood
near Takhnum-net'em, ' the sweet spring.' It is called
A-Nekhtu, ' the fortress of victory.' Passing by a new
fortress (the name is unfortunately destroyed), the end
of the road was reached, and at the same time the
eastern boundary of the land of Shasu, marked by the
hill-fortress of ' Kanaan of the Land of Zahi,' near which
a stream seems to have fallen into a lake. The fortress
was stormed, and the king took possession of the land
of the Shasu to its extremest boundary, thus becoming-
lord of the whole of the Edomitish Negeb. Their first
victory is thus celebrated :—

In the first year of King Seti there took place by the strong arm
of Pharaoh the annihilation of the hostile Shasu, from the fortress
of Khetam of the land of Zaru, as far as Kanaan. The king was
against them like a fierce lion. They were turned into a heap of
corpses in their hill-country. They lay in their blood. Not one-
escaped to tell of his strength to the distant nations.

The Shasu next attempted to make head against the-
Egyptians, but were completely routed in the territory