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

fer. xrx. MENEPTAH II. 311

Ptah-meri-en-se-Ptah. Meneptah II.

A careful examination of the monuments shows
that Meneptah II. does not rank with those Pharaohs
who have transmitted their remembrance to posterity
by grand buildings and the construction of new temples,
or by the enlargement of such as already existed. A
glance at the plan of the temple at Karnak is alone
sufficient to prove that Meneptah did as good as nothing
for the great temple of the empire at Apet. With the
exception of small works hardly worthy of being men-
tioned, the new Pharaoh contented himself with the
cheap glory of utilising, or rather misusing, the monu-
ments of his predecessors as far back as the Twelfth
Dynasty, not excepting the works of the Hyksos, for in
the cartouches of former kings, where he had chiselled
out their names, he unscrupulously inserted his own.
Short, unimportant, badly executed inscriptions, for the
most part of the first years of his reign, commemorate
merely his existence, the one exception being an
important record which he caused to be placed on the
inner side-wall at Karnak, to call to the remembrance
of the Thebans his great friendship for the gods. It
also announces the irruption of the Libyans and their
allies into Egypt and their repulse :—

(1) Catalogue of the peoples which were smitten by the king :
[. . . . 1-i the A-qa-ua-sha, the Tu-li-sha, the Li-ku, the Shar-dana,
the Sha-ka-li-sha, peoples of the North, which came hither out of
all countries.

(2) [In the year V., in the month . . . . , in the reign of the
lord of the diadem] to whom his father Amen has given power, the
king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Meneptah Hotephima, the dis-
penser of life, the divine benefactor, was [in the town of Memphis,
to thank the god Ptah] (3) [for] his [benefits]. For all gods pro-
tect him, all peoples were in fear of his glance. The king Meneptah
(4) [received at that time a message, that the king of the Libyans
had fallen upon the towns of the country] and plundered them,